My new MTH silver R-11's [20-2933-1]developed a short circuit with less than 1 hours run time on them. the problem was diagnosed to the motor car. it seems the wire coming from front truck, [the one with the electro-coupler] center rail roller hot lead inside the carbody was rubbing against the frame slot causing the insulation to be cut, thus causing the short. i had to remove the body shell, and inner shell to access the electronics. remove the screw holding the red wire to the truck. remove the wire and grommet, repair the cut wire and bend the grommet up 90 degress to prevent this from re-occurring.
the pictures are not great but show the problem area...

I pointed out this issue here - http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve...41028214/m/713104332

The r-40s also had the same problem. You could of saved yourself some time if you had read the post more carefully! Glad you caught it before you fried your board. Everyone with this set needs to carefully check that wire.


From the above link:

I picked up my sets yesterday and am highly impressed. MTH really has improved on each subway run. I paired up my R-34's with my R-32 original premier sets and noticed that the R-11/34's ride noticeably closer to their trucks. The R-32's ride slightly higher and have a "gap" between the truck and the body. I've never noticed that until now. The finish on the R-11/34s is also the best yet for MTH and the interiors lack glue smudges where the windows attach on the interior as in prior models.

After operating each set for over an hour, I opened up the motor cars and installed BCR-2 battery replacements (I don't want to deal with batteries down the road). After inspecting the interior, I noticed that on one of the motor cars, a roof light was not seated properly and had slightly melted the inner shell just below the light. As such, I repositioned all lights and placed small strips of reflective tape on the semicircle "seat" just below the light. I also noticed that the reflective "heat shield" placed on the roof of the motor car was very thin and had visible warping at some of the light points. I do not trust that this will protect the roof from melting over the long-term, so I installed additional strips of reflective tape on the roof as an added cushion. Having had 2 prior models suffer roof bubbles from the heat of the bulbs, I strongly recommend you do this to your model. On one set I also noticed that the red wire connecting to the truck below the motor car had become frayed and was exposing the wire. It seemed to be rubbing against the lower metal body frame when turning on my 0-54 track. I fixed this with some electrical tape but recommend that you inspect your sets for this as well. My R-40 suffered a similar failure after 1000 hours of operation. It looked like this model would have failed considerably earlier.

Strap...i remembered your post in the back of my mind when the problem occurred...so this was the first place i looked and you were correct.
i just re posted it to keep it fresh so others would know where to look if they had a problem with the R-11's.
i never had this problem with the R-40's but i will definately check the motor car out this week end
Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by MRCRRTECH:
My new MTH silver R-11's [20-2933-1]developed a short circuit with less than 1 hours run time on them. the problem was diagnosed to the motor car. it seems the wire coming from front truck, [the one with the electro-coupler] center rail roller hot lead inside the carbody was rubbing against the frame slot causing the insulation to be cut, thus causing the short. i had to remove the body shell, and inner shell to access the electronics. remove the screw holding the red wire to the truck. remove the wire and grommet, repair the cut wire and bend the grommet up 90 degress to prevent this from re-occurring.
the pictures are not great but show the problem area...

Frank,

FYI - I just finished reading and responding to a similar problem on a RK F-3 diesel set over on the "MTH Railroader" Yahoo forum.

I had the same problem on my RK FA-2 diesel which wound up to be quite expensive for me as MTH had to replace a failed PS2 board.



Perhaps MTH should consider a soft plastic ring the size and shape of the base frame slot opening with a groove or channel to force-fit over the sharp metal edges. I've seen these on cars and office machines where wires and hoses pass through and it would certainly go a long way to prevent this type of problem.

Tom

Frank, Tom, pretty funny, right down to the same Red wire. This is sloppy design work. MTH should take note and slip on some wire shrink wrap or other protection for this. Until then, everyone needs to inspect their newer MTH engines and shore this up. Frank and I were lucky not to short out the PS-2 board, unlike you Tom.

they could use a rubber grommet to pass the red wire through to add a bit more protection,or extend that shrink wrap from the connector all the way up past the frame.
Strap...the reason i think i was lucky is because the breaker was tripping on my power pack very quickly and shutting the R-11 down

Just received my set of 20-2934-1 R-11/34 blue doors yesterday.
gave it a quick Q.C. run around the layout to make sure all functions worked on conventional and DCS. I will open up the motor car this weekend before i run it anymore to check the wiring coming from the front truck to make sure there is adequate clearance on the hot roller pick up wire and the sheet metal frame. we don't wasnt a repeat of the shorting problem

well i finally got around to checking the 20-2934-1 set this weekend.
i opened up the power car and straightened out the wiring so no shorts occur before running them.
but there is a glitch to this one...
if you use the station stop mode/auto mode in conventional, [bell-horn-horn], it will only stop at two station stops, glide to a silent halt, and power down, although there is track power, and the ammter and volt meter shows normal the train is deader than a door nail, only powering down the track track, waiting a few seconds and re-powering the track will bring it back to life. it does this all the time in the station stop/auto mode.
but here's the kicker...using my DCS Commander the problem does not occur in the station stop/auto mode...anyone have any ideas?
i've contacted MTH for answers

MRC, I tried recreating that on my blue door set. It works fine. I think that may be somethink unique to your set. Let us know how it works out.

Strap,
the power car is already on it's way back to MTH.
hopefully they wil fix the problem