Bachmann 36-553 given up the ghost.

[Dan Griffin]

Hello all, 

 

I am in the process of boxing all my locos up for an impending house move, and have given each one a last blast round the old layout before its taken down. all was well until I tried to run my Hornby class 50, 50007.

 

it was completely dead.

 

I took the body off and the Bachmann 36-553 chip has had some of its plastic coating rubbed by the drive shaft but other than that it seemed all ok. I have removed the plastic shrink wrap and the chip is fine, no marks.

 

 I tried a different chip (another 36-553) and it worked fine, then when I replaced the dead chip the lights on the chassis flickered but that was it.

 

it wont even programme. the loco was in fine form last time she was ran, and has been stored in a plastic foam padded box with her class mates since. is it common for a decoder to just die?

 

all solder joints look good. and as she runs with a different chip, its not a problem with the pcb. any help or advice would be great.

 

thanks.

[amdaley]

Hi Dan.

All I can suggest is a reset on the program track.

Tony.

[Suzie]

It is quite common for the 36-553 decoders to get corrupted. If you can try a factory reset you might get it back to running.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

But we don't know that it happened 'spontaneously'. Some batches of this decoder were by common report apt to get corrupted by some DCC systems powering on or powering off. So that's a possible cause if the loco was on track after its run before storage, and the DCC system was switched off.

 

As already suggested a reset is the first port of call if a decoder is definitely on track power but not responding. However:

 

 

... I tried a different chip (another 36-553) and it worked fine, then when I replaced the dead chip the lights on the chassis flickered but that was it.

 

 So there is power to the decoder socket, and with a good decoder everything runs, so the problem is on the decoder.

 

The lights on the chassis flickered with the 'dead' decoder installed. That's suggestive of a broken connection, and the first place to look is from red and black plug pins to their wire terminals on the decoder board. If one of these has a dry or broken soldered joint, or the copper cores broken inside the insulation, that'll fully explain all the reported symptoms, decoder simply not on track power.

[Butler Henderson]

Its worth checking the track voltage when the system is powered up and down. I blew up a couple of point modules (thankfully still under goof proof warranty) with a Roco Multimouse using the Roco Transformer which spiked close to 30v on a DCC voltage meter set up. Swopped the transformer for a redundant laptop psu.

[Dan Griffin]

I took the decoder to trains4u today and had it tested. It was showing up as being there, no address could be read at all,  but isn't blown either so I assume one of the wires must be broken inside. im going to test hard wiring it and see how it goes. a replacement was bought and the 50 is now back to life.