Fault on Hornby Pendolino dummy car

[Powerhaul 70 Pey]

Hello everyone. After operating Hornby Pendolino set tonight after a while I noticed a short develop on the select controller. I could also smell an electrical burning smell. There was also a class 66 and 70 on the track so took them off to determine the short. I was the Pendolino dummy car as the short went when it was removed. I took off the body and checked the wiring which looked OK. I took out the decoder and placed it back on the track but the short was still there. I am thinking it could be the PCB or a bad section of wiring I can't see. There does appear to be a burn mark on the underside of the front bogie. Does anyone have any thoughts about what the fault could be please?

[srihaggis]

I had one do this to me but I can't remember what I did to sort it (it was a number of years ago). I do remember that the soldered joints to the bogies could be hit and miss, and break randomly.

 

If you have a multimetre go over the PCB to determine if anything is at a miss. As a general one I bought a Hornby 67 & randomly it would stop. Turns out one of the pick up wires wasn't soldered, 2 wires (left & right rail) were on the same axle, eg right rail), so would occasionally touch / short out, whilst it looked fine at first glance, look again.

[Powerhaul 70 Pey]

Thanks for your reply. The wiring that was visible did look OK with no broken connections. I will have another closer look at the wiring tomorrow. I think a new PCB is around £15 but just want to try to prove it is that first before I order one.

[Pete the Elaner]

If you have a multimetre go over the PCB to determine if anything is at a miss.

If you don't have one, go & buy one.

Switched into continuity checking mode, a multimeter will show you a fault by using a very small voltage which will be unlikely to damage anything.

I have bought a meter for as little as £5 in Asda before. It was not the most accurate of devices but perfectly adequate for identifying a short circuit.