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I've had my Railking PS2 Y6B on the layout for the past week or so and have been running it a bit and it has been running fine. Today I ran it and found it to run really erraticlly when blowing the whistle and/or ringing the bell. I use an MTH Z-1000 so it is putting DC offsets to the track in order to function. Positive off set for whistle, negative for bell per "normal" design. Just letting the train run on its own without whistle and/or bell results in perfect operation. No issues. 

 

Today I noticed that often, with the bell ringing and whistle blowing, the engine may slow to the point of stopping on occasion. Not every time, just sporadically. It may also speed up substantially. This is a bit more than "normal" when running conventional, or at least I think so. Photo of the layout attached, I'm running on the outside loop (big loop). I put another PS2 steamer on the track and found it to respond somewhat similar although not as dramatic. All other loops function perfectly. 

 

A few things:

Track is new-ish 0-27 tubular. 

Two feeds per loop

MTH Z-1000 for transformer

 

Anyone have any suggestions as to what, if anything, may be a problem and a fix? 

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Last edited by SJC
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Well, the standard first reply: when anything like this happens I clean the track, but particularly the loco's center pickups and rollers, really well.  I find that fixes 90% of the problems like this. 

 

I also have the RK PS2 Y6B.  Great loco - my first articulated loco many years ago now, and one I love.  Many, many hours of happiness.  It's never let me down - when it has clean wheels. 

I have an RK PS2 Y6b also.  It is my only articulated locomotive, and I like it.  I bought it used a year ago.  As I recall, when I first got the Y6b and before I got my DCS, I had notices a similar problem.  I have had trouble with DCS, and want to run it conventional.  The Y6b has been sitting a while waiting for me to replace a drive rod screw that fell out right before I had hand surgery.  I had better get it back together and try it conventional before my other hand surgery a week from Monday.  Now I want to see if I am having similar problems.

I recently had a similar problem. Every time I hit the whistle the train would want to pause briefly. Finally I narrowed it down to the transformer as this did not happen with others or while on another line.

 Then I hooked the transformer to another line which has a block signal hooked up directly to the track. This is when I noticed that the lights in it would black out when this happen. 

 So the end result was that I determined that the transformer brick has some kind of issue. This one was the Z-750. Removed it from service and all is now well.

 So I suggest hooking up a bulb to your line and see if you experience  the same results.

I seem to recall having this problem with my PS2 Imperial Hiawatha. I believe it was a lack of grease in the gear box that caused the problem. Not sure, but I tried all the other fixes and it wasn't until I lubed the engine that the problem was corrected. Always seemed like a weird fix to me, but once it started working correctly there was no need to investigate further.

I didn't forget about this thread. 

 

Cleaned the wheels, track, and rollers with alcohol. 


Swapped transformers/controllers. No change really. 

 

Ran it on another loop that is much smaller and it wasn't as bad but very similar. Track on this loop is 1 week old and really not used yet. 

 

I tried another PS2 steamer, circa 2006 but had the guts replaced 3 or 4 years ago and it responded far better. Didn't try anything else but may do so tomorrow. Regardless, it appears this engine is EXTREMELY sensitive to DC off sets but why it speeds or slows so dramatically (especially slowing substantially with an INCREASE in voltage) is beyond me... Anyone have anything else to look at or should it go to a repair guy for evaluation?

Do the rollers have signs of wear and pitting discoloration?  Cleaning rollers also requires internal.  Sometimes they just need to be replaced despite not physically grooved.

 

I would also open the tender and make sure the plugs fully seated especially the 5 pin motor plug.

 

The other issue can be the speaker going bad.  Turn volume down and retest.  If train runs fine with low volume or off (speaker not vibrating), I would try changing the speaker.

 

The issue maybe that the sound generation (a high demand on the 5V power supply that runs all the microchips) is effecting how the motor fet controls speed or the tach reads speed.

 

G

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