Anyone ever heard of an engine blowing a transformer

Do you know the age of it? The early ones had a fuse in it that was non accessible. There are ways to get in there with special screwdriver or a homemade tool. 

Vaguely recollect there being a design defect in some very early CW-80's.  And, I mean early, like K-Line copying the Lionel design - including the flaw, and getting caught as part of the lawsuit early.

While we still have some as part of our sets, we've upgraded to Z-1000's.  Our's couldn't manage a Polar express set with some add-on cars.  The CW-80's kept overloading.

So, yeah, I can see one going "poof"!

Fred

Ah, the infamous CW-80 transformer.  I don’t know of that situation of an engine blowing up that transformer, but for all the threads, over the years, about the CW-80, I would never own one, New or Old.  They probably make great doorstops, when they quit working.

TeleDoc posted:

Ah, the infamous CW-80 transformer.  I would never own one, New or Old.  They probably make great doorstops, when they quit working.

I own one, they make good boat anchors!

Those never have enough juice to run an mth piece, not even a small steam engine by itself with a single can motor. 

Pretty much the "you touched it, you did it" syndrome. Happens all the time with cars. Owner brings their car in for a tire rotation. The next day the alternator fails. Of course the failed alternator is the fault of the poor guy that rotated the tires. No accountability by the owner, or a basic understanding that sooner or later everything is going to fail.

Same deal with our toy trains. Run a brand "x" engine with a CW80. The CW80 smokes, and of course it is the fault of the engine. Or worse yet is if you're the poor schmuck that happened to touch the throttle on the CW80 one second before the smoke came rolling out. "Hey, you just blew up my transformer!!! You owe me a new one!!!"

Too often people want to apply a simple cause-effect relationship.

I have one CW80 on my layout. The programmable accessory output is powering 24 DZ1000 switch motors on my Ross switches (and doing a great job). The other output is used for powering lights. The big deal (and long-known) issue with the CW80, they do not work well with MTH PS-1 engines.

Allan Loczy posted:

TeleDoc posted:

Ah, the infamous CW-80 transformer.  I would never own one, New or Old.  They probably make great doorstops, when they quit working.

I own one, they make good boat anchors!

Those never have enough juice to run an mth piece, not even a small steam engine by itself with a single can motor. 

I own three, from nearly ten to six years old.  They have been completely trouble free.  Each of them has enough juice to run a  Williams/Bachmann EP5 or a Lionel RS-3, both with two can motors, pulling four lighted passenger cars.

They also have enough power to run my Lionel Docksider (single can motor) while pulling a heavy string of postwar and postwar repro cars including two lighted cabeese.  I did this as a demonstration of the Docksider's pulling power.

Pete

My sole CW-80 failure was due to carelessness on my part; shouldn't have tried to run it from a portable generator!  The current spikes cooked the poor little indefinite.     The postwar 1033 I brought, on the other hand, took the "dirty" power in stride.   Lesson learned; to this day I stick to postwar transformers for pretty much all exhibition use...and I keep a spare in the car just in case.    

Mitch 

I put the CW-80 in the same bucket as the older MTH 5V PS/2 boards.  They can blow anytime for any reason.

I have had an engine blow the internal fuse on a few of my CW-80s. I use them on my test bench and for accessory power. I was able to open them up and replaced the in line fuse with a circuit breaker. Easier to reset if it trips.

Texas Pete posted:

I own three, from nearly ten to six years old.  They have been completely trouble free.  Each of them has enough juice to run a  Williams/Bachmann EP5 or a Lionel RS-3, both with two can motors, pulling four lighted passenger cars.

They also have enough power to run my Lionel Docksider (single can motor) while pulling a heavy string of postwar and postwar repro cars including two lighted cabeese.  I did this as a demonstration of the Docksider's pulling power.

Pete

 I also own a handful of them, and love them.  They are great for throwing down a quick carpet layout.  Have had no issues with them, and they have all run my MTH PS-1 locomotives flawlessly when I have a lighted car on the track with the locomotive (Which has never been an issue as I run cabooses on very freight train.).

As for the OP's questions, sounds like the internal fuse may have went from a really high amp draw on the track that over powered the roll back protection they have built in.  The fuse is a last line of defense so if it went, then there was a really bad problem.

DGJONES posted:

...How does this happen when I thought circuit breakers protected the transformer...

No circuit breaker on a CW-80.

Fred Brenek posted:

Vaguely recollect there being a design defect in some very early CW-80's.  And, I mean early, like K-Line copying the Lionel design - including the flaw, and getting caught as part of the lawsuit early...

K-Line addressed & fixed the flaws of the CW80 in producing the PowerChief 120.

Allan Loczy posted:

Those never have enough juice to run an mth piece, not even a small steam engine by itself with a single can motor. 

The PowerMax & PowerMax Plus look like the CW80, but are only 30 watts & 40 watts output, respectively.