Success! My Berk is smoking again.
Here's the problem as I originally posted it on the DCS Forum. "I have a Rail King 2-8-4 Berkshire with the original version of PS 2.0 (8.4 V Battery) that smokes once in awhile. When it does smoke, it stops within one loop around the mainline on my layout."
Well after diddling with my Rail King Berk for a week, I finally isolated the problem that made this locomotive smoke intermittently. It wasn't a DCS problem as I originally thought, so I am posting the fix on this forum and the DCS Forum to maximize exposure to this annoying dilemma.
As shown in the sketch, the leads of the diodes beneath the circuit board would occasionally make contact with the chassis of the Berk. The slightest strain on the circuit board from expansion, and or the tether pulling on the board when Berk went through a curve would cause the diodes leads to short on the chassis.
The easy fix is to tape the pocket in the chassis. In the sketch I show the circuit board rotated away from its normal position so you can see the diodes on the bottom side. The yellow arrow indicates where the diode leads came into contact with the chassis.
Just in case the sketch is confusing to you, the part of the locomotive chassis shown is the very aft end of the cab floor where the the tether from the tender plugs-in.
A big thank you to Gunner John, Marty Fitzhenry, CHR and GGG for their trouble shooting suggestions and info in my prior post.
You can Download the sketch by clicking on the sketch icon below, and do a "Save Image As."
