Technical

OK, so I had a few minutes to spare so ended up in the workshop and thought i would run my A4 Mallard. It's onlt been steamed once before and I had veiwed the club video a few weeks ago.

I made up a rolling road out of a power straight and a short straight the allowed the driving wheels to run free, filled it with water (00 live steam from the show).

I remeoved all the body work from the tender and loco, filled with water and a small amount of oil as recommended.

Connected everything up and set it on full power to heat up. the green LED was on, I remembered the proper way was the red LED on on heat up.

Anyway after a few minutes the engine set off at quite a speed, I fiddled with the controls in an effort to slow it down and did manage to get it to stop. Could not seem to reverse it tho.

Ran out of water, shut it off and allowed it to cool a bit while rewatching the video, refilled and tried again, two things beacame obvious:-

1) The regulator motor only runs in one direction.

2) The lever on the controller only works in one direction.

if i go to the right the motor rotates and move the regulator, if I move the lever to the left the motor does not move neither if i hold it to the left, after 4 or five clicks then the red light (on the controller) goes outand the voltage remains constant until I turn it off and on again to reset it..the LED's do work but its kind of random.

Any ideas anyone ?

TIA

Sam