VisionLine # 684960 Niagara Issue

I’ll leave this to the experts. I’m not that familiar with these to know exactly what I’m looking at. I had a similar issue with a Legacy steamer. Nothing looked amiss till I wiggled the radio board and the engine came to life. Investigating a bit further the pins had broken. This is what it looked like when I removed it. The pins should be attached to the radio board and plug into the main board if my memory is correct.

If you need the pins. Hit my e mail. I bought more than I’ll ever need on the auction site.

Thanks for that info Dave; as I remember my radio board seemed tight and connected although I have considered a re-solder on the eight pins to confirm they have electrical continuity.........

I believe within three years or so of the RCMC, Lionel began soldering the radio board in place rather than relying on those connectors. Likely not a problem on the Niagara given its build date.

Pete

Last two dead RCMC’s I replaced were of the same symptoms as you’ve described. Running, then quit. Naturally, when the RCMC either croaks or loses power, the tender reverts back to conventional operation. That’s why you can work the whistle & bell on your other transformer when in conventional mode. In both of these most recent RCMC failures, the only other thing I saw that had failed hard, was way overcooked main smoke unit, and the other, a Shay, had both the main smoke and the whistle steam ( smoke ) severely burnt. Some might argue that’s not what’s taking out these RCMC’s but the only smoking gun in both instances ( no pun intended) were these cooked to death smoke units…..in both locomotives, I could not save the entire smoke units ….they were simply burnt to a crisp!…….On one of the locomotives, I had to send the replacement RCMC back, as it wasn’t right, …..out the gate, as soon as power up, the locomotive looked like a volcano had erupted, …..I knew that wasn’t right!!…..the second replacement RCMC worked as advertised……..personally, I’d look at the smoke units in the locomotive for signs of overheating, and repair back form there….naturally, verify track power is getting to the RCMC first.

Pat

Pat: Thanks for that information! As a side note I had re-packed both smoke units about 3 weeks ago with new batting and the engine had been running good ever since. I guess I'll run GRJ's resistance checks on the smoke resistors and thermistors before plugging in a new board if that's what it's going to take to get it running again.

I have to assume the new RCMC includes the radio board now if they are soldered during manufacture - the parts diagram photo doesn't show it installed if I remember correctly.

Larry

@D&H 65 posted:

Pat: Thanks for that information! As a side note I had re-packed both smoke units about 3 weeks ago with new batting and the engine had been running good ever since. I guess I'll run GRJ's resistance checks on the smoke resistors and thermistors before plugging in a new board if that's what it's going to take to get it running again.

I have to assume the new RCMC includes the radio board now if they are soldered during manufacture - the parts diagram photo doesn't show it installed if I remember correctly.

Larry

Larry, out of curiosity, what led you to the path of repacking the smoke unit(s) ? ……was this a preemptive strike? Or had the damage been done, and there was a lot of char?

Pat

Pat: Re-packing the smoke units in my case was more of a preemptive strike. I had noticed the boiler blow-off smoke and whistle smoke output was decreasing even with enough fluid provided. When I got in the units I only saw the typical burn marks right next to the resistor as would be expected, but I elected to install new batting anyway. I would not characterize either unit as charred by any means.