*FIXED* TMCC Baby Berk won't respond to commands

Ron you helped me recently with the same problem,and as you suggested to me check the train brake,that was my problem,hope this helps.

No Gerald that's not it. It won't respond to the whistle or bell either. I have also been caught by the brake but not this time.

Ron

Sounds like you may have gotten a power spike and cooked something.

Have you opened it up and made sure all the boards and connectors are properly seated?  In an ideal world, it would just be something loose.

Just a thought,did you try to give it a new ID number?

John I think you're probably right. I'm pretty busy right now and don't have the time to take it apart and troubleshoot it. I just wanted to make sure I didn't overlook something simple before I dive into it. I was going to order another batch of TVS's this week as I'm out and I might have paid the price. It ran good for an hour.

No Gerald I didn't. I did try to give it the same number and it wouldn't respond but I didn't try a different number. I'll try that tomorrow.

Thanks Guys,

Ron

Gerald I tried a new number and that didn't work either. I'm pretty sure a spike running over an Atlas 72/54 curved switch rendered it brain dead. When I fix it, a TVS will go inside and I'll think about adding a wire from the tender pickups to the engine as I'm pretty sure the fact that the engine pickups are to close together to traverse long switches at real slow speeds.

Thanks,

Ron

Ron,when your sure of what the problem was & you get it fixed post your results,i am interested in exactly what the problem was,thanks  Gerald.

Will do.

Ron

Lionel makes three different length roller pickups just replace one of the pickups with a longer one and this solves the problem without having to resort to adding additional wires. I had that problem on my Lionel Atlantic and it solved the problem.

Why make it complicated when a simple solution is available?

Well, one reason would be that the tender pickup is spaced sufficiently so that it's unlikely that any switch will be an issue, power will always be available. 

I've found that different pickup spacing is an issue, depending on the type and radius of the switch you are traversing.  So, what you might be doing here is replacing one problem with another.

Why is it starting up with sounds, shouldn't it be dark and silent in command mode?

How about holding your hand over the thing, (hard to do by yourself) can you get a coupler to fire, bell anything?

Will it run in conventional?

It's not the pickup on the tender. It's the pickup on the engine that is too short between rollers.

Actually my suggestion fixes the problem when the spacing on the originals is too short. Too many of you insist on installing additional wiring which alters the engine. Simply installing one longer roller pickup does not. It can simply be reversed.

The issue with the Atlantic was when it was going through a Ross #6 switch which is rather long. Ross's solution was to install a relay to supply power through the frog. A lot of work.

I took one of the longer roller pickups from my Lionel Scale M1a. Put it on the Atlantic. Problem solved.

However, if all of you insist on installing tethers and wires and other incumbency it's your railroad.

You're thinking MTH, TMCC comes up with the lights on.  OTOH, the sound shouldn't come on until you address it.

Yeah you're right , I am thinking  MTH . I'm also thinking if it'll run in conventional and not take a new ID or even the same ID in command   it could be a faulty R2LC. Those things seem to give up the ghost pretty  easily , not a big deal to try it in conventional.

Gregg you're right it should come up dark and did until it stopped running on the switch. I haven't tried running it in conventional yet. The hand trick didn't work and it will not respond to any command. My guess is the same as yours, a bad R2LC but I don't have the time this week to start working on it. I t had no signal issues or other problems until I ran it over the switches at slow speed. TrainMan using a longer pickup might be an option but I looked at it when it happened and I don't think there is enough room for a longer pickup.

Ron

To those of you who wanted to know what was wrong. The R2LC got fried. I replaced it and all is well. I still have the issue with the pickups being to short for my Atlas 7.5 and 072/054 curved switches. This fix will be on the switches themselves. While I had the engine apart I took the pickup off and checked it on the track. It's about an inch to short so adding a longer pickup is out of the question. This doesn't happen on the Ross curved switches I have. To fix it I'll install a longer 3rd rail near the frog.

Ron

The R2LC was my top suspect, it's good that it wasn't something more expensive.

Yeah I agree there but now I don't have a spare. Well I learned something today. The R2LC isn't any different in a 2 rail locomotive. I bought the electronics out of an Atlas 2 rail Diesel a few months back and that was the one I used. I was pretty sure there wasn't any difference.

Ron

I have to do some work in my spares pile, all of them have at least one triac out.  Easy fix, just doing other stuff.

Yours is probably a bit harder to fix, normally when they're that dead, I just toss them in the dead pile.

I was pondering whether to attempt a repair or not. There price isn't all that bad so I was leaning to just buying another one. Being it rendered itself totally brain dead I thought something in the logic fried making the fix possibly impossible.

Ron

Yep, I have several like that, some day I might just see if I can figure out what died.

You might want to consider installing Transient Voltage Suppressors on the outputs from your transformers and also on the inputs and outputs of any Lionel TPC's or other control devices like ASC's etc. They can help prevent damage to the electronics in the engines and other devices.

For the best protection, when you're inside and working on the locomotive, put a TVS right across the pickups.  I do that when I have them open for something else.

Yea I agree on the TVSs but I was out and wanted to play with my new toy.

Ron

See what happens when you take shortcuts!

Expensive mistake for a cheap safety net.

Ron