Garden Railway Forum

I have a Roundhouse Charles, the new 2012 version, and I have discovered that a bolt on the gearing mechanism hits the rod from the servo to the gear lever.



It is quite hard to discover. The best way is to place the engine upside down, turn on the RC transmitter and receiver, put the gear in forward position and then turn the wheels and see. The servo might start to buzz when the rod is pushed back by the bolt.

Via my local dealer I have received a new rod from Roundhouse, but it is quite equally shaped and gives the same problem. Luckily Roundhouse has been smart and foreseen enough to enclose an unshaped rod, so I have now made my own moving the S-bend about 5 mm further back. I can't see any other way to adjust it. Adjusting the servo arm and thus the whole rod further back will displace the gear lever positions.

As I guess Roundhouse has a template they use to shape the rod, I'm now wondering if anybody else have the same problem on their Charles loco?

My Charles is November 2012 and all is fine when in forward gear. The gap is about 2mm.

I have one which is ok could be a small build error, I suppose were all human.

Looks like the original rod that hits has a tweak in it. Look at the bottom of the pic, the end of the rod is not parallel to the frame as in the one that works properly. A slight bend with some needlenose pliers would fix it up...

The rod needs bending back to position, to clear nut. Need a couple of pairs of small pliers to remedy it. Might need to slacken at servo arm.

Thanks for your response. Sounds like it is only my engine. Anyway, as mentioned the problem is solved, and it required a total reshape of the rod.