J15 tender pickups not working

[Paul-1211556]

Hi,

Ive had a Horby J15 for just over a year and hardly used it due to changing my layout.

Ive tried it again today and the tender pickups don't work and I don't think they ever have!

I was wondering if any one else had experienced this and if so how did they fix it?

[The Doc]

Hi Paul,

It's worth checking whether it's the pick-ups themselves which aren't working (i.e. not rubbing against the inner wheel treads), or the connection between pick-ups and decoder socket, or between loco and tender. I tried to fit a TTS sound decoder into one of my J15s, and despite the tender weight clearly being designed to take a TTS speaker, I found it impossible to fit. I gave up that idea and the next thing I knew the loco wasn't running quite so well, and the flimsy wiring from one tender pick up had become disconnected.

[atom3624]

Hi there.

My J15 is a beautiful little model, and saunters around my track at nice, smooth, slowish speeds, without issue over points - 'normal' or express.

I would suggest to firstly check the pickup fingers, or however Hornby have engineered this one - see they are making contact over their full articulation.

If they do appear to be, then you may have a loose / broken wire somewhere - I wouldn't hunt this until you've confirmed the fingers are touching.

Al.

[Paul-1211556]

Hi there, thanks for your ideas, I had a similar problem damaging the loco to tender wiring when fitting a decoder, you have to fit the decoder in the tender so why use a totaly unsuitable plug (if it has to removed and re fitted)

I purchased a new wire and plug and replaced it and all is good and i also removed the two little pimples on the plug as recomended on another forum which really makes fitting and removing the plug easier.

I dont think the tender pick ups have ever worked and the pick up fingers are all in place so I'll have to trace the wiring to the decoder socket.

I'll keep you posted!!

[ColinB]

It probably is a badly soldered joint on the DCC socket, Hornby are renowned for soldering the insulation rather than the wire. What I do is lift the loco off the track and move the tender around on the track to see if the loco wheels move. It can't be the 4 pin connector as the loco would only work with the tender pickups, which is the opposite of what you are experiencing. So check connections to the pickup strips and the 8 pin DCC socket.

[Paul-1211556]

Thank you ColinB, That is my next plan of attack - but it will be after christmas now!

I must say the loco does run very smoothly but I noticed an occasional stall on points (Peco electrofrog) and the tender was on clean rails.

I tested as you suggested by lifting the loco and leaving the tender and no go!

As I said previously the 4 pin plug has been replaced between loco and tender so it's not that as the loco is feeding power to the decoder. Also the tender pick ups are all

contacting the wheels.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

[ColinB]

I have one of these but I can't remember what type of 8 pin DCC pcb they used, there are about 3 different types. What they do when they wire these up is just tack the wires to the underside. What they are supposed to do is feed the wire through the hole so it solders to the bottom. I suppose it takes too long to do this, so they tack the wires to just the underside, so it is easy to solder the insulation rather than the wire. If you are going to add TTS buy one of the super thin speakers off Road and Rails, not only do they fit better but they sound a lot better.

[Paul-1211556]

Hi all, stripped the tender down and couldn't really find anything wrong but tested and definately no circuit between pick ups and decoder socket. the wires from the decoder go to a small two pin socket that pushes into the chassis into two little brass bushes, when this was removed there was continuity between the pick up's and the sockets so i cleaned the little plug fingers and replaced and hey ho, all good so I can only assume that there was a bad connection at the socket.

Just thought i'd report back in case it helps anyone else.

Cheers, Paul.