I agree with you, broadway has great customer service. I had to send off one of my paragon 4 santa fe mikados back to them. It wouldn't run right out of the box. They had it fixed within a month and sent it back. They replaced every gear in it. They're also really good with spare parts. I've bought a few broken engines off ebay and they sent the parts to fix them.
Love your channel, and hope you succeed on CZcams. From what I’ve seen, the people that put out content once a week, seem to do well as far as growing their channel.
Out of five models I've recently purchased, two had to go back for repair that had issues out of the box. First one was there for one week before being sent home after a decoder replacement. Second one has been there for almost a week now and has smoke unit and paint issues.
Imagine How bad this was during covid, I bought two and had to send back two times. After more than a year I was finally able to use them. BLI = No bueno in my book. Glad these worked out for him.
The reason the Tsunami decoder also burned out is likely due to a defective motor. I have five of these Baldwin units and I had to replace the decoder / motor combination in every one of them. This was back in mid-2020, so I am surprised that you were advised to make a decoder swap without also replacing the motor. Here is what the BLI tech told me about the motors specifically: "What I found with bench testing is that it can show an outright failure or a motor with a real consistent problem, but if there are repeated hard spikes of current from a carbon build up or some oil inside the motor that collected metal shavings - that will not show itself on the bench unless you have an oscilloscope because most systems are measuring amp draw as RMS - which is an average. The very very quick spikes that happen repeatedly and damage the motor control chip will not necessarily show up on the bench, and that's why we recommend doing both if the decoder shows lights and sounds, but no movement. There's a chance the 0.88A motor could kill the replacement decoder. The motors we use now have a varistor inside of them and they arrest any arcing/shorts/sparking before it would ever make it to the decoder."
Since I moved over seas and to half O from O, seems half the ho blogs & vlogs concern technical failures. My concern is how well if even, these things will run 15-20 years from now. Guessing of course, most O products to have a forty year life span or more.
I have several HO locomotives that are 50+ years old and most do run. The only one that doesn't is almost 70 and its commutator was already fried when I bought it. HO can last a long time, just like O.
I agree with you, broadway has great customer service. I had to send off one of my paragon 4 santa fe mikados back to them. It wouldn't run right out of the box. They had it fixed within a month and sent it back. They replaced every gear in it. They're also really good with spare parts. I've bought a few broken engines off ebay and they sent the parts to fix them.
Thanks for sharing and glad you had a happy ending after all the frustrations. A very handsome locomotive too.
Love your channel, and hope you succeed on CZcams. From what I’ve seen, the people that put out content once a week, seem to do well as far as growing their channel.
Broadway Limited does awesome work!
Excellent channel and great video!!! Your layout looks very similar to mine, just good ol fashion would with Kato track, I like it!!!
I gotten HO-400A boards for both of my A-B sets and the performance they had for running on 30 year old club layout trackside was impeccable.
Agreed...my experience with BLI has been excellent...from customer service, to parts, to repair/service department
Out of five models I've recently purchased, two had to go back for repair that had issues out of the box. First one was there for one week before being sent home after a decoder replacement. Second one has been there for almost a week now and has smoke unit and paint issues.
Imagine How bad this was during covid, I bought two and had to send back two times. After more than a year I was finally able to use them. BLI = No bueno in my book. Glad these worked out for him.
i love my broadway locos and there service repairs are the best
The reason the Tsunami decoder also burned out is likely due to a defective motor. I have five of these Baldwin units and I had to replace the decoder / motor combination in every one of them. This was back in mid-2020, so I am surprised that you were advised to make a decoder swap without also replacing the motor. Here is what the BLI tech told me about the motors specifically:
"What I found with bench testing is that it can show an outright failure or a motor with a real consistent problem, but if there are repeated hard spikes of current from a carbon build up or some oil inside the motor that collected metal shavings - that will not show itself on the bench unless you have an oscilloscope because most systems are measuring amp draw as RMS - which is an average. The very very quick spikes that happen repeatedly and damage the motor control chip will not necessarily show up on the bench, and that's why we recommend doing both if the decoder shows lights and sounds, but no movement.
There's a chance the 0.88A motor could kill the replacement decoder.
The motors we use now have a varistor inside of them and they arrest any arcing/shorts/sparking before it would ever make it to the decoder."
How does Broadway limited compare to Scale Trains in terms of quality ? Thank you 😊
Are you ever going to scenic your test track/layout? ;-)
Doubtful as long as im living here. Cant afford a house and dont want to have to redo my benchwork when I move
Since I moved over seas and to half O from O, seems half the ho blogs & vlogs concern technical failures. My concern is how well if even, these things will run 15-20 years from now. Guessing of course, most O products to have a forty year life span or more.
I have several HO locomotives that are 50+ years old and most do run. The only one that doesn't is almost 70 and its commutator was already fried when I bought it. HO can last a long time, just like O.
Where do you buy it?
This was an ebay find, these havent been in stores for a long time
So to be clear the RF-16s were never Tuscan Red in real life?
Correct. The BP-20 however did come in Tuscan