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I think the brand new replacement motor for my DF200 might be bad already... I purchased it because the locomotive was jerking and stalling randomly on clean track that all my other locomotives were having no trouble at all on, and I had ruled out all other possible causes (dirty wheels/contacts, mechanical binding, etc…) Anyways, I ordered the motor from Hobbysearch, and after installation, the locomotive ran like new…for about 2 minutes, then it picked up the same problems where the old motor had left them off…and then proceeded to make them worse. So, thinking I had just put a new motor in for no reason, I checked and double checked everything else again: Trucks had no binding (in fact, they’re probably the smoothest rolling ones I’ve ever seen. I should also note I replaced the axles that had traction tires with new tire-less ones for better electrical pickup. I have no need for them because I don’t pull long trains, or have any gradients on my small layout) Worm gears and drive shafts seem to be in perfect shape as well. Then I got an idea from another problem. A few days before, I was running my Tomix EF66 and noticed it was stalling for a split second whenever it went over my single crossover. So I ran it over very slow, and it stalled completely. Not only that, but the tail lights on the last car wouldn’t light up either. What was happening, was this: http://my-miniature-worlds.blogspot.com/2015/04/kato-turnout-4-short-circuit.html So basically the wheel contacting the two rails at once was shorting out the whole track, causing even the rear lights to stay out. This got me thinking, if something in the DF200 is shorting out, then other things on the track will stall or dim as well. So, to check for this, I removed the motor, driveshafts, and worm gears so the unit would be a free rolling dummy with working headlights, hitched it up to one of my DE10’s, and towed it around every inch of my layout multiple times to see if the lights would flicker or dim. And they flickerlessly burned bright over every millimeter of it, even over the #4 crossovers, so no problems there. Then, I put the motor back into it, but not the driveshafts or worm gears, so it was still a free rolling dummy, and then pulled it around the layout with the same DE10. But this time, there was a problem. Not only did the DF200’s motor hesitate and stall, but when it did, the DE10’s would as well, just as the tail lights did with my EF66 on the crossover. So it would seem that something in the motor is shorting out. So, I got a bad motor, right? Has this happened to anyone else? I mean, I know it sounds improbable that the new part would be bad as well, but then again, the last time I tried to replace the alternator in my car, I had to buy 3 or 4 before I got a proper working one. Is there something in these motors that can internally short out? I found a motor on plazajapan for $13, but wanted to get some second opinions before ordering…again, lol. So any ideas or advise would be helpful, thanks!