Have I damaged Santa trolley?

[van5]

My daughter's Santa trolley ( LGB21011 Marklin 14025839 ) is required to run at a church Christmas tree festival for 3 days but when we took it out of the box it would run for only a few seconds. I searched out the parts diagram and the nearest was 21013. Cutting a LONG story very short when I applied power direct to the motor the machine functioned well. There was intermittent continuity between the wheels and the motor C terminal. The fault lay on the blind side of the connection board (18), I cannot get to the circuit side and do not know what is on that board, perhaps a capacitor or resistor?

I have soldered a fine wire between the exposed solder pads on the duff side on the connector block 18 and the trolley runs well.
What have I bypassed and does it matter?

 

[Neil Robinson]

What have I bypassed and does it matter?

Short answer, I don't know and probably not.
I suggest you measure the current taken if you can do this easily, if not don't worry. You may get further reassurance if you can check that there isn't any interference with nearby radios or TVs.

 

[Sean.]

Always try the simple things first..
Is the track clean ?
Are the wheels clean ?

 

[PhilP]

Always try the simple things first..
Is the track clean ?
Are the wheels clean ?

And the backs of the wheels, were any carbon brushes rub..

 

[van5]

[
Thank you, I said that it was a LONG story,.
Track eliminated using a rolling road, all contact surfaces cleaned, resistance checked close to zero!
No major Volt drops found. The problem was obviously between the pick ups and the motor leads! One and a half day's work to get that far..

Presently the current on a rolling road is 0.20 amps and the TV is unaffected. Does anyone know what is on the back of that circuit board?

 

[Paul2727]

Don't know if this will help as it's an older diagram. It does however suggest that this model just had a pcb that clipped onto the plunger pick ups with no fancy electronics to no ill effect.
Regards,
Paul.

 

[PhilP]

There is nothing 'electronic' on the board, just the four clips to holder the carbon brush holders.

It might be that, oil escaping from old grease, had contaminated this area and was interfering with current flow?

If you are only drawing 0.2Amps, I would say you have sorted the problem, and that the motor is in good health.
Enjoy!