Second-Hand Legacy 990 Set Issue

That's going to be a Lionel fix, I don't think you will be able to fix it.

Respectfully, this is one of the reasons I rarely buy electronics - of any kind - off of eBay. I’ve been burnt a couple of times by sellers saying an item worked, all is good. 
Steve

I keep wanting to make sure the base and cab are on the same channel and the antenna is on the base...stuff like that.

@jhend1000 posted:

"I recently acquired a Legacy command set from eBay. The LEGACY light on the front of the base never lights up. I only get the LIONEL lights on the side and the green power light to come on."

 

Does it work?

BobbyD, it does not work unfortunately. I might end up sending it to Lionel if they still repair these for free. If they won't, I might mess with it some more.

Curious, does the red light flash when you send a command from the remote? Hopefully they will repair it.

No, I'm afraid not. It's just the LIONEL lights on the sides and the green power light. Sometimes the charging lights flash. There's no communication between the base and remote.

I may have missed it. Are the base and remote set on the same channel?

Wondering if it might be the Legacy 993 remote with charging base.

If it has an antenna, serial port, track connection, then no, it's the #990.

Picture?

I can confirm that this is a 990 set. It has a "rubber duck" antenna, DB-9 serial port, and track connection. I can send pictures tonight or tomorrow.

Yea thought of that after I posted.

Usually eBay has a buyer protection policy and also PayPal.  Can you return it? Or contact seller and let them know it does not work.

Sean,

I purchased it non-working. The seller made that clear and the price was too good to pass up!

I'd probably take a peek inside and see if anything obvious is wrong.

gunrunnerjoh, I have looked inside. Nothing is obviously wrong. There's a fuse in there that I tested and it was good. I'm wondering if it's cold solder joints.

Hard to say, this is when I break out the heat gun and the cooling spray and start looking around.

@RideTheRails posted:

Respectfully, this is one of the reasons I rarely buy electronics - of any kind - off of eBay. I’ve been burnt a couple of times by sellers saying an item worked, all is good. 
Steve

The first thing you should have done was complain to the seller and if he/she won't resolve. get eBay involved they will make the seller take it back and pay return shipping and refund all your money including original shipping

@jhend1000 posted:

I purchased it non-working. The seller made that clear and the price was too good to pass up!

Is reading comprehension dead?  Doesn't anyone read before posting?  He clearly said he knew it was not working, so there's no misrepresentation involved here.  There's plenty of reasons to trash deals at time on eBay, this doesn't appear to be one of those times!

I work on electronics a lot myself and I've had good success buying things on eBay. I was just curious if anyone else had similar issues with the Legacy system in the past. Lionel already said they'd send me a RA anyway once they are able to do so again.