Whatsit?

[haasmarc]

This conversation is very timely.  I was at the Oklahoma City train show and was talking to a buddy of mine who is a vendor.  He said he won't even sell BLI locos anymore because of the pick-up issues.  I told him that I had some issues but they weren't too bad.  He said the Centipedes were really bad and I said mine ran fine.  Well I got home and hadn't run my Centipedes in over a year so I thought I would see if they still ran.  Nope, not a single one would run.  They would spool up and just start to move and then stop dead.  I was getting really ticked off cause I had 6 of them.  I took the first one apart and used a wire wheel to remove the blackening from the axle ends and polished up the phosphor bronze pickup strips.  Then after a good cleaning I applied a small amount of Deoxit Gold on the contact surfaces.

They run great now.  I will have to let them sit for a while and see it they keep on running.

[Sharky_McSharknose]

To expand on what Marc said, I found this video very helpful with reducing the pickup issues on my Centipedes and PAs. My poison is CRC 2-26.

Since I mentioned it earlier, I may as well deliver my findings on the PCM E7's decoder interface - it's the 21MTC version of the Loksound V3.5. Upgrading it to Loksound V5 21MTC should be simple as long as the two 50 ohm speakers are replaced with a 4-to-16 ohm speaker(s).

[haasmarc]

I made one more change to my Centipedes.  I added a Micro-Trains retarder spring between the wheel and the phosphor pick-up strip on all 4 corners of each truck.  I can run the set of engines at speed step 1 for over an hour with barely a hiccup.

[dem34]

Such a weird way of doing pickup, glad they seem to have figured this stuff out with their latest releases. Thanks, going to add this to my growing list of projects.

[diezmon]

So, an update on this guy.    I had a spare digitrax sound decoder sitting around(I know, i know), so I threw it in there.  Doesn't sound half bad with a good speaker.   Maybe at some point I'll put an ESU in there.

I have to give kudos to BLI.  Their electrical pickup sucks, but their support does not.   I emailed them about the spare parts for this unit and they were incredibly helpful.  I now have grills, windshield, and three non-traction axles to put in there.

As a test I put one of the non-traction wheels in my other unit, and it helped a lot.  So I'll replace them all.

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[DeltaBravo]

I have to give kudos to BLI.  Their electrical pickup sucks, but their support does not.   I emailed them about the spare parts for this unit and they were incredibly helpful.  I now have grills, windshield, and three non-traction axles to put in there.

As a test I put one of the non-traction wheels in my other unit, and it helped a lot.  So I'll replace them all.


[/quote]

I will second you on the BLI customer support. After following this thread I reached out about a PA Paragon 2 I have and they very kindly sent me the non traction axle free of charge. I really wish they made their boards to be plug and play so I could swap them for ESU decoders.