New Lionel Legacy E8s problem :( I think?

Hello everyone, I received my new BTO E8s. I tested them on my roller stand and had some difficulty getting it to respond to the legacy system correctly. After programming it to an address it seemed to work fine until I shut it down and try to start the engine back up. Intermittently it will lose its ability to respond to commands and I have to reprogram it. It seems to do this more often if the smoke unit is on. When I put power to the track it starts up by itself sometimes and the smoke unit is going full bore. 

That issue aside when I run it on the roller stand the front powered truck runs fine with plenty of torque at all speeds. The rear powered trucks run slower and with somewhat of a delayed start compared to the front trucks and with no torque at all. In fact, at times I actually had to push the rear truck wheels with my finger to get them started rolling. Even at low speed I can put pressure on the front wheels with my finger and they continue rolling even with heavier pressure so there is plenty of torque. However, I can bring the rear truck to a complete halt with just a little pressure from my finger (again this is on a roller stand). This also is not the case with any of my other legacy diesel or steam engines. Running it on a track (what Lionel tech suggests) would only replicate my finger (being dragged by front trucks) and not show the problem I am describing as the roller stand shows. Lionel uses a roller stand in its videos to demonstrate engines so I am concerned that this is not normal operation.

PS the tech at Lionel said it is normal for the truck without the sensor to run slower that the one with it. But no torque and can be brought to a stop with very very light pressure from my finger??

I would appreciate any comments or suggestions. As I am concerned I still have a problem and am not articulating or representing it properly to Lionel.

Thanks for any help

Rick

Rick - What you are experiencing does not seem like the engine is running properly.  I've never had a Lionel TMCC/Legacy engine that I could stop the wheels on one truck while the other truck was still running, except at very slow speed.

I would re-post this in the Control System Forum section under Lionel TMCC and Legacy section.  The regulars that post there are very knowledgable and should easily be able to answer you questions.  A number of the posters are repair techs and have a good deal of experience with such issues. 

Sad to say, I believe you're not seeing anything unusual.  If you apply friction to  the truck that has the sensor, the other truck will speed up.  OTOH, if you apply friction to the truck without the sensor, it's quite normal for you to be able to easily stall it, especially at low speeds.

The reason for this behavior is simple.  The truck with the sensor is controlling the amount of voltage applied to the parallel motors.  If you apply friction to that truck, the control circuitry applies more power (voltage) to the motors to keep the locomotive running at the set speed.  Since the other truck is experiencing no friction, it's motor is basically freewheeling, and it runs considerably faster than the speed controlled motor.  Conversely, if you apply friction to the truck without a sensor while the sensor equipped truck is running free of friction, you can quite easily stop that truck as there is minimal voltage required to keep the sensor equipped truck running at the set speed.  The speed sensor has no idea the other truck has been stalled.

With all that said, you could still have an issue.  One issue I've seen several times is the non-sensor equipped truck has more internal friction than the sensor equipped truck.  This will exacerbate the issue of the non-sensor equipped truck not running at the correct speed or even dragging.

Have never seen one truck more powerful than the other on a normal engine.

If the two motors are connected to the same output seems they should be operating in tandem, just in opposite directions of rotation. Keep us up to date.