Single blink signal on a 2-8-0 legacy consolidation, 2231670, Similar to catalog 2231130

The other reason for that to happen is the flywheel sensor isn't seeing the flywheel rotations.  Look for broken wires or the flywheel toothed wheel not properly positioned between the sensor legs.

Note, if you have low track voltage (just in a spot or entire layout/transformer not turned up) LCP2 (Lionchief Plus 2) boards WILL fault out on motor drive because they sense they may not achieve commanded RPM.

Just saying, ensure you have 18V on the track- otherwise you can get the same false sensed cab light blink motor fault!!!

@Vernon Barry posted:

Note, if you have low track voltage (just in a spot or entire layout/transformer not turned up) LCP2 (Lionchief Plus 2) boards WILL fault out on motor drive because they sense they may not achieve commanded RPM.

Just saying, ensure you have 18V on the track- otherwise you can get the same false sensed cab light blink motor fault!!!

Vernon, checked on my test track and several places on the main layout and all have 18 volts.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The other reason for that to happen is the flywheel sensor isn't seeing the flywheel rotations.  Look for broken wires or the flywheel toothed wheel not properly positioned between the sensor legs.

GRJ, The flywheel connectors (blue/ yellow and the five pin w/ black wires) appear to be seated well in the board.  I will remove them and check them for continuity in the morning.  Is there a specific measurement or way to tell the toothed wheel is positioned properly between the sensor legs?

Gents, thanks for the suggestions!

The wheel should be close to the bottom of the U-shaped sensor, but it must NOT touch it when the motor armature is pressed down to take up the slack.  I shoot for 1/16" or less when I'm putting flywheels back on.  If it's not hitting the bottom, your picture looks like it's positioned correctly.

If there is no binding in the geartrain, and the motor turns freely around a complete rev of the drivers, my next test is to yank the two pin plug and connect the motor to a bench DC supply on my test rollers and see how much current the motor draws running.  Running on the rollers you shouldn't be drawing more than 300-400 milliamps at 6-8 volts.  If it's significantly more, I'd suspect the motor.  For RCMC equipped locomotives, I put the board on my tester.  I don't have a tester for the LCP2/3 boards yet, that's in the project queue, so I just take a spare board and substitute.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The wheel should be close to the bottom of the U-shaped sensor, but it must NOT touch it when the motor armature is pressed down to take up the slack.  I shoot for 1/16" or less when I'm putting flywheels back on.  If it's not hitting the bottom, your picture looks like it's positioned correctly.

If there is no binding in the geartrain, and the motor turns freely around a complete rev of the drivers, my next test is to yank the two pin plug and connect the motor to a bench DC supply on my test rollers and see how much current the motor draws running.  Running on the rollers you shouldn't be drawing more than 300-400 milliamps at 6-8 volts.  If it's significantly more, I'd suspect the motor.  For RCMC equipped locomotives, I put the board on my tester.  I don't have a tester for the LCP2/3 boards yet, that's in the project queue, so I just take a spare board and substitute.

I gave up waiting on Micromark rollers to be in stock and rigged up a half-baked test stand to investigate this issue. Just to refresh the problem, this thing starts and moves 12 inches and then stops with the blinking overload light on in the cab.

I disconnected the two-pin motor plug and powered the motor with a dc power supply -the motor ran fine and draws 185 milliamps.   I also checked continuity for the four wire plugs that connect the motor tach to the mother board and they are good.

At this point, it seemed the choices are a motor power supply circuit overload or tach feedback (lack of rotation) sensor was shutting it down. To isolate these two, I connected track AC to the roller pickup and frame and left the DC power supply on the motor. I used a universal controller to start the locomotive while I was increasing the dc to the motor, so it rotated. No blinking light was signaled with the motor power circuit out of the system. The unit appeared to run fine.

So, my assumption is the tach speed sensor is not the issue, the problem is in the motor dc power circuit.  Somehow it does not like my 185-milliamp load.

Am I missing something and does it sound like the motor dc control circuit?   

I had one legacy 2-8-0 come across the bench with a gear mesh problem. These locomotives are backdrivable. With the locomotive in your hand, roll it on the palm of your other hand, like an old fashioned friction toy. Listen for a faint click, that would indicate a tooth skip. It may be hard to get a feel for it at first, but if she’s skipping a tooth, it’s pretty definitive……it just sounds out of cadence …..you should be able to hear the gear mesh in a quiet room, a skipping tooth makes a very distinct sound.

Pat

I'm having a hard time with this being the actual board, I'd want to test that board separately before I thought about replacement.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm having a hard time with this being the actual board, I'd want to test that board separately before I thought about replacement.

Me either!….I suspect something else is going on here!….😉

Pat

Apologies for the delay in getting back on this project.  Just to review, the second video shows the problem.  the locomotive runs a few seconds and then stops and signals a drive motor overload.

Here is the update:

1) Per Vernon's suggestion, I tested track voltage both on the layout and on my test track.  The problem repeats in each case with 18v applied so it appears we do not have an undervoltage issue.

2) Per the suggestion from Pat and GRJ, to be sure I do not have a drive train issue, trash, chipped tooth, etc., I took the gear box apart and lubricated everything, looked for any issues, and reassembled. Multiple times, i turned the flywheel slowly by hand and listened for any click or noise.  also tried to feel any occasional resistance. No luck in finding anything like the skipping tooth issue.

3) the last suggestion involved testing the current draw of the motor.  that is the second video.  At start the motor draws about 260 ma and goes to 300 as the speed increases.  I let it run for several minutes at this speed to see if something might "run in" but the problem still repeats.  I also checked the four-wire tach feedback connector from the motor to the board and all wires had continuity.  I hoped this might be the issue but no joy. So, the motor seems to be ok.

4) I put a small mark on the flywheel and went through the failure test mode multiple times and there did not seem to be a pattern on when the issue occurred and where the flywheel stopped. this is probably a red herring attempt on my part because I have no idea how a revolution of the flywheel might relate to the motor gear and the other gears revolution wise, but it was an interesting experiment.

5) Unless I have missed something, it seems we are back to the board and possibly testing it. Are there any specs on signals I should measure at various connector points, related to the motor and feedback? Other features seem to work fine (smoke, lights, etc.)

???  In Pat's words "I suspect something else is going on here..."  but I wonder what else I can test.

When you are snowed in, why not work on the project that is driving you crazy?  So today, I duplicated several of my previous steps including inspecting the gear train, putting it back together, and running the motor and gear train on a test stand for 10 minutes -no overload evident, it drew 260-270ma.  Result: No joy- same light blink after a few seconds when reassembled.

To eliminate the question of the drive train possibly binding, as a final test I removed the motor from the gear box and ran the dc motor with the mother board and tach / sensor functioning.  Result: No change, the blinking light came on in a few seconds of running.  Based on this it seems I can rule out a sporadic bind in the gearing or linkages

So it seems the alternatives are 1) the motor is the issue (hard to believe since it spins freely and draws around 270ma on the test stand); 2) the tach / speed / load sensing part of the board is bad.  Seems #2 is most likely.

Unless someone has another idea or test I can run, this locomotive is going to be a shelf queen until half price parts day in the fall.

If it's failing every time within a few seconds, I'd certainly check the sensor.  You can actually verify it with a multimeter.  Put your meter on a low voltage scale across the middle two pins of the 4-pin encoder connection.  With power on, very slowly rotate the flywheel, you should see voltage changes as the hall effect sensor toggles.

It goes without saying that shorting those pins together or to anything else will not be a good thing!  If you can't get a good "bite" on those, you might try tacking a small wire to the two pins to avoid accidents.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

If it's failing every time within a few seconds, I'd certainly check the sensor.  You can actually verify it with a multimeter.  Put your meter on a low voltage scale across the middle two pins of the 4-pin encoder connection.  With power on, very slowly rotate the flywheel, you should see voltage changes as the hall effect sensor toggles.

It goes without saying that shorting those pins together or to anything else will not be a good thing!  If you can't get a good "bite" on those, you might try tacking a small wire to the two pins to avoid accidents.

That is an idea- thanks for the clues on what pins to check.  I may just strip a small spot of insulation off those two wires - enough for an alligator clip.  Those are small connectors and pins for any kind of probe or clip I have- we don't need another "good thing" to happen.  My meter is supposed to auto range so we will give that a test too.

Assuming the video shows the appropriate test technique, the hall effect sensor does not appear to be producing much of a voltage change.  The meter is reading DC millivolts.  Hmmm.... I would not have guessed that.

If you measure 5VDC between pins 1 (+) and 3 (-), the measurement between pins 2 & 3 should look like this.

If you don't see volts of variance, something is amiss.

Thanks GRJ, one question on pin numbering. To be sure I am straight with the nomenclature, as I look at the open socket on the hall sensor board and the 4 male pins on the motor are staring at me, are the pins left to right 1-4?

I can't view my video, but it shows a deflection of almost the full 5 volts.

Pin-1 is the square pad on the PCB, that's pretty universal for connectors.

Another snow day to work on train projects and I am glad to report another successful problem solved thanks to the usual suspects on the forum.  After doing a half-baked job of testing the hall effect sensor / drive motor per the instructions below, stuff did not appear to be acting like it should.  I felt confident enough to roll the dice for $40 (plus shipping of course) for a new drive motor with sensor from Lionel.  speedy service from them and from our friendly UPS guy and the part arrived today. 

Life is now good, and my consolidation is puffing around the track.  thanks to Vernon, Pat, and GRJ for the patience on solving this.  The moral to the story is to pay attention to the experts, especially when they are recommending the cheap part compared to the mother board....

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you measure 5VDC between pins 1 (+) and 3 (-), the measurement between pins 2 & 3 should look like this.

If you don't see volts of variance, something is amiss.