Trackmobile

Are you talking about this cap?  If so, it may have been assembled with reverse polarity at the factory and died as a result.  That's the best reason I can think of for that one to blow.

Yes that looks like the same location, however mine looks a lot bigger than in your picture. It’s melted in there and I can’t get it out.

JBayBay posted:

hey everyone, tried searching to see if anyone else has had the issues with the Lionel trackmobile as I have. Bought the unit new, programmed and had it running with the DCS app pulling a box car and all of a sudden in made a buzzing noise and literally went up in smoke! From what I can see and the breakdown parts pictures it looks like the large capacitor that’s next to the operator figure has blown (melted the plastic). I’ll be contacting Lionel to see about sending it back but was curious if I’ve been the only one? 

If you had the track voltage set higher than 18 volts, you fried it!

Yep I’m an idiot and didn’t realize which power brick I was using for the Christmas tree loop. Don’t suppose there’s anyway to repair it? I doubt Lionel would warranty a dumb move like this. I didn’t even think about it because I was running an mth DCS engine before on this temporary setup. 

I had to swap out the board on mine. I did it myself. It is very tight in there. Not much room. Not much fun! Looks like you're half way there.

Haha yea it does come apart  Pretty easily, but yes it will take a lot of finesse to replace it. Well at least there’s a solution to that mistake. Do you know if the board number gunrunnerjohn used earlier in the post is a suitable replacement? Mine is 691-rcm2-b00 but having no luck finding that one online.

Yikes, 26VAC probably really ****ed it off, no wonder it went up in smoke!

Both of the tethered cap RCDR boards I have in stock have 1,000uf 16V caps, but they're not connected to those points, they're connected to the right to a 10V rated cap.  The cap on your board is in parallel with a 100uf 35V cap right on the inputs after the rectifiers.  Since that one is only rated at 25 volts, small wonder it went up, that's probably marginal for 18VAC track power!!!  I wonder why they weren't using a 35V cap there?  You certainly abused it, but that looks also like a factory screw-up, that cap should be rated that low.

On the good side, you may well be able to simply replace that cap and restore function, give it a try.

Before you spend money, I'd remove the cap and see if it still runs.

Here's the Lionel search on any RCM2 boards: https://www.lionelsupport.com/...;submitButton=Search

I'd probably use the Trackmobile one and install my own cap.  Pick a 35V one, the largest that will fit in that cavity.  I'm sure the 2200uf isn't super critical, so I'd just use the dimensions and find what will fit with a suitable rating.

Sounds good, thank you for the help! I’ll let y’all know how it goes.