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My Acela saga continues. After replacing the Panto motor control board I placed the engine (#2026) the powered loco on my test track before I attached the shell. The loco and the panto  worked fine. I secured the shell then put it on the test track again. As soon as I put power to it, I heard a pop and saw smoke. Well, the picture below shows what happened. For reasons I don't understand that black wire fried.(I have a suspicion I may have caused it to rub against the red wire when I was either taking the connector out or putting it in. It was a PITA. But, I'm not sure)  I could not see any other visible 'damage.'  I replaced the connectors with newly wired ones and it didn't help. The 8 pin connector runs from the motherboard to the switch control circuit board. I tried reprogramming and resetting...nada. Any ideas about what's wrong? I'm thinking the motherboard was damaged, but I don't know if it's also likely others are damaged. I'm prepared to replace all the boards...the sale is coming, but if there is a clear culprit...or, should I just write it off?  Any help welcomed.  Paul "The Acela fella" on the Forum has been very helpful.

Fried wire

IMG_6904

My Acela doing the "herky-jerky"!

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                                     FIXED                                                 FIXED                                       FIXED!!!!!

FIXED!!! I had intended to buy a new motherboard today...But, as we all know, the old TMCC PCBs are no longer in Lionel's inventory so I decided to try and fix this myself.  I suspected it was the motherboard but other than the harness there was no visible damage. I decided to start by pulling the Railsounds power board.  When I did that,  I discovered what I thought could be the cause, or effect, of the short/mystery smoke. I break in a copper strip.

First photo shows a copper strip broken on the motherboard.  When I pulled the RS board, the insulation covering the copper strip shredded. The second photo shows the top of a capacitor (?) with a stain...I suspect it was caused when the strip split.  You can see shiny residue on the motherboard around where the strip separated. I guess that break saved all the other components from the power surge???

Pic 1: Motherboard:  Red highlights the shiny gunk...Green arrow shows the split.  Continuity was good on the copper strips on either side of the split but not across the split. I decided to use a small piece of copper foil tape to bridge the gap. I secured it with 2 pieces of electrical tape.  That resorted continuity. I then put it back on the test track, powered it up and YEAH...it all worked as designed.  I thought about dropping a bit of solder to bridge the gap, but, Nah...why mess with success.  So, in a way, I need to thank Lionel for pulling the ACELA motherboard from inventory because that forced me to dive in.  Which proves again, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention!"

InkedACELA Motherboard

Rail sounds board

ACELA Railsounds PowerBoard

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  • InkedACELA Motherboard
  • ACELA Railsounds PowerBoard

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