New E6 diesels-One unit won’t move, conventional, BlueTooth or Legacy, despite Legacy reset done

If you've check for mechanical issues and made sure no wires are out of place or broken, I suspect it's a warranty issue.

Aye, carefully checked for dislodged connectors or other obvious issues while shell was off checking for mechanical jams.  Thought that would be the answer, but thanks for your thought and reply.

Except for LionChief and LionChief plus engines, which are a total delight, my luck with command locos arriving and functioning fully (or not for long) has frankly been lousy over the years—MTH worse than Lionel, but Lionel can’t brag, either.  Recent columns in Railroad Model Craftsman about command control and other electronics that is pushed out at high prices, and left poorly supported when it doesn’t work just right, are right on target.  The rarity of factory tech replies to our many posts is one example.

Last year it was my gorgeous Legacy Heavy Mikado that died with lights but no action, was sent back UPS at great shipping expense under warranty, only to be told it worked fine when they tested it at their shop and sent it back to me.  Gosh, why did I trouble them?

Much harder for them to learn the real world troubleshooting issues when there is so little curiousity about what our experience is, what our individual layout and wiring situations are, and what we have tried before asking for help.  Diagnostic effort not limited to testing at the bench, in other words.  Like that exhibited by you and others who contribute here!

Diligent performance of all the published fixes and improvements to make better signal only helps some.  Of course it can’t cure failed boards and other defects in the product.  There are too many possible causes and dead ends to make troubleshooting any sort of joy, any more, without a more interested partner on the other end.  My friends who have sworn off anything “not conventional” look pretty smart some days!  Curmudgenly, I know.

Well, I can't disagree if I didn't have the technical skills that some of the command stuff would be a lot more frustrating to own.  I wish there was an easy answer...

Well, it turns out in this case the answer WAS simple, as in "dumb simple", except had to send to the nice folks at The Train Station (New Jersey) where Dave found it.  The lateral motion (for curves with all wheels flanged on E's 6 wheel trucks) is extreme enough that a traction tire was catching on a brake shoe on the sideframe.

No cure for blindness, I guess!  Sure didn't see it scrutinizing all the things I thought to look for!

Don

I've had a number of Legacy locomotives I had to insert shims on the axles to avoid excessive side slop.

For a shim, a proper diameter E-clip on axle? Or better choice?  Helpful idea.

Bread closures.  I just take those and cut them round and slide them on the axles.   See illustration below.

John,
Interesting topic.  I am curious about the side slop.  I have noticed that some axles do move quite a bit laterally (to and from the side frames).  How is that slop detrimental?  Using a bread closure is a very clever idea.  Thanks for sharing!

Some are designed to move a bit, other just seem to be stupidly built.  I had a pair of diesels where the axles moved enough to disengage the gears, so I doubt that was intentional!  A few loafs of bread and I was all set.

Very nice, thanks.  Enough bread to keep errant traction tires from snagging brake shoes will do.

I have a new Frisco sw7 that won't move but 1\4 inch before throwing single flashing light in the cab. Could excessive axle side play be the cause? Binding gears?

First step is to rotate each motor through a full wheel rotation and see if there is any binding. Next, check the wiring to see if there is a pinched or shorted wire anywhere.  If none, next step it to power the motors from a DC supply (unplugged of course!) and see if they draw excessive current.

That unit should run fine with just the CC-M, it's a modular unit.  Remove the ACDR and install the CC-M.  You'll have to use the 4-pin plug that comes with the CC-M to replace the 6-pin one for the AC motor.  For the new connector, Red to track roller, black to frame, the two whites go to the DC motor.  If it runs backwards, swap the two white wires on the motor.  The second 4-pin connector just gets moved over to the CC-M.  Connect the one wire from the CC-M J4 Pin1 to pin 24 of the R2LC socket.  Remove the green wire from pin-2 of the CC-M, it's not used.  After that, you should be good to go.