Broadway Limited T1

[Randy Hein]

I would like to pose a question to the BLI T1 aficionados out there:  Does anyone know which wires can be jumpered (or otherwise modified) to convert the loco to straight DC?  I'm fine with bypassing the sound and lights if necessary, but would like to retain loco and tender pickup.  Or a recommendation of anyone who might offer this service.  I have not approached BLI about it but doubt if they would do it.

THANKS

[Chris333]

 Have no idea, just had to upvote for going DC. 

[learmoia]

What does the tender look like with the shell off?.. If they follow decoder protocol, Red and Black are track power, and Orange and Gray are Motor.. I think White and Blue are  frong headlight.. blue is common negative.

But I'm guessing it's all black wires...

[Randy Hein]

I haven't removed the shells, but looking at Spookshow's review they're not all black.  Doesn't look like they match protocol either.  Some blue, yellow, pink (could be photo lighting), & white.  Thanks Chris for the additional DC vote

[peteski]

I haven't taken mine apart yet, but why not trace the wires from the tender trucks and see where the end up at the drawbar harness?

[learmoia]

Interesting they hardwired between the loco and the tender..

So looking at the wires going between the tender and the loco..
We should have:
Motor +, -
Track +, -
Headlight +, -

In the tender (after you remove the decoder and speaker,  you should have power coming up from the trucks 1 truck is +, 1 is -, plus the wires coming from the loco.

Tie the tender power wires to the correct leads from the loco, then tie the motor to the power, and connect the headlight as well..

~Ian

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Before you straight pipe it, make sure the motor can handle 12 volts. The decoder MIGHT be cutting it down to something else (I doubt it, but ya never know).

[peteski]

Interesting they hardwired between the loco and the tender..

I'm not surprised at all. It is done that way in European locos which use a (permanently installed) Kinematic-type drawbar like the T1 does. The loco and tender are not designed to ever be separated, so they hardwire them.

[tracksentinel]

Here's my T-1 horror story.
Upon possession of the loco, I ran it around my layout a few times. Was immediately not happy with it's jerkiness and stalling randomly. Would not even pull 3 passenger cars up a 2% grade without slipping. Would not read back anything on my Prodigy Advance Squared system so any programming was done blindly without knowing if it even took. After a couple of evenings, the loco ran worse with stalling on turnouts and randomly stopping and resetting itself. then I put the loco on a piece of plate glass to see how level the wheels were. Voila! It teetered back and forth on 3 wheels. Bent frame? Bearing blocks installed incorrectly? I called BLI made the proper arrangements and shipped it back to them. $17.00 with insurance. Today I received what was told to me to be a brand new T-1. Put it on the track. Set throttle slowly up to step 8 for a slow cruise around the layout. So far so good. About 3 minutes in, I increased throttle to 12. No change. 15. No change. 18. No change. 28. No change. 0. Kept running. As I realized I no longer had control over this loco I went to take it off the track. Before I could reach it, it made a nasty snapping shorting sound and stopped.
Dead.
No headlight. No sound. No throttle response. No readback.
Nothing...
So. $265.00 plus $17.00 to ship to BLI the first time. Still have no running example of a quality product.  What would you guys do? I am demanding a refund from them. We'll see how that goes. Either way. Never again BLI for me. Worst comes to worst, I'll buy a decoder that actually works for this thing and fix it myself.

[peteski]

Here's my T-1 horror story.
...
So. $265.00 plus $17.00 to ship to BLI the first time. Still have no running example of a quality product.  What would you guys do? I am demanding a refund from them. We'll see how that goes. Either way. Never again BLI for me. Worst comes to worst, I'll buy a decoder that actually works for this thing and fix it myself.

Sorry to hear about your problem.  I have not had much time on mine (it ran crappy too) but I believe that some of these locos have problems picking up electricity (maybe the wheel blackening layer and the poorly adjusted pickups on the tender). Intermittent pickup could cause the decoder from become unresponsive.  But it sounds like yours might be beyond that point.

[rrjim1]

Talk about bad luck, hard to believe you received two defective locos. I would think that BLI would foot the bill to return your second loco, pretty good customer service. Mine as well as a couple of my friends T1s have all ran great right out of the box.

[CodyO]

Mine is still running great and easy pulls 12’ trains!

I’ve actually never ran into an issue with BLI.

[chicken45]

Yeah that sucks that people are having issues with them.
I've only ever had issues with my centepedes. My M1s are champions. I haven't run the T's enough but they run great thus far.

[cbroughton67]

Mine ran pretty choppy at first - random stalls, etc. After thoroughly cleaning the tender wheels and drivers, and adjusting the slightly-too-tight gauge of the drivers, I let run for an hour on the layout. No problems. Sounds like a similar issue that the Atlas S2 had. I'm happy with mine. I did swap the speaker for a sugar cube w/enclosure, which was a nice improvement. I just need to get around to weathering it, now, and build a few P70's a'la @Lemosteam .

With the NW2 coming out, they can obviously squeeze sound into tight spaces. I wonder if they've considered doing a PRR B6sb with sound?

[Lemosteam]

Speaking of the T1, the etched front grilles are now on their way to me.  I will announce them with pricing if fit and testing goes as planned.

I also have proven a color match to the BLI paint that I will share in the announcement as well.

Here is a pic of the pant match on the first etch which unfortunately did not etch through, next set solves that.