Mine is the older run - I'd like to think I had a small part in getting them made, because I talked to the Athearn rep at the NTS when it was in Philly and suggested the as-delivered RS3 as something they should make for their next release because Reading had so many of them. I'm sure thousands of others made the same suggestion, but then there they were. I'm annoyed that they pulled a Proto 2000 and did only 1 road number in the original Pullman scheme, but two in the yellow and green (same as P2K did with their cabooses). But it's OK, the old Atlas/Kato ones I have are much better runners anyway and they are all Undec since solid Pullman Green is an easy paint job. I was mightly disappointed when out of the box it had no pickup whatsoever from one truck (put paper under the one end - no effect, put paper under the other truck, dead loco). I ended up getting another one super cheap on eBay (hmm, wonder why they were selling so cheaply...) that was just whatever road name was cheapest, that one ran fine, so i swapped shells. I cna always strip the other shell and repaint it, after I fix the chassis. Really disappointed in AThearn since these really are just the same old Blue Box but with a better motor, and BB locos were always super reliable if a bit rough out of the box. Never had one that didn't at least run. They've been making them for years, NOW they have problems? Bad conversion from English to Metric for the Chinese factory I guess. That plus their continued usage of pea bulbs for headlights has really turned me off to Athearn (plus they make no other locos I need).
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks Randy,
I am inclined to agree on the electrical contact. I thought Athearn resolved this issue with these newer releases.
On my original purchases from say 5 years ago I have two out of five that work well. This new one is one of three I bought last year. Beautiful paint and letering. I hope I have more success with these.
It is amazing to me that an almost identical truck assembly on the GP7 and GP9 work so well and these RS3's continue with problems on some units.
Chris
Well I knew it was an RS3. The Athearn ones have a lot of pickup problems - I have 2 and one STILL doesn;t run properly even though I soldered on wires to bypass the bolster pickup and soldered the wires instead of reusing those silly plastic caps to hold the wires on. The other one ran fine right out of the box.
I put a Loksound in one, replaces the factory board, much more room, and none of the TSU-750's heat issues - which is another possibility, it may be overheating and shutting off on you.
I'm not a huge fan of just throwing keep alives in everything, at least to run on my home layout. I've never had issues with dropouts except with certain locos with pickup issues like said Athearn RTR. It's like using auto reversers to detect and then correct a short, when you cna wire switch machine contacts to avoid the short altogether in most situations. Or Frog Juicers to power frogs - in complex track arrangements it makes sense but for a simple turnout, it's fairly obvious what the frog polarity should be and this can be done with switch machine contacts so there never is a short in the first place. Keep alives make sense in little dinky 4 wheel critters which have neither the wheelbase nor the weight to always make great contact, but for any decent size 4 or 6 axle diesel, or a steam loco that has real all-wheel pickup on loco and tender - not the sort that pick up from one side of the engine and the other side of the tender - should have no problems with a little bit of dirty rail or even unpowered frogs until you get to large sizes like #8.
The real problem on these locos seems to be that in some cases, the plastic part of the truck is not allowing the bronze bushings to make doog contact with the metal part of the truck frames. It would seem either carefully filing the plastic or soldering some thing flexible wire right to the bushings should fix it.
Thanks Gatrhumpy, Randy and Rich,
This makes sense now. This capacitor does not work the same as a TCS keep alive for track pickup for example. I am using the TCS VR-1.5 voltage regulator for the light bulbs, I hope I can fit the TCS keep alive in this carbody.
Randy, I know you are a Reading guy so you recognize this locomotive as the Athearn RS3. No room to work.
Thanks again!!
If you want more capacitance, do not connect the stay alive module across the included cap. All stay alive modules get connected to the common, plus in this case and the minus side of the power on the decoder. Instructions are very clear with the modules. Where you find these two points will vary from decoder to decoder.
The link below will show you different ways.
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120729061658/http:/www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm
More info just in case.
https://sites.google.com/site/markgurries/home/decoders/keep-alive-compatibility
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Yes, the minus sign is the negative.
The cap in the Tsunami is ONLY for the sound, and then it can;t run too long, especially witht he volume high. If the loco is that touchy, either the track, wheels, or pickups are dirty. If you need longer power retention you need a lot more capacitance. The CurrentKeeper or one of the other keep alive devices can be fitted which powers the motor and the sound.
The line on the capacitor is the negative.
As you look at the below picture the green and yellow wire is supposed to be connected to the negative side of the capacitor. No minus or plus is shown on capacitor. The manual is useless on this, Soundtraxx usually does a good job but not on this.
I assumed the gray line with the repeated ovals was the negative. When running locomotive it crickly cracks from time to time and looses sound and restarts. Track is clean, capacitor is supposed to prevent this.
Does anyone know how to read polarity on this capacitor?
Thanks Chris