I'll list some good after the question. When running the new 4-6-0 makes a clicking noise and is a bit jerky. My first thought would be quartering, but the click is very minor and with the 2 gears, I think the hop would be pronounced. To the eye the rods are straight at 6 and 9. More like there is a bad tooth or something in a tooth gap. Break in time, or break it open time? I don't want to try to break it in, if thats going to break it. Now, briefly,the good. It is beautiful! Right down to the whitewall wheels. I will wait for Bmann to do them with smaller tenders as I'm not going to try to match the Southern detail. If this click goes away, WOW, she's a nice one. If not, it's pretty, but it still needs work, before they can release a full Spectrum version.
I had the same issue at times until I took out the decoder and all the wires and hard wired the motor to the frame. I think there is something with that decoder that makes operations suffer on straight DC. In the other thread I started, I am serious as heck, it is soooooo smoth it is crazy after I ditched the decoder and wires...and used an old spectrum tender.
I don't notice the clicking noise with either of mine. Could it be possible that in handling that part of the drive rod assembly could have been slightly bent? They are small and delicate and that could be part of the clicking and may be some of the jerking if parts are coming in contact. IMHO these little guys are sorta like the Atlas Shay for delicate parts. Gotta be careful where you grab them. With my set of ten thumbs I have already had to re-arrange some things the thumbs dis-arranged.
I have the same issue with my loco. I hope it works itself out. Otherwise it will be an expensive lesson learned.
After I get some tungstem putty, to weight the front truck, if it is still clicking, I am sending it to Bachmann. I can't afford this lesson
I had a similar problem with a Bachmann 2-8-0, and found that the piston rod was hitting the end of the hole in the cylinder. Filing just a bit off the end of the piston rod did the trick. This could also account for wobbling of the middle driver reported for the ten-wheeler.
Thanks all, for the responses. I'm not ready to redo electronics on a new loco, I'm glad that worked, but I want it as advertized. The loco is out in the car, I will take a closer look tomorrow night. I spoke with Bachmann service today. They are a ways away from being able to do much with these locos. I'm not bashing the service, I completely understand they got units to market before stocking the repair depot, otherwise I might not have one yet. But they don't expect units in for 4 to 6 weeks and as it is a new design, they weren't able to guess about a solution, from my vague description. I emailed my supplier, but unless they have a test setup, I think a direct replacement may have the same issue. Hopefully I find some tungsten putty at a large sporting good store tomorrow. I want to try some weight for the derailing front truck. From the symptom, the piston rod does sound promising, if it isn't electrical.
Mine finally arrived today and I just did some quick running of mine. One ran flawless, an absolute beauty, one has the click (I call it more of a chug) sound some are describing, it also has the every once in a while pilot derail. First off, these are much better looking in person than any of the pictures I have seen. As much as I griped about the tender, it doesn't look so bad in person and will only be changed to match the prototype I am modeling, not out of hatred for the larger tender. The pilot truck derail.... I have discovered the reason for the pilot truck derail. I will attempt to remedy it in the morning but what it boils down to is there is not enough verticle play upward in the link connecting the truck to the frame. On any verticle miss alignment of track (testing with unitrak is good to show these problems) the pilot truck is pushed up against the arm holding it. The truck raised fully upward against the arm so now the arm raises up. As it raises up, it lifts the pivot point of the truck, and thus the front of the truck, picking the front wheels of the pilot truck off the track. If you have perfect track with no vertical allignment issues, you should nver have to worry about this but how many of us do. I believe the loco that has the problem has a slight bit of flashing on the arm that attaches the pilot truck and that is what is causing the arm to lift the front of the truck off of the track. After I get a fresh start in the moring, I will tackle this tweek and take pictures. As far as complaints of the decoder opperation. These did do jack rabbit starts somewhat, until I reset the decoder. Factory Vmin is set around 3 I believe. Reset the Vmin=0 and the loco will crawl a tie at a time, barely perceptible movement. Setting Vmid also improved DC slow speed to a crawl, not as slow as on DCC but still fine for yard work. Pulling power was quite good for a loco it's size. I didn't try to max it out yet put that little loco pulling 4 old Rivarossi heavyweights around the loop was more than enough to show me what it can do. The noise in the one loco does not seem to effect it's running. It shows no hitch in it's getalong, but there is a rythmic chug to the loco. This maybe curable with break in. The loco just sounds a little stiff. The second loco almost sounds loose compared to the first.
Tony Mine also has a "hitch in it's getalong". I hope it will work itself out. I look forward to what you find with yours. I did not play with the CV's yet but mine does something else a bit odd. It will run fine for about 30 seconds then stop. It starts again after a while then stops again. I don't know if this is a pick up issue or not. I'm cutting the board in half and adding a TCS decoder so time will tell. Edit post..bending the rod pretending to connect to the front drivers corrected the hitch. Mark
