# Piko Engines Trouble? *UPDATE* 11/29/17!!



## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

Hey guys,

I need some help.... I'm going to link a few videos, I hope you can bear to watch, and I ask that you excuse my talking, I was kinda getting upset. I have bought 3 Piko items and out of the 3 all are defective. First, my B&O engine has to go back because of a bad motor. Today I get a 2-6-0 Mogul and I get a strange noise when I turn the smoke on. Also, while running, it randomly will make the same noise. It almost sounds like interference. Any ways, if you can view and post your opinions I'd appreciate it. Piko-America is saying that is the normal startup for the smoke unit. I say bogus!

First up.. the B&O and it's noises. PS.. everything has been oiled! So it's not an issue of something needing oil.






Next up, the wonderful smoke start up noise from the mogul: - excuse all my talking and the Christmas music!





Here it randomly does the sound as I'm running it starts at 0:04:





Please watch and let me know.

Piko is saying there is nothing wrong as far as the Mogul, they are stating that since it's on the floor it's going to be louder, and once I add the chuff sound I won't hear it. I even turned up my chuff sound and I can still hear it.. it's annoying!

Thanks for all the help!!!

Steve


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

*The smoke unit sounds like the fluid is breaking bubbles/converting liquid to gas in the smoke tube. I have heard this noise in LGB locos esp when running hot as LGB used as much as 6.8 volts in some engines for the 5 volt smoke unit. So this is not a defect. And yes, it is quite loud in some of my LGB locos.*


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*pop*



Dan Pierce said:


> *The smoke unit sounds like the fluid is breaking bubbles/converting liquid to gas in the smoke tube. I have heard this noise in LGB locos esp when running hot as LGB used as much as 6.8 volts in some engines for the 5 volt smoke unit. So this is not a defect. And yes, it is quite loud in some of my LGB locos.*


Hi Dan.. 

Thanks.. I don't think you watched the video.  I know of the pop noise when the smoke starts, but you can't even hear that in the video.. you hear the tender / decoder make a strange interference, like noise that is kinda loud. That's the noise I'm talking about, and it randomly does it while it's running. It will make that noise as long as the smoke is set to on. When it's off it doesn't appear to make the noise.

Steve


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## pete (Jan 2, 2008)

Where did you purchase these engines from. Are they new or used. Pete


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

Trainworld. Both were brand new neverr opened


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## WillemD (Jul 23, 2015)

The sound of the Mogul is not normal, and should be checked/returned. "Turn on your sound so you don't hear it" is not the right advice, and you should not agree with that. When you disable sound, it shouldn't make any sounds, period. Don't let you tell otherwise.

About the 0-6-0, did it squeak like that when you got it? Did it get worse with time? You say you oiled it, where did you put oil? What oil did you use? There is also the thing of using too much oil/grease, which may damage your loco. I once experimentally destroyed a PIKO motor by applying too much oil, and it made exactly the same sound as your unit is making right now.


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

The 0-6-0 didn't at first. I only added like one drop here and there. Piko told me it was the bearings to oil them. One drop and the sound is getting worse.

Mogul is going back


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Steve;

I regret that your first venture into large scale has resulted in two malfunctioning locomotives. I only have one Piko locomotive, the 0-6-0 Reading camelback. Mine has DCC, but it is "smart" enough to recognize DC power input and act accordingly. I don't run it with the smoke on when it is being used as the "snack train" during the Christmas holidays, but I have never noticed the sound on your video when the smoke was turned on. (The smoke is turned off as folks don't seem to like their snacks "flavored" with model train smoke.) 










My locomotive blows two long toots on the whistle before it starts to move forward, three short toots when backing up. The chugging is appropriate to the speed. It also blows a short toot before stopping when the power is shut off. I can use magnets to activate the bell and a grade crossing signal. I am only including that so you may know what the 2-6-0 SHOULD sound like. I hope you can get these difficulties resolved to your satisfaction.

Regards,
David Meashey


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

Steve, what controller are you using. Is it a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) type?
They can cause some sound boards to make weird noises. 

Andrew


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*Piko*



Garratt said:


> Steve, what controller are you using. Is it a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) type?
> They can cause some sound boards to make weird noises.
> 
> Andrew


Hi Andrew..

It's whatever Digital system that Piko has that comes in the B&O Digital set. 

Hope this helps.

Steve


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*Toot!*



Dave Meashey said:


> Steve;
> 
> I regret that your first venture into large scale has resulted in two malfunctioning locomotives. I only have one Piko locomotive, the 0-6-0 Reading camelback. Mine has DCC, but it is "smart" enough to recognize DC power input and act accordingly. I don't run it with the smoke on when it is being used as the "snack train" during the Christmas holidays, but I have never noticed the sound on your video when the smoke was turned on. (The smoke is turned off as folks don't seem to like their snacks "flavored" with model train smoke.)
> 
> ...


How do you set it to do the Auto Toots??

Thanks


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

"How do you set it to do the Auto Toots??"

Steve;

The dcc decoder factory-built into my locomotive automatically does the forward, reverse, and stop signals. The bell and crossing signal whistle are activated by magnets placed on a track tie (I use 3M blue poster putty to hold my magnets to the tie). I forget which is which, but right side inside the rail and left side inside the rail will throw a reed switch on a tender truck to ring the bell or blow the crossing whistle signal. I used the strong magnets "harvested" from old Panasonic Sonicare toothbrushes. These magnets are almost invisible once mounted on a track tie.

There is no "setting" involved, at least not by me.

Sincerely,
David Meashey


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*Okay*



Dave Meashey said:


> "How do you set it to do the Auto Toots??"
> 
> Steve;
> 
> ...


That's cool then, nothing to set. The mogul doesn't have that. I was going to get the camelback first, but opted for the cheaper Mogul instead. Now with all the trouble I'm having with the 2 loco's I have and trainworld doing nothing, and Piko says nothing wrong.. which there is, I probably won't be buying anything new and probably will close this chapter of life and move on, maybe back to HO scale.

Steve


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

I thought Piko was close to LGB standards. lol.. I'm way off. I just bought 1 combine car and 2 passenger coaches. The only thing that wasn't broken this time was the Combine car. One of the passenger cars had a wood stove bouncing around inside, I'll glue this once I get glue. The other passenger car is actually built wrong making the roof and road name bend upward. lol probably not fixable. lol PIKO is a joke. I wanted to refuse this shipment, but missed the mail person. Still fighting Piko on the Mogul issue.


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## WillemD (Jul 23, 2015)

To put things in perspective: I have/had about 30 PIKO items, and I only had trouble with the very early locomotives. PIKO acknowledged the problems, and improved a lot since then.

Seems like you're having some very bad luck. Are you sure you are receiving brand new products? Were the boxes sealed (one on each side)?


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*trouble*



WillemD said:


> To put things in perspective: I have/had about 30 PIKO items, and I only had trouble with the very early locomotives. PIKO acknowledged the problems, and improved a lot since then.
> 
> Seems like you're having some very bad luck. Are you sure you are receiving brand new products? Were the boxes sealed (one on each side)?


Yup, they are brand new, sealed with original round dot tap on each side. The set was bought from a place in MD, the Mogul Trainworld, both were new.. But this is now in day 3 of trouble shooting, Jonathan from Piko is still trying to trouble shot the Mogul instead of saying send it in let us look at it.. it's more of.. the engine is fine.. and I know it's not. I have checked and did everything as far as keeping anything electrical away from it. and it still makes that odd sound as long as the smoke is turned on. So, I'm a little ticked off about that, trainworld will do nothing, and I'm broke now with two engines that don't work, and now have to try and scrounge around for money to send them back to be looked at.

Got the passenger car fixed, was easy.

Steve


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

I will reply here to your private massage. I have experience with several Piko locomotives equipped with DCC and have not heard what you are getting.


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Note for track magnets: left rail is bell, Right rail is whistle, a standard set by LGB I believe.


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## tomplatten (Sep 12, 2008)

I have three Piko 0-6-0 saddletankers purchased about three years ago. I did not pay that much for them so I can't be too finicky. I found their nylon gear trains were weak and would strip. I received replacement gear and got them all running but I do not have them pull very long trains. If they have not made any improvements to those gears, I would NOT consider them to be reliable "long term".


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

Also the rods are held onto the wheels with press in plastic fake bolts. The sideplay of the wheels is so great that the 'bolts' can interfere with the rods. 
The sound units are not the best sounding and they do have some strange 'extra' noises.

Andrew


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*Thanks!*



Treeman said:


> I will reply here to your private massage. I have experience with several Piko locomotives equipped with DCC and have not heard what you are getting.


Hi!!

Thanks for the response. Yeah, all of my HO stuff is DCC/Sound and I have never heard anything like that. I contacted Piko-America (will withhold names, because I think he's mad at me.) They tried trouble shooting it, for 5 days rather then just saying send it in and let us look at it. I don't know if you saw the videos, but it was odd. Update though. Piko-America finally I guess had enough of my emails and sent call tags for both engines to look at. But will not respond to any of my questions on their products or technical questions.

To me, not the best in business. I had a heck of a time with my HO BLI stuff, and they supported their products 100% I had several NEW engines that had to be sent back because items were broken, or the smoke wasn't working. They sent call tags for every single one of them. By the time I was done, I knew all their names. But yet, they still answered questions and acknowledge problems. Should probably just stick with HO.

Thanks again, and hopefully Piko will see whats going on the with both locos.

Steve


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*Piko*



tomplatten said:


> I have three Piko 0-6-0 saddletankers purchased about three years ago. I did not pay that much for them so I can't be too finicky. I found their nylon gear trains were weak and would strip. I received replacement gear and got them all running but I do not have them pull very long trains. If they have not made any improvements to those gears, I would NOT consider them to be reliable "long term".



Thanks for that note!! Yeah I don't know why it's making that noise, I'm hearing it could be a bad motor, it's on it's way back to PIKO to be fixed, so hopefully they'll tell me what was wrong with it.

Steve


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*cheap?*



Garratt said:


> Also the rods are held onto the wheels with press in plastic fake bolts. The sideplay of the wheels is so great that the 'bolts' can interfere with the rods.
> The sound units are not the best sounding and they do have some strange 'extra' noises.
> 
> Andrew


Are you trying to say they are cheap? lol.. would explain the little lower price then LGB, but some of their stuff is expensive as well. This is my first experience with large scale other then LGB, and it almost has me turned off on buying anything else G scale. Just wish LGB never went under.

Steve


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

Steve, My comment was about the first issue of the Piko saddle Tanks which had small spaced wheels. Piko re-released the same model with a different chassis, same wheelbase but bigger wheels therefore closer to each other. I think other Piko models share the same newer chassis. I have not inspected the newer chassis which I suspect is an improved version. 

Andrew


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*Piko*



Garratt said:


> Steve, My comment was about the first issue of the Piko saddle Tanks which had small spaced wheels. Piko re-released the same model with a different chassis, same wheelbase but bigger wheels therefore closer to each other. I think other Piko models share the same newer chassis. I have not inspected the newer chassis which I suspect is an improved version.
> 
> Andrew


Thanks for clarifying. I have a long list of Piko stuff I want, but Im not sure if they are for me. I think I ticked Piko America off, because I bought two engines and had trouble with both. Seems any email I send them now go unanswered.

Thanks again, I do like the saddle tanks.. though.

Steve


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Don't rely on E-mail. 
Use a phone, you will get a better response.
Many companies forget they have it, it seems.
This advice is true for many of our companies, better to get a name!

Better Luck,
John


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## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

I would say the sound in the first one is the BEMF at the low speed. Try shutting that off with your digital system--you'll have to look it up or ask Jonathan how to do that. Another option is to try it in analog mode with a regular DC transformer and see if it disappears--I'm betting it will. As for the sound quirks in the Mogul that is definitely not normal.


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*email*



Totalwrecker said:


> Don't rely on E-mail.
> Use a phone, you will get a better response.
> Many companies forget they have it, it seems.
> This advice is true for many of our companies, better to get a name!
> ...


Hi John,

I don't like phones. lol I usually do the email thing. I had no problems at first, they actually responded within minutes of my first few emails, and I know he was getting upset when I was trying to tell him there is something wrong with the Mogul. I even had to shut everything down in the room to make sure there was no interference . I've never heard of that. lol Hopefully, I'll hear something after the T-Day.

Thanks

Steve


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*mogul*



Cougar Rock Rail said:


> I would say the sound in the first one is the BEMF at the low speed. Try shutting that off with your digital system--you'll have to look it up or ask Jonathan how to do that. Another option is to try it in analog mode with a regular DC transformer and see if it disappears--I'm betting it will. As for the sound quirks in the Mogul that is definitely not normal.


Hi CRR,

Thanks for confirming my suspicions on the Mogul, after about a week, Jonathan finally gave in and said it was too hard to troubleshoot with my videos, he sent a call tag for the Mogul and the Saddle Tank, they should have both engines by this Wednesday, so hopefully they'll be able to fix it. Actually.. I think I would suffice for an apology rather having them fixed. A nice little, "Sorry, you were right there is something wrong with your item." 

But anyways, I'll be happy to get them back hopefully in perfect working order. I'm still debating on my purchase of the Piko camelback, not sure I want to take a chance.

Thanks again. and I will ask him about the BEMF..

Steve


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

*Update 11/29/16*

Hello EVERYONE!

As you all know.. I've had trouble with my first two Piko Engines.. my third one is on the way.. I hope I don't have trouble with it.... Anyways.. I had to send both in for repair, Piko America was nice enough to pay for shipping them in for repairs. Today I heard from them!! I didn't get any news on the Saddle Tank, but I did get a lot of news on the PRR Mogul!! Below is a clip from an email I received from them on the strange sound issue when turning on the smoke unit on the Mogul.

"So I was going to give the instruction to send you a replacement loco, but I thought I should test that one myself before it went out, just to be sure it was perfect in every way.
Much to my surprise, it had the same issue.

So I have already had a couple conversations today with the tech people at SoundTraxx. I forwarded them the links to your videos. Their thoughts were similar to mine - that something on this particular model is causing electrical interference. That's very puzzling, because other than being built in a different production run and having Pennsy paint on the outside, these locos are electrically the same as thousands of other PIKO Moguls. It's also odd that we haven't had reports of this before." Then he goes into reasons they haven't heard of this before...

So anyways.. the Mogul looks to be out for a few, so I'm glad I'm getting my new engine this week. I'll have g-scale running again!! Also happy that Piko is working with me on this. They are an AWESOME group of people!!

Thought you all would like to know!

Steve


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## 2poor4Gscale (Oct 29, 2016)

Still have not heard what's going on with the SaddleTank..


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