What "kills" a locomotive PC board?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I might have gone for the mechanical explanation, but I was able to freely turn the drive by hand.

Furthermore, the motor will not run in reverse even when disconnected from the drive (as in, spinning freely). It turns freely by hand, but not under power.

In any case, take out the brushes, clean out the motor with compressed air ( air from an airbrush will work for example), and before re-installing (new) brushes, feel if it rotates ok in both directions. Look for physical damage. If all is well , a few drops of lube on the motor 'bearings' and you can try again.


Koos

The bad news is there is no way to gain access to the interior of the motor without damaging it. The good news is that a new motor costs $4. The real price is the PC board, but the more I think of it, the more unecessary it seems. I might be better off hardwiring the thing, and maybe adding some weight in its place. The only loss of function would be the loss of pantograph power, but thats not something I use anyway.

Test the engine by removing the decoder and replacing it with the "plug" that came with the engine. It should run. Rarely will a motor burn out due to a faulty decoder.
B'mann decoders aren't worth a pitcher of warm spit. I have several B'mann engines and before I test them I replace them with the DC plug that should have come with the engine. If the engine works OK with DC, the mechanics are OK.
Once the testing is done with, I install a Digitrax decoder, do a preliminary "program", and go from there.

Hope this helps.

Actually, the decoder was a TCS DP2X, which is fairly reliable. I did try running the engine on DC with the DC jumper plug installed, and it had all the problems outlined in the first post.