Athearn electrical conductivity problem

[Victor]

I have several Athearn locos, all RTR series six wheel truck version. All are decoder equipped. A couple of them experience intermittent electrical problems, apparently originating in the trucks. I say this because when a unit stops operating, applying a jumper wire between the rail and a truck pickup wire connection on the decoder restarts the unit.

I've soldered the wires between the decoder terminals and the truck sideplate terminals, and even extended these wires beyond the factory connection point of the truck all the way down to the rivets holding the truck metal side plate on. Same problem. Wheels are in gauge, but there seems to be a lot of slop between the bronze axle bearings and the square slots for same in the metal sideplate.

Has anyone tried reducing this clearance with solder, or come up with another solution to this problem. Very frustrating. Unit works one time, does not the next. 

 

[Victor]

Soundtrax TSU AT-1000.

[richhotrain]

Victor

Wheels are in gauge, but there seems to be a lot of slop between the bronze axle bearings and the square slots for same in the metal sideplate.

Has anyone tried reducing this clearance with solder, or come up with another solution to this problem. Very frustrating. Unit works one time, does not the next. 

Victor,

I doubt that your decoder is the cause of the problem.

I am not sure what is causing your problem, but your reference to the bronze axle bearings and the square slots may provide a vital clue.  I have some Athearn RTR engines, and I can tell you from my own experience that it is essential to keep those bearings in the square slots.  That is a problem on the Athearn RTR units.  The bearing slip out of the square slot because there is too much play between the bearing and the axle gear. 

The solution seems to be placing a washer on the axle between the gear and the bearing to keep the bearing in place in the square slot.  I use Kadee fiber washers for this purpose.

Rich

[Victor]

Rich,

Thanks for the suggestion of using fiber washers. I suspect I'll need them on both sides of the "bearings" due to the amount of lateral movement observed in each wheel/axle set.

As information to anyone following this topic, the Athearn truck metal sideframes which locate the axles and bearings are coated or plated with something that gives a blue-black appearance. Using an ohm meter, I found that this coating was a bit non-conductive. As an experiment, I disassembled the trucks and used a mill file to gently removed the coating from each of the "square" axle bearing openings, leaving a bare metal finish. Upon re-assembly, the locomotive is operating well, with track power being picked up from both trucks. Time will tell if this is the root cause of the problem, but if I have to go back into the trucks again, I'll add the washers Rich mentioned as spacers.

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

 Victor

YOUR PROBLEM IS NOT YOUR DECODER , more then likely. It is very well known and acknowledged by Athearan that some of their Genesis locomotives had electrical pick up problems with the side frames.

I had two brand new out of the box Genesis F units one equipped with an MRC decoder and the other a Tsunami do exactly what you described. The loco would be running with sound and all of a sudden for no reason just stop and by the time you walked over to it some times it would start up again and move usually resulting in the same thing happening again and again and some times not happening at all. There have been several post written about how to modify the wheel sets and side frames etc. to cure the problem but these are completely unnecessary. Just call the svc. department at Athearn a very very nice group of people and explain to them whats happening and tell them you've heard there has been problems with some of their power trucks.

The techs told me yes that in fact this is true and to send it back to them which i did and they repaired both free of charge and another that I had purchased new/used as the owner purchased it but never ran it. They even replaced the horns and interior on one locomotive that the poorly trained service chimps at MRC broke off free of charge.

The people there are great to deal with and the company stands behind their product. All it's going to cost you is the price of a phone call.

Phone: [phone]

[Victor]

For anyone still interested, I thought I'd post the solution. The truck metal sideframes have a black coating or plating applied. This material is not a good conductor, as can be evidenced by checking with an ohm meter. I found that by removing each wheel & axle set, then scratching off the plating in the square slots where the bronze axle bearings are located, will cure the erratic conductivity problem where trucks sometimes both pickup current and other times they do not. Simple fix, but you've got to teardown most of the locomotive to get to it.

[cacole]

Two years ago I purchased an Athearn RTR at a local hobby shop that had so much enamel on the sideframes that they were electrically dead.  After I disassembled the trucks and filed the lacquer off of them, the model runs just fine.

 

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

 Just about a week or so a go I got my Athearn  RS3 back form them for a clicking problem as well as a poor pick up issue. It turned out the axles were cracked apparently it's been an on going problem with some of their ready to run models. I not only got the model back repaired and running perfectly but they reimbursed me for the shipping so the whole thing cost me a big fat $0.00 can't beat that with a stick.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 I've run into this problem with RTR and blue box units both. It's imperative that the axles, the bronze axle bearings and the slots the bearing rest in be kept clean. Most lubricant oils are non-conductive and just a light film can wreak havoc with the electrical pickup. There are several lubricant oils for model trains that are conductive. Bachmann makes one of them. I think LaBelle makes another though I could be mistaken.