GRJ,
Here is my report to MTH Support (Does this help your thinking?):
All,
After ~4 hours of running in the test stand - half with the short tether and half with the long tether, and not being able to replicate the behaviors, it occurred on my layout.
Note the performance on the test stand, as well as the consistency of speed on the layout indicated that the dropped chuff is not related to the tach reader. I should see variation in locomotive speed over ground coincident with the dropped chuff if it was tach related. Especially in the instanced where I have multiple dropped chuffs in sequence. This of course assumes that the duration of the dropped chuff interval is long enough to counter the tendency for the flywheel to maintain speed/momentum.
For reference I have attached a SCARM file to document the layout. From that SCARM file your can see that my ruling curve is R31 and the most common curve is R36 and I have R54 and R72 in play. My switches are Lionel 6-14-62s ( their R36 equivalent).
The locomotive repeated the drop chuffs on my R31, R36 and intermittently on the R54 radius curves. It does not reliably operated as advertised on curves tighter that R36 even with the longer tether.
Please advise as to next steps.
Thank you
