LionMaster Challenger 6-82694 advice needed *SOLVED*

Good news I fixed the issue. It turned out to be a bad wire from the IR on the draw bar to the RCMC board in the engine. After fiddling with it again and testing using my cell phone I was able see the IR cutting out. I then pulled and tested the wire resistance and found one of them was loosely making contact somewhere under the sheath causing an open circuit. I then replaced both wires and tested again and the sound works correctly now, no cutting out at all!

I'd like to thank everyone for their help on this issue. These things can sometimes be a pain to figure out.

To anyone else reading this, don't be discouraged about this or other Lionmaster engines. If you have tight curves there really is no better engines if you're into big steam locomotives. I have had issue with the wires on my other Lionmaster big boy and it required the same fix. I guess the engine can only take so many turns twisting the wires this way and that before it breaks. I used some Flexable wire that I found on Amazon. Hopefully this will last for a while before needing replaced.

Not an uncommon issue, I've fixed a few bad solder joints under the heatshrink.  Usually a nice tug on the wire will tell the story, if it comes out, it's bad.

My Challenger has been running great for a couple of years, now it cuts out on left turns also. Took it for repairs $38 still not fixed and now I I’ve broken the drawbar trying to bend it to align the IR bulbs. Anyone got an extra drawbar Lionel is out (680-2695-088) if I can get a new drawbar I’m going to change to a wired drawbar and bypass the IR bulbs will this work?

The alignment isn't typically that critical.  I've found a number of times that there was a broken solder joint under the heatshrink that causes the link to die at times in turns.  Before hacking the locomotive up, I'd check for the obvious solutions.  There are literally tens of thousands of these wireless drawbars in use, generally they're quite reliable.

You could bypass the wireless drawbar, but you'll need to do some internal wiring.  The RS-Lite board in the tender would receive the serial data on different pins than the IR receiver is connected to.

I believe the brown wire is broken, according to my meter. So I pulled slightly on both and lost continuity in the black wire as well. Pulled just slightly harder and both had clean breaks about an inch up. I’ve got another IR bulb with harness on the way. Just wish drawbar did not have a headline crack half way through but I think it will hold for now.

Not surprising, I've seen this quite a bit.  I suspect soldering those up and putting new heatshrink will make it as good as new.

Dave, couple of questions: to determine the loose connection to the RCMC, did you have to pull the shell to verify that the wire was loose there?  How did you test the IR with your cell phone?

You can test the locomotive IR sensor by just aiming the camera at the transmitter and seeing if you see a purple glow in the viewer.  Electronic camera are sensitive to IR wavelengths.  You can't test the IR receiver on the tender that way.

And tv remotes

E-UNIT-79 posted:

And tv remotes

How does a TV remote indicate a good connection?

Rick, I think he's saying you can check if the remote is sending using the camera, I doubt the TV remote is going to do much for the locomotive.