Dummy Car Lights Problems on Pendolinio DCC Fitted

[Zathrus]

Hornby Pendolinio Dummy Car Lights Problems
Hi
I am very new model railways and have made my own DCC system buying all the components myself, (Hornby Elite controller, track, trains & rolling stock etc) one of the trains I have is the Pendolinio

factory DCC Fitted chip (R2467X) train pack and it has worked perfectly for the last six weeks since I purchased it second hand on eBay, and was very pleased with it as it appeared to be in very good condition including the original box.

But now, the

dummy car at the back of the trains has suddenly lost its lights when operating in either direction. (The front power car works just great, so no worries on that score, just the dummy cars lights are affected) At first they went on and off at regular positions

along the track, so I thought it might be the track, so I checked all the the tracks fishplates to make sure they were all snugly fitting together, but that made difference, checked that the track was even and level and not lifting up etc, but that made no

difference, so I cleaned the track with a Peco track cleaning rubber and then followed that with Dapol track cleaning fluid. I also cleaned the Pendolinio dummy cars wheels in a like wise manner.

Still no joy, in fact it was worse, Now they were flashing

on and off and switching from red to white and back again, then they went out completely!

So now I have a front power cars whose lights fully work in both directions, and dummy car whose lights flash on briefly for a microsecond, or not at all.

I

do have a spare dummy car that is DCC Ready as a last resort, but I was hoping to buy a couple of coaches to use with it as a separate set.

So my question is do you think it is a decoder problem, and would replacing the decoder (at this point I don't

have any idea which one to use) rectify this, or would you suspect something else?

I'm using a Hornby Elite controller v1.3 firmware

Any help or suggestions gratefully received ;-)

[Rog RJ]

I would carefully check the wires which go from the wheel pickups to the PCB. They are sometimes a bit tight and the movement of the bogie causes the wires to break.

The wires could be broken inside the insulation so there may be no obvious signs

of breakage, or they could simple have broken away at the soldered connection on the bogie.

[Zathrus]

Hi Rog,

Thanks for your advice. I have replied to your post in the Model Railway Forum, but to recap for anybody seeing this post, I have found two black wires one on each side running down from the loco onto the front bogie where you can see where

they have come away. Obviously I need to get them repaired.