Hi there,

So I've done a couple conversions with motor 60944 and the old decoder 60760. Anyways, I've now installed the motor 60944 with a new mLD3 60982 decoder. Everything basically works very well, except for a strange electricity issue. For some reason the loco comes to a halt very often. Lights turn out and engine stops. At higher speeds it tries to jerk on, and manages with it, but at slow speeds it comes to a permanent halt...

So I guess the issue is either in grounding or in track power pickup.

However, I don't believe grounding to be the problem... I left some copper visible on the decoder ground wire near the soldering point. When I press multimeter to any wheel and the copper in the wire, I get an excellent constant beep. Decoder ground wire is connected to two different places, the motor and also to the connection point of the old reversing unit. Anyways, ground goes all the way up to the decoder wire.

Pickupshoe is connected wire to wire with (wires entangled) with the existing pickupshoe wire and decoder red wire. The joint is also soldered. I do get beep from multimeter, but not as clear as from the ground connection.

Now this is interesting, The loco needs only light push sideways and it starts off again. Of course when pushed forward it will also start again.

Here's the question: How do I debug this? I mean when the loco comes to a halt, what should I do to find out if there is a problem in ground connection or with power connection? Also what is the possibility that the new decoder is defected, has anyone ever come across such a case?

Thanks again guys!

Best regards,
-Eino

An additional ground wire to the chassis may help.

Hi,

thanks for the experienced answers. So I'm also leaning towards ground issue even though this time I paid extra attention to it.

Observation I've made in meanwhile:

- After "forcing" the loco to run, it now seems to run mostly without problems

- Most jerks happen at turnouts or at some contact tracks... I think this is indication of ground issue, even thou on workbench with multimeter I get good ground, I'm now aware that on tracks the contact between wheels and rails may not be "optimal"

I'll try these:

- Add ground connection directly to the motorless bogie

- Inspect the wheels again for impurities and clean with IPA

- Look into buffer capacitor

I figured out what the problem is. The highlighted part in the link shouldn't be there ...
[url=http://]https://www.mittelleiter-...

the highlight was supposed to be there, but the link address was missing.....
How it was supposed to be:
[url=https://www.mittelleiter-magazin.de/uncategorized/susi-schnittstelle-fuer-puffer-schaltung-nutzen/]https://www.mittelleiter-magazin.de/uncategorized/susi-schnittstelle-fuer-puffer-schaltung-nutzen/[/url]

So I believe I've solved the issue. At least the symptom has not appeared since the fix. Here's what I did:

- Connect ground directly to the non engine bogie. Did not make a difference, but at least now the loco has really good ground.

- Changed the pickup shoe. The original pickup shoe was somewhat short, so I changed it into a longer one and it seems to have fixed the problem.

Let's see if I'm right about it!

Thank you all,

-Eino