Dreaded blinking light on new Visionline Big Boy

How many blinks?  Check the manual for error codes.  Usually one blink is a drive motor issue, two is the primary smoke heater, three is the primary smoke motor, etc.

One blink.  Looks to be the drive motor. 

Any idea how to remedy this?  Thanks!

@Karl L posted:

Any idea how to remedy this?  Thanks!

Determine if the motor actually is locked and cannot rotate. Once you know it is free and driveline is free another cause is low track voltage, dirty track, or other condition where power is lost as the train tries to roll.

Again, the fault is stalled motor. It's either the motor is stalled and cannot physically spin, or is not getting enough power to spin. Either condition causes the same fault.

Note that this locomotive should have back-drivable gears, so you should be able to push it along the track and have the whole gear train move.  It may take a little bit of force to get it to start moving.  If you push it manually, you can allow the drivers to rotate through several revolutions, that should tell you if there's mechanical binding in the drivetrain.

Hey, all!

I was able to push the locomotive forward and backward, so the drive gear was able to make several revolutions.  Based on my observation, the gears are clear and no binding on the drivers.  I took it off the track, cleaned the section it's sitting on, took anything else off of the track that could have been drawing power and still no luck.  I'm running a Lionel PH180.  I also tested the track with my Class A and it worked fine.  Any other helpful tips before I contact the place I purchased it from?

Thanks!

Call up the locomotive on your remote, push the R in a circle icon on the soft keys, if the locomotive rolled freely, and you see no binding or feel no binding, then the reset should let it move, unless there’s an electrical issue ….

Pat

The problem is one of the wires that is soldered to the motor is broken off. This happened during assembly in China.  It is an easy fix.

Turn over the engine and locate the 4 recessed screws (two in front and 2 in back by the cab ) holding the body on the frame and remove them.

Flip the engine right side up and remove the body.

The motor located near the back has two wires connected to it.  The wire on the left that is tie wrapped to the clear tube will be broken off.

Restrip the wire and tin it and then resolder to the motor connector.

Reassemble the body back on and you are good to go.

Took me about 15 minutes to fix my brand new Big Boy.  This fix saves you from shipping the engine back to Lionel and the engine possibly getting damaged in shipment.

My dealer says about 1 in 10 new Big Boys have this problem.  The Chinese assemblers probably broke too many of the strands in the wire stripping the insulation and left only a couple of strands to solder to the motor.  When they tie wrapped the wire to the clear tube they broke off the wire and did not notice. You can clearly see the wire was at one time soldered to the motor connector.

Lionel knows about this issue.

If Lionel knew about it why ship them out before checking them in Concord? The QC is terrible.

Gunny

Lionel probably did not know when the shipped them to the dealers.  They probably learned about it when they started seeing some of them come back for repair.

Great info!  Fortunately, I was able to work the problem out with the dealer that I bought it from.  I ordered the superset too so if the problem shows up on that engine, I'll know how to correct it.  Thanks!

I had the same issue with my VL Big Boy. I suspect that it’s the issue that was described here, but I don’t want to open it up and make it worse and void the warranty. I’ll see what the dealer I ordered it from has to suggest.

Where is South Korean manufacturing when you need it?

In South Korea making solar panels.

Thanks so much for this. Now I know how to fix my BB

Got mine fixed! It was the yellow wire

Did any of the other functions work?  I have an unresponsive 2023 VL Big Boy that stopped suddenly.  I have idle sounds and lit number boards but that’s it.  I’m shipping to Lionel.

Yes other functions worked. The only thing my unit did not do was move.

i would quickly check for the broken wire. Just remove the 4 recessed screws on the bottom and lift the shell off. If the wire is not broken reinstall and ship it back. If it is broken fix it and save the headache of shipping it back.

While everybody will pat themselves on the back on the quick fix for this locomotive, let’s look at it from the other way are we now become the testbed for Lionel Trains? If more people just sent them back, maybe they would get their act together and start checking some of the quality control on these very expensive locomotives.

Yes sending it in at Lionel's expense is an option. I chose to try to fix mine because it was a simple fix.

Sending it in has its own downside. You have to get a shipping label from Lionel, take it to the post office and stand in line, mail it off, wait three to six weeks to get it back and pray the whole time it does not get damaged in transit going and coming back to you.

I chose to fix mine in less than 30 minutes. Other people may want to send it back. To each his own.

I do agree about the Chinese QC. Is it too much to ask the manufacturer with these Visionline products that cost close to 3000 dollars, to set them on a track, apply power and check that  all the lights light, the horn sounds and it moves in forward and reverse on the track.

The one positive was when I opened up my big boy  I found the workmanship inside to be very good. Wires were neatly run, nicely tie wrapped and boards fastened down nicely and easily accessed. As a metrologist for 40 years I wish a lot of the electronic equipment I worked on was laid out this nice.

Thanks everybody for the very practical information in this thread.

Good info here!

-Pete

Thanks for all the great info!  Since mine was unresponsive beyond the motor I shipped to Lionel.  I’ll post updates as I get them.

Just received a message from Lionel that the wire had come loose from the motor.  They fixed and tested and say that it's working properly now.  Quicker turnaround than I had thought.  Looking forward to getting her back!

Great news Clay T.  I hope it safely makes it back to you soon.

I agree with "That Guy" above -- when we spend almost $3000 for a Big Boy, we shouldn't be talking about 1 in 10 of them having this wiring failure and then having to give each other instructions on how to fix a BRAND NEW Visionline ENGINE from Lionel.  Lionel should work on improving QC, this is NOT a new issue with brand new stuff arriving from lionel that doesn't work.  This is regularly part of the discussion on this forum the past years.  Please Lionel listen and fix these QC issues and stop shipping us brand new engines, switches, etc. that don't work right out of the box.

@Alaska David posted:

I agree with "That Guy" above -- when we spend almost $3000 for a Big Boy, we shouldn't be talking about 1 in 10 of them having this wiring failure and then having to give each other instructions on how to fix a BRAND NEW Visionline ENGINE from Lionel.  Lionel should work on improving QC, this is NOT a new issue with brand new stuff arriving from lionel that doesn't work.  This is regularly part of the discussion on this forum the past years.  Please Lionel listen and fix these QC issues and stop shipping us brand new engines, switches, etc. that don't work right out of the box.

While yes the QC can be improved, this forum is all about and foremost helping people.  The folks above who are "giving instructions" are doing so to help a fellow forum user to get their engine running if they chose to go that route.  Absolutely Lionel should be made aware of the issues but if folks decide to tackle this own their own at their own risk based on some good advice then I say no harm no foul.  Personally I would err on the side of caution and let Lionel deal with it but I 100% see where folks are hesitant to ship it back if they have the skills to tackle this simple issue.  That being said, yes no one should have to do this but if the chose to then they have some good information to go off of.

I sincerely believe you'll have to take every engine apart before you power it up otherwise to take the risk of the broken off wire n shorting to ground n possible blowing the boards then I doubt Lionel will honor their warranty! I would have taken it apart before I ever powered it up!!!!

Alan

@Alan Mancus posted:

I sincerely believe you'll have to take every engine apart before you power it up otherwise to take the risk of the broken off wire n shorting to ground n possible blowing the boards then I doubt Lionel will honor their warranty! I would have taken it apart before I ever powered it up!!!!

Alan

I don't have a horse in this race, but why would Lionel not honor the warranty? If you purchased it new from an authorized dealer and the boards blow because of an internal short caused by a broken wire due to poor QC, isn't that exactly the type of issue they would cover under the warranty? Especially if you did not open it up?

Took me all of 15 minutes to fix 3 Big Boys with this issue for some local guys. The whole thing is really blow out of proportion. Basically the wire harness is zip tied to the blow down steam tube. The wire connected to the engineers side of the motor is a little short so the strain from the zip tie pops it off. Should the factory have added ~1/8" more length to the wire? Probably. The issue most likely wasn't a problem till the vibration from shipping jiggled the wire loose.

The more worrying issue is all 3 had loose motor mounts in addition to the loose motor lead wire.

The wire in question is tie wrapped securely to a clear tube so it is not loose and flopping around inside the engine. Because of this the chances of it shorting out against anything are really really low.

I believe the wire broke off during the tie wrap process at the factory.  The Chinese assemblers were attempting to neatly tie wrap all the wires so none of them would flop around inside the engine and create a problem.  When I opened up my Big Boy I found the internal assembly to be neat and well organized.  It looks like they did a very good job on all the wires except the one in question.   I think they messed up this one wire during the insulation stripping part of the process.  I think they cut too many internal wire strands of this one wire during the insulation stripping process. This caused this wire to break off when they tie wrapped this one wire to the clear tube. They probably tugged the wire a little when they tie wrapped it breaking it off.

I think the intentions of the assemblers was good but the execution was a little lacking on this one wire 10% of the time.

I think I’ve had a bit of bad luck recently with my orders.  My Class A arrived damaged last year. At the time, I followed the advice of the dealer I purchased it from and returned it to Lionel to be repaired.  It was returned to me from Lionel more damaged from the shipping than when I originally sent it to them. This time, it was damaged beyond repair as Lionel said they did not have that parts needed to fix it stated that they were sold out and could not replace it with a new one.  The dealer would still not allow me to return it and said it was a Lionel problem.  Unfortunately, the only recourse I had was to get my bank involved because the dealer punted the responsibility to Lionel and Lionel didn’t ship packages insured, at the time (my understanding is that this policy recently changed as a result of my case) so I couldn’t file a claim with the carrier.  Because of my experience, I am now reluctant to return top tier engines to Lionel to service if the solution to remedy is simple.  My experience may have been a bit extreme and a one off but I also agree with some of the folks on this thread that Lionel can do better.

"I followed the advice of the dealer I purchased it from and returned it to Lionel to be repaired. "

I sympathize with your disappointing and time consuming experiences.  A real pain in the neck.  Parenthetically, I'm absolutely certain this dealer would be my "former dealer" after any similar experience.  Most state laws require a retailer to accept defective merchandise for refund/repair/replacement, as I understand it.

If it's a local dealer, small claims court, while time consuming,  is an alternative if your bank doesn't respond appropriately.  Any credit card issuing company/bank that punted on responsibility would immediately become my ex-bank as well.  It's amazing what having tens of thousands of dollars worth of transactions per year,  and substantial accounts does for motivating a bank to support you, but not everyone has that luxury.

Good luck in subsequent purchases. I've had great success with Charles Ro, amongst other dealers not local to me, for reference.  I've only had a rare defective item from Ro or my local dealer. In each case, they replaced or refunded the item without asking me to go directly to Lionel.  I consider that request inappropriate for a retailer, and it may well be illegal not to offer replacement or refund first before giving you that option.  Not a lawyer, but I once had lunch with one .

Fortunately, my bank was able to help me resolve the issue with the Class A and I was able to find a replacement from another dealer as I’m no longer a customer of the aforementioned.  I just hope my luck changes as I’m expecting the super set to arrive any day now.  Just wanted to share a past experience with the group as I’m sure we’ve all faced a similar dilemma before.  There are definitely pros and cons for whichever path(s) we choose.

https://ogrforum.com/...7#182184739287427197

Marty:  I just want to clarify, my  comment was not to in anyway disparage the providing of instructions from our members on how to fix it ourselves when Lionel engines/rolling stock/accessories arrive from the factory not working.    I am VERY, VERY grateful for the advice on how to repair Lionel engines and rolling stock and switches that I have received from this forum.  Being an O gauger in Alaska I rely heavily on the "how to fix it myself advice" I receive on this forum, because mailing heavy Lionel engines back, or really Lionel anything, to repair shops from Alaska to the Lower 48 is very expensive, and we no longer have a repair shop in Alaska.

Indeed, I am going to post on this forum  because I need ideas and help on how to I can fix it myself for the "2 Blink" Smoke 1 element problem (page 43 in the Owners Manual) on my 2/2020 version Lionel Big Boy, and I would like to see if there is a way to address this myself without having to mail the Big Boy to a repair shop.

My only hope was that someone from Lionel might read our posts on the angst of members receiving expensive equipment that doesn't work and try and help our cause.

Thank you for your post.

Received my Big Boy from Lionel on Friday.  Tested it out yesterday and all is well.  Great to have her back!  Now to pack it up until next Thanksgiving...

@Alaska David posted:

I need ideas and help on how to I can fix it myself for the "2 Blink" Smoke 1 element problem (page 43 in the Owners Manual) on my 2/2020 version Lionel Big Boy, and I would like to see if there is a way to address this myself without having to mail the Big Boy to a repair shop.

Yes- replace the Lionel smoke fan motors with MTH replacements- likely solves the issue. Worked on the 2020 run- why would I think the Visionline would be any different......

That said, the previous run of Lionel Legacy Bigboy, the fan impellers melted thus also contributing to my problems in that engine. You know it's bad, when you look forward to restocking your personal spare parts for engines you own at the annual parts sale.

Also melted the smoke duct for main smoke.

From this page, scroll down. https://www.mthpartsandsales.c...ts/240?type=products

I wonder if the impeller is a candidate for 3D printing in a high temperature material?

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I wonder if the impeller is a candidate for 3D printing in a high temperature material?

Lots of high temp materials how much heat would it need to resist? Some of those materials are hard to print. I am sure those impellers are injected molded ABS which is pretty high temp.