Another Bachmann K4 bites the dust

[SkipGear]

Jim, I have a Digitrax Empire Builder DCC system. I'm surprised the system did not trip, as every section of my track passes the quarter test with ease.  Every engine I have that shorts on a turnout not properly lined does trip the Digitrax circuit breaker, cutting track power and sounding the beeping alarm until the short is corrected.

This is why I think something inside the decoder shorted causing the wheels to heat up and melt the plastic axle, the entire event happened very rapidly, maybe within 2 seconds.

I will blame a lack of feeders. We just went through this last year in our N-Trak club. One bad show cost me tender trucks on two different EM-1's, a 4-6-0, and a truck on the observation car of my Silver Streak Zephyr. We traced it down to a couple modules that did not have feeders on all sides of a turnout. There was a weak connection between the turnout, the connecting track and the next module. If a loco stalled there it would not trip the breakers and melt down. One of the offending modules also had a turnout that was troublesome causing the intermittent picking of wheels and shorts through the frog. Over the summer we have gone through all our members modules and corrected feeders and other wiring issues. The past two shows have run absolutely flawless. Trains run smoother, no errant slowdowns and stalls and no cooked locos.

If it was a short in the decoder, the whole loco would have more than likely melted as the load would have been spread over all the pickups. Looking at mine, the only thing I can see would be that possibly the drawbar pickup fingers were bent out of shape and contacted the bottom of the tender floor. The tender floor on these is metal so any place the pickups could touch it could create a short. The floor is painted so when new there was no short until the paint rubbed through. When you pushed down on it, something flexed the short away until the loco ran a bit and settled back in. Without proper feeders, the weak short through the tender floor was not enough to trip the breaker but it was enough to heat up the wheels as I experienced with our N-Trak problems.

[SecretWeapon]

I'm having problems with mine. I was one of the guys running Todd Treaster's layout for his open house. He had one running & it ran flawlessly. On Monday, I bought one & it runs very, very slow. I'm waiting to hear back from B'mann as I type. I run DC. So does Todd.

[Rich_S]

I will blame a lack of feeders. We just went through this last year in our N-Trak club. One bad show cost me tender trucks on two different EM-1's, a 4-6-0, and a truck on the observation car of my Silver Streak Zephyr. We traced it down to a couple modules that did not have feeders on all sides of a turnout. There was a weak connection between the turnout, the connecting track and the next module. If a loco stalled there it would not trip the breakers and melt down. One of the offending modules also had a turnout that was troublesome causing the intermittent picking of wheels and shorts through the frog. Over the summer we have gone through all our members modules and corrected feeders and other wiring issues. The past two shows have run absolutely flawless. Trains run smoother, no errant slowdowns and stalls and no cooked locos.

If it was a short in the decoder, the whole loco would have more than likely melted as the load would have been spread over all the pickups. Looking at mine, the only thing I can see would be that possibly the drawbar pickup fingers were bent out of shape and contacted the bottom of the tender floor. The tender floor on these is metal so any place the pickups could touch it could create a short. The floor is painted so when new there was no short until the paint rubbed through. When you pushed down on it, something flexed the short away until the loco ran a bit and settled back in. Without proper feeders, the weak short through the tender floor was not enough to trip the breaker but it was enough to heat up the wheels as I experienced with our N-Trak problems.

Tony, I can lay a quarter on my tracks anywhere on my layout and the circuit breaker in the DCC system trips. Dead spots do not cause shorts, crossing polarities cause shorts. It sounds to me like your frog was not properly insulated and since you were relying on rail jointers for the connection to your DCC system, a short on the frog may not have been detected by your system. I can lay a quarter on every piece of track on my layout and the DCC system will detect the short. Since I have Atlas code 80 turnouts, the frogs are plastic, I never have issues with shorts at the frog, the only issue I ever have with turnouts is with the points not properly aligned    I still think something happened inside the tender and burned itself open before the DCC system could detect the short. This locomotive was only 2 weeks old, the wheels were not even dirty yet, but I guess now I'll have to wait and see what Bachmann decides? 

 

[Rich_S]

I'm having problems with mine. I was one of the guys running Todd Treaster's layout for his open house. He had one running & it ran flawlessly. On Monday, I bought one & it runs very, very slow. I'm waiting to hear back from B'mann as I type. I run DC. So does Todd.

Mike, I figure out of every production run, there is always going to be a few units where things go wrong. I guess it's the nature of the beast and it sounds like we may have been the lucky ones to get a couple of those units. 

[peteski]

I still think something happened inside the tender and burned itself open before the DCC system could detect the short. This locomotive was only 2 weeks old, the wheels were not even dirty yet, but I guess now I'll have to wait and see what Bachmann decides? 

While Bachmann will most lilkely send you replacement locomotive I doubt they will giver you give you any details as to the cause of the problem. Wor all I know they might not even bother trying to determine the cause of the problem and just use the model for spare parts.  So you will most likely never know what melted the truck.

That is why it would have been very handy to have some closeup photos of the truck, drawbar, and of the electrical components inside the tender. That way we could have attempted to play a detective.  But that is not possible now.

[SkipGear]

Tony, I can lay a quarter on my tracks anywhere on my layout and the circuit breaker in the DCC system trips. Dead spots do not cause shorts, crossing polarities cause shorts. It sounds to me like your frog was not properly insulated and since you were relying on rail jointers for the connection to your DCC system, a short on the frog may not have been detected by your system. I can lay a quarter on every piece of track on my layout and the DCC system will detect the short. Since I have Atlas code 80 turnouts, the frogs are plastic, I never have issues with shorts at the frog, the only issue I ever have with turnouts is with the points not properly aligned    I still think something happened inside the tender and burned itself open before the DCC system could detect the short. This locomotive was only 2 weeks old, the wheels were not even dirty yet, but I guess now I'll have to wait and see what Bachmann decides? 

The quarter trick is not an end all test of the breaker system. The quarter test is a hard short. If all it took was a completion of the circuit, setting a loco on the track would trip the breaker. I think the breakers trip around the 2-3 amp mark in a Digitrax system. A loco only draws around a quarter amp to a half at most. You can have a weak short which will not trip the breaker but will still heat up connections and wires. 2 amps through a truck will melt it in a heartbeat, it probably only took about an amp to melt the truck.

The breaker really trips on wattage, not just amperage but the combination of voltage and amperage. Lack of feeders makes the problem more evident because the wattage needed to overcome the breaker is not only being consumed by the loco but the resistance in the track leading to the loco. Our layout passed the quarter test at the points where the loco's failed, but they still failed there. The lack of feeders and weak connections lowered the voltage at the point of the short requiring more amp draw at the short to trip the breaker. The only way to finally discover the problem was with a RAMP meter.

 I'm not saying that there was not a problem with the loco but the reason it melted was lack of feeders. If there was a short anywhere in the loco, except the motor wires, and the breaker was working correctly, it would have shut down the system. Dead shorting the motor wires usually doesn't result in a total melt down though, it just blows the power output side of the decoder and shuts down the output of the decoder. I have a Tsunami that is that way right now. I am using it in conjunction with a standard decoder because the output side of it is toast. The sound works perfectly fine, just no motor output. The other decoder handles that.

[Rich_S]

Just received news from Bachmann today and the news is not good. Not sure if / or when I'll get my K4 back. Bachmann is out of K4's and when they do get a replacement sometime after the holidays, it may not be a 1361 Post War K4. I was also told they do not have parts to fix my K4. The only thing they did assure me of is, I'd get a new steam locomotive. He even offered me a Berkshire as a replacement for my K4. If I wanted a Berk, I would have purchased a Berk.  Don't get me wrong, the people at Bachmann were very friendly, but when push comes to shove, I purchased the locomotive I wanted. I'm not sure why they wouldn't put my shell on another K4 mechanism, but it sounded like that wasn't an option?

This in a nut shell is the problem with limited runs and it's not just a problem with Bachmann, but this little experience will make me think twice about purchasing another produce from Bachmann.

[Dave V]

Well, sh!t.

Fingers crossed that my two will keep working...

[peteski]

Looks like K4 proved to be even more popular than Bachmann estimated!

While this sucks for you, it might give Bachmann an idea that there are more SPFs out there than they thought (and they want their steam locos)!  So the silver lining here might be that Bachmann might produce more Pennsy steam. But that is a double-edge sword -- while more Pennsy steam models would be a good thing, do we really want Bachmann to make them? 

[Dave V]

@peteski, yeah, I hear ya...  I really do think, though, that unless Bachmann's doing it in HO, it's not doing it in N (for the most part...I can't think of any exclusively N locos they make), so I think you're safe.

Help me BLI, you're my only hope!

[Mike C]

 If they are able to send you a new K4 you can request that they send the old shell back to you . They have done that for me a couple years back .

[Rich_S]

Well, That is settled, I received a phone call from Bachmann today. Bachmann is sending me back my K4 broken, because they do not have parts to fix it! So much for a warranty, sure they offered me a Berkshire as a replacement, but like I told the woman on the phone, if I had wanted a Berkshire, I would have purchased a Berkshire. They also have no interest in buying back a few K4's from the hobby shops to use as parts engines. So basically as I see it, Bachmann took me for $250. I can't sue Bachmann for the lost money as I purchased the locomotive from a hobby shop. I will never purchase another Bachmann product again. Thirty years ago they were one of the worst manufactures in the model railroad business and it looks like they are headed that way again. Owners of Bachmann K4's beware!

 

[Kisatchie]

...I can't sue Bachmann for the lost money as I purchased the locomotive from a hobby shop....

I would imagine you could sue them for breach of warranty. Might be worth a shot for the price of the loco plus court costs and attorney fees.


Hmm... sez Kiz the lawyer.
Might try small claims
court (sez Dee the lawyer...

[Dave V]

Man, I don't know what to say.  I hope I didn't steer anyone wrong with my review of the loco for the N-Trak Newsletter.  At the time I wrote it everyone was wowed by its performance save two failures I knew about...my own and another with a thrown crankpin.

Victor is undoubtedly gloating, and he's earned the right to do so.

That said my two K4s are still running like champions.  I really hope they stay that way.

I don't have words when it comes to Bachmann not having parts to honor its own warranty.  They apparently can't send you a replacement K4 either?  WTF?

[Rich_S]

I would imagine you could sue them for breach of warranty. Might be worth a shot for the price of the loco plus court costs and attorney fees.


Hmm... sez Kiz the lawyer.
Might try small claims
court (sez Dee the lawyer...

I'm not a lawyer, maybe Dave could give us further insight, but I would guess their defense would be they offered me a Berkshire as a replacement. In their eyes it would be a comparable replacement. But the problem for me:
1) I have a small layout and I'm not sure a Berkshire would make it around my 10" Radius curve
2) Plan and simple a K4 was on my wish list a Berk was not.

In the long run, spending a five hundred to a thousand dollars to collect $250 is not in my current budget or schedule, it's a nice idea, but I don't think it's winnable and that's probably why Bachmann did not offer to refund my purchase price.