Hi, Joe,

Maybe the two incidents are unrelated.

I have an analogue Borsig 53 and it shorts in curves. I suspect one of the brushes touches the loco body. This can kill older decoders that do not yet have overload protection.
The new dirt-cheap fx decoder no longer have overload protection AFAIK. Maybe there was a problem with the motor of the Hogwarts trains, maybe the decoder just died by itself. I think this loco is too new to have overload protection in the decoder.

It sometimes happen that decoders are a bit too weak from the factory and let out smoke after few minutes or hours of operation.


Maybe the two incidents are related and there is a problem with your track voltage. Are you using a transformer or a switching-mode power supply for your CS2?
Which voltage reading do you get inside your CS2?

Any suggestions anyone?

Hello Joe!

Holy Cow!!!

23V ? In my oppinion you could fry an egg at this level... (Märklin related)

Märklins usually runs on 16V (empiric old number).

Here, my CS2 have the following:

Current Main track: 0,836A
Voltage: 18.3V
Temperaature: 36,4C

The layout here it's almost 75meters of linear tracks, so, 18V maybe reasonable in my case...

Other coleagues could add something else... Ok, maybe not fry an egg, but 23V seems to be too much for just an oval track. Probably the reason to fry some types of decoders.

Cheers,

Walter

Pass 16 V AC through a bridge rectifier with a capacitor and you get 23 V DC. That's what the Central Station does internally.

The CU 6021 even produces 46 V DC internally (Delon circuit instead of bridge rectifier).

Yes, it bounces. That is without any load on the tracks.

It sounds to me like your decoders have died due to massive overheating, and this heat then soaked into the surrounding material melting the plastic. This is extremely rare in my experience. I have only ever had one loco from my collection of over a hundred Marklin locos which overheated its decoder, and I took the power off as soon as I smelt the electrical burning smell. Apart from some scorch marks on the part of the chassis in contact with the decoder there was no other damage to the loco.

In my case the overheating was due to a prolonged high current being drawn by the motor due to over-oiling spilling onto the commutator. At the same time the gear train was sticky with old hardened oil making the motor work even harder.

I think you've been very unlucky to get enough heat to warp a tender, and even more so on two locos within a short space of time!

Mike this reminded me of a train set I bought with 2 locos ( 1 x DB BR 218,1 x DB BR 03) with passenger and freight carriages and a 6021, the 03 had a gear light circuit board and this came in contact with the side rods mechanism, end result = failure but I would had to send the whole loco back to Märklin to get repaired.

Oiling will and always has been a problem with modellers who give it another drop for good measures. When we had our layout displayed and ran the locos 14hours 7 days, there had been 5 locos which started to make a noise because the lack of lubrication, the brushes wore out before that.

You can easily establish if you over oiled the motor by taking it apart and look at the individual segments of the armature, look at the brushes, there shouldn't be any residue of oil, dirt or grime, your brushed should have the same colour from start to end. the back of the motor armature rod isn't as sensitive as the front part and any over oiling will spread over the other cogwheels but again by over oiling you will see the discolouring of the coil.

this is why I have installed ball bearings in all my locos to prevent the loco to cease up, make unnecessary noises and reduces the running characteristics.


the major flaw with the motors is, the 2 components are made from different metals (motorblock, armature rod) Märklin realized this and than switched from nothing to a brass insert, this also started to oxidize and now we have plastic inserts which doesn't work either successfully but to avoid to spend 30 cents on a ball bearing you the modeller keep on buying locos whereas the motor hasn't been upgraded since the 70's and since than we've learned a lot recognized the flaw and we have done something about it. (Märklin opted for the option do nothing about it).
I've never heard you have to oil a Roco motor, there can be 2 scenarios, the worm gear lubricant has hardened, the motor can't turn and the only part which will be affected is the worm gear attached to the armature rod. it will no longer have a grip. we have gone now from the old AC to DC motors with permanent magnets but we still have to oil the motors, extraordinary. even HAG has applied ball bearings to their motor.

John

Hmm. 23V on the CS2....that sounds high. This is off the wall and perhaps a dumb question but I wonder if your line voltage is also a little high...I have had this happen in industrial settings. My dad lives out in the country and his line voltage is a little low... so it does happen.

As you seem to be from the states. Do you have 110V coming out of your wall or 120V? I know of voltages of 110V/ 115V and 120V. Did you get your transformer from EU that has an input of 220V vs 110V and then have another step down transformer? A couple of my Märklin buddies have that step down transformer but one of the buddies is a professional electrician that was able to get the right one for them. I remember conversations about not getting the correct voltage at times...

US house voltage of 110V - 120V. The transformer was purchased from a US dealer and is the standard US setup AFAIK. There is nothing between it and the layout or programming track.

Just a totally different thought here. You stated that you are using a 60055, which has an AC output, to feed the 60213. Do you have the actual converter cable (120722) that changes the pin arrangement so that this transformer can be used on the 60213?

The actual power supply you should be using for the 60213 without the special adapter cable is the 60065 which is a switch mode power supply, not a transformer as such.

There may be something wrong on how the 60055 connection has been made.

Again, just a thought since the CS2 output voltage certainly appears high to me, compared to mine.

Peter

I use the 60065 for my CS2 and it works just fine. The North American VA ratings are always lower than for the equivalent European ones that the documentation is based on.

It will be interesting to see what your CS2 output voltage reads when you use the 60065.

Likewise I use my 60055 for powering lighting and accessories.

Peter

I diassembled the loco but not the motor. The tender was stuck to the decoder wire. For the heck if it I put it in the track and it ran! Of course I still don't why it quit, why the decoder got so hot or how to prevent it again.

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If that is the case what could it have been hitting and is there a way (outside of a bunch of electrical tape) to shield any of these open wires or contacts? Is that even feasible?

PCB? That board IS where the wire cover is melted.

It did trigger an overload situation AND still melted the tender.

I'll take a shot of the other loco later tonight.



Thanks,

Joe

EDIT: I should have asked, how are those contacts meant to be positioned? The rear one was probably not that low when I first removed the body but they weren't even either.

Ouch!

The module for the whistle sound let the magic smoke out. The decoder may still be OK.

You are not alone with that experience (German forum):
http://www.stummiforum.d...pic.php?p=814779#p814779

I'm using that new transformer and the voltage is holding steady even with a train running.

Borsig:

Thanks for the info. I ended up moving the smoke contact back in place and putting electrical tape on both, just in case. The engine was squealing which is why I took it apart and oiled it.

Where do you get these ball bearings? Or a new motor that has them already installed.

It is a poor design though. That little board (rear light, smoke?) sits right next to the tender wall. There is room for the whole thing to be centered.

Hogwarts:

I couldn't figure out how to get the engine apart and the manual has nothing. However after you pointed out it was the board for the whistle (it was) I tried it again for the heck of it. It ran. I never did get the engine even remotely apart so I have no clue why it did what it did.


Of course this leaves me the questions of why:

I can understand I probably installed the body of the Borsig incorrectly and it caused it to heat up and melt the wire sheath. However, why did it get hot enough to warp the tender before the CS2 shutdown?

As for the Hogwarts engine, it smoked and melted without me touching a thing. But again, it happened BEFORE the CS2 shutdown.

Both happend after I turned on the CS2 and attempted to run them. Could it be something with the way the system starts up as well? Grasping at straws here I know.

Maybe bad luck, maybe not enough feeder wires.

The CS2 can deliver 3 A constantly - that's about 60 watts.
The wire between CS2 and feeder track, the track between feeder track and loco, the amplifier PCB, the contact lid for the smoke generator and the loco frame, they all add resistance. If the total resistance is above a specific value, the load for the CS2 stays below 60 watts and it will not turn off. You can buy small soldering irons that only have 8 watts and 60 watts can melt more than just plastics.

Trains work fine if you only have one feeder wire. But using feeder wires every 2 meters and using thick wires under the layout between controller and feeder wires is essential for overload detection.
I don't know your layout. This may or may not be part of the problem.

One short circuit was on the noise module and current was limited. The other short circuit was though the amplifier PCB and current was limited.
The Borsig loco is a bit unusual because it does not have an fx decoder and the smoke generator can be switched with the lights by means of the amplifier PCB.
This should not happen with other old locos as the smoke generator contact goes directly to the centre rail and the CS2 should switch off immediately.
This should not happen with current locos as the contact is fed from the decoder. Many users reported flashing lights when they turned smoke on - no overheating when you make a short, just flashing headlights.

As Tom mentioned, a short circuit one the layout should operate the over-current protection in the controller, but if the wires used to feed the layout are too thin or too long then the resistance in the wires will allow the current to be dissipated as heat in the wires instead, and only a small current will be detected by the controller.

I saw a graphic example of this a few years ago at my Yacht Club.

A contractor was working on the jetty with an electric drill which he had plugged into an office about 60 meters away, using two long extensions for his power cord. The drill slipped out of his hand and fell in the sea, but instead of blowing the 13Amp fuses in the extensions the drill continued to draw power, boiling the sea around it!

The resistance of the combined length of extensions was enough to bring the current being drawn to less than 13A. Luckily no-one was hurt, but it was a spectacular demonstration of Ohm's law.

Thanks Jean. May I ask where Märklin says that is too high? With documentation perhaps I can go back to the dealer and see I may wring out of Märklin. I am using all Märklin equipment after all.



Cool. Scary, but cool.

It takes a high-frequency true RMS multi-meter to measure the track voltage.
Your readings probably mean nothing.
With the 60065 you get a lower trackvoltage, but I wouldn't trust the absolute values nor the differences between them.

I don't know how accurate the reading the CS2 is.


With respect to wire gauge, I'm with Ray. With just a starter-set oval one feeder track should be enough and wire gauge does not really matter.
But with 10 m wire between controller/booster and feeder wire the diameter of the wire matters a lot.

I think thicker wires would not not have prevented the two tenders from melting. And at least the problem with the BR 53 was not caused by the high track voltage.

But IMHO it's better to use the 60065 than the 60055, so that was a good investment anyway.

I Didn't bother to look. I sold the engine and cars off and kept the track from the set.