Engines Issues ....


It's all about clean wheels and track Tony.
I would be careful using Acetone near any of the plastic. It will distort any plastic it comes into contact with, i.e. ties, wheel axles, plastic bodies etc.
 
D&J RailRoad said:
It's all about clean wheels and track Tony.
I would be careful using Acetone near any of the plastic. It will distort any plastic it comes into contact with, i.e. ties, wheel axles, plastic bodies etc.
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Thanks and yep I know that acetone and plastic is not particularly compatible. I run acetone in my CMX car for the track work with it only just keeping the cleaning pad "moist/damp" so no acetone is "flowing every where", and a little on a paper towel for cleaning the wheels.

migalyto said:
Tony,

The FVM locomotives seem to need a lot of run time, and break in. Keep cleaning, and running. Keep with it.
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Mike, not going to give up on the FVM, at least not now that I have it moving. I'll persevere and just run the "hell out of it" until it decides to play by MY rules :)

Iron Horseman said:
Chaos Theory personified.
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Absolutely :)
 
Okay, so after spending much of the evening "playing" with this thing, cleaning it, lubricating it, it finally runs and runs pretty well. It isn't a Kato BUT it is now running and the longer it runs, the better it seems to be going.


Initially I needed to set my throttle to a setting of 20 to get it to move. I then, after periods of ten minutes of running, was able to reduce the setting on the throttle and now have it motoring along at a throttle setting of 10 in both forward and reverse. Obviously, these FVM's need a bit of run in time so as said, the longer it runs, the better it seems to run.
 
That's the plan and what I have been doing so far, now about half an hour in either direction. Funnily enough, the thing runs even better with a few cars attached to it ?????
 
Iron Horseman said:
Truck mounted couplers? Doesn't look like it from the video.
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You are correct Horseman, they are not truck mounted couplers.

migalyto said:
Tony,

How’s the slow speed on it? Did that get any better?
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Still not all that great. Where my Kato engines will start to move with my throttle set to "1" the FVM doesn't seem to want to start until the throttle is set to around "4" or "5" and it needs at least "8" to run consistently.

I ran it for an hour or so, in both directions, last night and for the first half to 3/4 of an hour it ran nicely; after that, it started hesitating and stalling again. I am getting frustrated with this thing and think I will just buy a Kato SD70/SD70M/SD70MAC or even an SD70eAC.
 
Tony,

Are you the original owner? If you are than it may be time to send it back to Fox Valley, you shouldn’t have to mess with it the much to get it to run right! We know it’s not Kato quality, but it should still be able to run acceptable.
 
Mike, yep bought it new from an LHS; although I can't recall which one at this point. Only thing I did was install the decoder, which was easy.

Your right, even though I am not all that proficient with DCC and Engine Maintenance, it shouldn't be this hard to get a brand new, out of the box, engine to run properly. I think you are also right about giving FVM a call, or send them an email, explaining the issues and see what they say. If they only make excuses or say they can't do anything then I'll use it as a "practice engine" for various things, buy the Kato version and right this thing off as a bad experience.
 
Thanks Mike and hope what you have read is right. Regardless of whether I get this engine to work or not, I am sceptical of its longevity so will be buying myself a Kato variant. Worse case scenario, if you want to call it that, is I have two SD70 variants :)
 
What brand of decoder do you have in it, sometimes they need some tweaking of the start voltage (V-start) and forward/reverse trim in order to get them rolling @ speed step1.
 
Toot'n,

It is a TCS Drop In and yep, I have the peed step set to 1 the same as my Kato engines. Wish it had have been that easy a fix mate ...
 
Update, contacted FVM and they agree that something seems to be wrong and told me to return the engine to them for inspection and repair, so that is my plan at this point.
 
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