Suggestions on repairing a ZW

The boards for the ZW haven't been available for about 10 years now. No known repair. Don't think Lionel is going to be of much help on this one.

Gregcz1 posted:

last night, i posted a plea for help with what I thought at the time were bad TPC's....turns out it was the ZW supplying them power.  This is the modern ZW TMCC compatible #22982.  I had four 180w bricks powered to it and when powering any combination of bricks, all or just one, the ZW would power up for 3 seconds and then cut off all power (except for the green light.). Or, it wouldn't even power up on command from the legacy remote at all unless I turned the bricks off and on a few times!

I took the cover off and nothing seems (or smells) burnt.  Does anyone know of a infamous history with these ZW boards like those of the "Backshop"?  Are the boards easily replaced or is this something I should send back to Lionel for repair?

Thank you to the folks who tried assisting me with my TPC frustration last night...greatly appreciated!

Greg

FYI that spesific ZW is commonly referred to as a ZWC !  Just so you know ! And he is correct in saying Lionel has not had those Boards for a long time!!  I threw mine in the trash & purchased a ZWL. Very pricey, but worth every penny! You can sell those 180’s and pay for over half the ZWL. That’s what I did! Charles RO sells them for $699.00

Lionel recommended to one forum member recently that since they could not fix a ZWC, they offered to sell him a ZW-L for $500. I don't know if he had to send back the ZWC and two bricks and got to sell the other 2 or if he got to keep it all. Probably had to send the C in I would think. You might give that a try.

And why is the ZWC powering TPCs? If you have the bricks, don't you power the TPCs directly with the bricks?

cjack posted:

And why is the ZWC powering TPCs? If you have the bricks, don't you power the TPCs directly with the bricks?

TPC's allow you to control Conventional engines wih the remote as well.  Without the TPC's you are limited to only running Command/Legacy control with the remote.  (The transformers are not in a convenient place to run "by hand".

Yes but the TPC will do both? So the ZWC was not needed?