Little background on my problem, engine is a Athearn Dash 9 RTR HO. I bought the engine new say around December 2007. Ran it for a month DC, I all so added around 2oz of weight and pulled fine.
Guessing it was January of this year I added a Digitrax DH163PS decoder. Ran great and saw a lot of duty on the B line dragging coal. I normally pull around 25 to 30 3 bay hoppers that are free, wheeling and NMRA weight specks. She saw at leas 65 hours of work if not a little more.
About a month ago I could tell she was not picking up current well, so I pulled her to clean the wheels. Front truck was not picking up power. Open the shell and found the right power wire was off of the truck. Solder it back on and off we went again.
Last week, same thing happened. Poor current pick up so I cleaned the wheels again. This time the power wire was off of the rear truck all so on the right side. But, this time there was a twist. Rear light wires where starting to melt and one wire, is in half! Thought I must have pinched the wires when I reinstalled the shell last time. Solder the bad wire and rewrapped. Ran great again and started working the C Line pulling covered hoppers.
Last night we had a melt down! Was dragging 13 covered hoppers on the C Line with no problems. Started up the A Line and the SD-7 was moving awfully slow cranked up the power and still at a craw! Then I saw a plenum of smoke from the tunnel on the C line. Dash 9 was cooking the wiring!
Open the shell and this is the mess I saw.
After it cooled down, I tested it. To my surprise it still ran, but seams it does not have rear truck power pick up. Decoder is still fine?
Talk with Tom at Digitrax to see what he thought might have been the problem. He said "decoder could not have caused the problem". He thinks the problem was sloppy solder joints on the engine board. If so, why did I get as many hours out of the engine as I did?
I also asked if I should have wrapped the decoder with electrical tape? He said no, it will, cause the decoder to run warmer.
I know the wires where carrying too much power, that why they melted. But, the odd part is the engine started a low throttle and pulled well. Motor seemed free running and revved well.
I will see if I can find a number to Athearn and see what they think.
Any ideas?
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
Ken,
Are you still running that big booster with your Bachmann E-Z Command to run your layout? Was it a 5-amp booster or larger? Do you have your layout divided into power districts?
Tom
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Tom, yes I am still using your old E-Z with a MRC 8 amp booster. I am sure it not the E-Z and or Booste. As far as districts, if that means each line has it own power blocks that all go to the booster then the answer is yes.
As far as the C line it self, it is the new section. My Athearn RTR SD-50 has 40 plus hours on that line. It has a Digitrax 123 and no issues, in fact it is running on it now.
Ken
Although I don't know if this is what's causing the meltdown, it looks to me that the stick on weights you added may be causing friction at the drive train. The front weight looks like it may be rubbing against the flywheel and drive shaft. The rear weight looks like its rubbing against the drive shaft as well, not too clear in the pics, but that's what it looks like to me. Did you have to power-up more than normal to get the engine to pull the load you said it would pull? It just looks like a lot of friction that may have been making the motor draw more current through the wires, heating them and making them de-solder. My thoughts, others' will vary.
EDIT:
I listed the problem stick on weights backwards, I didn't see the air tanks. It's the rear stick-on weight that is rubbing the flywheel and rubbing the drive shaft. The front weight appears to be rubbing the drive shaft. Also, if you want to add more weight, you can hide it on the inside of the cab, under the side windows, where there is a recess.
TONY
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I just checked the weights and front drive shaft clears with no contact. Rear shaft is not perfectly straight and rubs just a little, about 30 degrees of the full 360. I rotated the motor by hand and could not feel when the drive shaft rubbed the weight. But could eye ball it but that is it. It may add friction of two added cars if that.
I have some 18, gauge wire I could use, it worked fine on a FP-45 that has the same board and motor as this Dash 9. But is that not like sticking a higher amp, fuse in to replaces the correct fuse to keep it from pooping? Not the smartest thing to do.
Any other ideas? I have thought the power wires got hot, and that was the reason they came off the trucks in the first places.
Do you think it would be covered under warranty?
Ken I would like to point out that any drag or rubbing is a bad thing. The weights are lead and can be cut or filed very easily. Remove the drive shafts and look for shiny spots on the lead weights where the drive shifts pass over them. If you are in doubt just spilt the weights and place them on either side of the drive shifts.
As a test you could just loss the weights for now and see if the loco does this again. If it does not happen again the problem was with the weights, if does it again the problem is else where.
On the wire gauge, if the wires are getting hot to the tough or burning through the gauge is too small for the load (current passing through them) or the load is too high to start with. Moving up a wire gauge size would help.
One note; it would seem that Athearn's Locomotives are current hogs or at least that is the consciences in the forums. As I run "DC" power and not "DCC" I have noticed that If I run two or more loco's at full power the warning buzzer on my power pack starts to buzz warning me that I am over loading my system. If I back the throttle down the unit stops buzzing. This results in slower speeds and shorter trains both of which are just fine with me.
Also if you add 1156 automotive bulbs in series into your power feeds and they start to glow, you are drawing higher amps then normal. Normally the current draw on a DCC system is not enough to make the bulbs glow (the current just passes through them) and gives you protection against shorting out your DCC system by giving the current caused by a short something to do other the frying your system.
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Johnnny beat me to what I was going to suggest. I agree. Remove the weights and see if the problem repeats itself. The other thing you might do is to see how much draw your Dash-9 is actually pulling when pulling a drag behind it.
Ken, how far around do you have to crank your E-Z Command throttle knob before your locomotive starts to move - i.e. without any cars attached to it. How much does that increase with the 13 weighted covered hoppers?
Ken, do you have a multimeter? If you don't, get on. (I picked a nice digital one up at Sears for $20.) Connect it to the track, dial it to A(mps) and do the following experiment:
If you need to replace wires before doing the experiment, replace them with the same gauge wire. Otherwise, you won't be able to repeat your findings.
Dave, the decoder still works, in fact the engine still runs just a little toasted looking.
Tom, never checked how much gas it took to get her rolling with out cars. With the 13 54' covred hoopers maybe 15%. Takes less power than my Athearn SD-50 pulling the same cars.