TT Scale. The Ideal Scale.

Hi -
has anybody had bad experiences with loco wiring and remedies? By that, I have a Zeuke Gutzold E11 with horrible bent wires as wheel pickups, with rather casually placed wires pushed into the shim electrical conductors down the sides. In one direction what happens is loco moves forward, lifts front bogie, loses power, drops bogie, gets power again, moves forward, lifts front bogie etc etc -
Before I go getting into messy modifications, has anyone else similar? - It's a pity, because the running really is very good when it's being good...
Cheers
Muir

Hey Muir, welcome to the board! Can you put up a pic or two of the pickups / bogies?

I have had a lot of experience with bad wiring in many gauges. I would have to say that the worst that I have seen, has been the wiring on American Flyer locomotives. I have seen some horrible factory wiring on them, but then when you consider where they were made, the shoddy electrical work should be of little surprise.

I have a Zeuke "Crocodile" that has some wiring issues that has been fixed up nicely, one of the pick-ups was not seated right, and there was a poor solder joint leading to the motor. Overall, I have had only a few TT locos with wiring issues, and even the worst case engines have not been all that hard to fix.

AngrySailor302 wrote:Overall, I have had only a few TT locos with wiring issues, and even the worst case engines have not been all that hard to fix.

Same here. I have two of the old E11 / 211s and have not experienced any problems. That's why I'd like to see some pics of the problem area - to get a better understanding of what's going on there.

I know exactly the pick ups you're talking about. The issue with these is that they are not very robust and the wheel would eventually wear through the wire. What ends up happening is that the pick up then (sort of) pokes into the wheel rather than resting on top of it. The easiest fix is to get some firm wire and rebuild the pickup making sure that it extends a couple of millimeters past the top of the wheel.

Welcome to the site, Muir!

Thanks everybody - apologies 'bout the tardy reply.
ended up the wire pick-ups on one bogie were either not contacting he wheels, and when they were - they didn't contact the shim on the frame... having to make new ones then hopefully....