Tender sounds cutting out in o72 curves

One issue with my S3 was the trucks on the tender.  One axle tended to bind up and not turn; moved the axle to an extreme right or left and wheels would not turn; had to monkey with the truck side frames to stop the binding.

Are the sounds totally cutting out?  Are the tender markers also going out?  If so, you're really losing power. In that case, if both tender pickups have continuity to the board, the solution is to put a battery in.

However, another issue at times is the IR sensors on the drawbar getting out of line on the corners and riding up enough to lose communication.  That results in the loss of chuff that some folks misinterpret as a loss of sound.

For total loss of sounds, I have a solution.   A one wire connection and plug it in to the battery holder, you'll never have to change batteries again.

 YLB - RailSounds Battery Replacement

John:

It might well be the loss of chuff.  I will look tomorrow and see if the tender lights go out... But yes I think it is more a pause in the chuff.  I was assuming that was a loss of power issue.  Is there a solution for that if it is an IR issue?

Thanks,

Ben  

Usually tweaking the tension or the bend on the drawbar catch fixes it.  I usually try to get slightly more than 90 degrees on problem locomotives, that way the tang works it's way down instead of up.  A bit more tension up on the tender and down on the locomotive drawbars also helps at times.

I've notice my H10 is especially sensative to dirty track and/or turnouts.

Sound was cutting out everywhere when I first ran it around the layout.

This has been an issue with Lionel legacy steamers since 2011 and it seems to be getting worse. 

Having said that, I put a drop or two of Bachman EZ lube conductive lube on the axles of the pickup rollers and some run time seemed to help the issue tremendously.

Maybe there's some contamination from the manufacturing process inside the roller hole thats interfering with conductivity ?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Usually tweaking the tension or the bend on the drawbar catch fixes it.  I usually try to get slightly more than 90 degrees on problem locomotives, that way the tang works it's way down instead of up.  A bit more tension up on the tender and down on the locomotive drawbars also helps at times.

What he said - had yet an issue with the VL Niagara drawbar tang being 1/8inch above the middle rail; gently bent the tender draw bar up and that raised the loco drawbar to north of 1/4inch.

It wouldn’t hurt to check the voltage on the track itself in the trouble spots, particularly if it’s FasTrack.

Something else the check if it's a new engine. I had the heat-shrink on my new NORTHERN PACIFIC LEGACY USRA PACIFIC #2256 partially blocking the IR connection on the tender. I was able to trim it down a bit for the fix. But before I found that issue the chuff sound was cutting out in weird locations.