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Athearn BB SW1500 - repowering options (Stanton Drive?)

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  • Member since
    February 2019
  • 82 posts
Posted by micktropolis on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 6:26 PM

SeeYou190

 

 
micktropolis
. It does draw just over an amp at full stall, but otherwise it is very smooth on DC and slow speeds are very nice. Considering this switcher won't be doing more than 20(scale)mph if that I am rethinking my approach of whether I want to replace the motor or not.

 

I assume by full stall you mean holding it so the wheels cannot turn and applying 12 volts. It should not pull a full amp at wheel slip.

If you are only running it slowly, you might consider seeking out an Ernst Gear Kit for this model. That will change the gear ratio so the locomotive runs slower, but it will be silky-smooth. The Ernst Gears are a little bit more noisy though.

-Kevin

 

 

Correct, that was full stop, holding it so the wheels couldn't move but I seriously doubt this locomotive will ever experience that kind of spike! I'm actually pleasently surpirsed by the current slow performance, but if this project proves fruitful there's another 2 NASA SW1500s (#1 and #3) that may find there way into the shed into the future. I could experiment with the Ernst Gear set for sure.

 

snjroy

The Athearn gold motors are fine, I would keep it. As for a stay-alive, I don't think it's necessary for a 4 axle diesel switcher. For installing the DCC components, I've used silicone to "glue" the components on the underside of the shells. In some cases, I glued mini plastic "shelves" inside the loco's shell so I could slide the decoders in and out. 

Simon

 

 

I will probably agree with you on the KA after the decoder is all wired up and I test it - it will probably not need it but I do like that little bit of extra insurance. The mini capacitor the base TCS 101 decoder comes with should be enough all things considered. I like the idea of a shelf inside the shell, would make it easier to keep the decoder from the flywheels!

emdmike

No need to remotor ect, the later blue box Athearns were great for DCC, just needs the motor pulled, the copper fingers cut off that ground the motor to the frame, a piece of Capton tap on the frame just to be safe and reinstall.  Then, its time to do the toothpaste and drops of water trick to the trucks to wear in the gears and eliminate any flash and other casting flaws that make these a bit noisy, some more than others.  There was a paperback book years ago on tuning these drives, getting rid of the noise and growl.   I have seen Athearn BB drives run nearly as quiet as a Kato drive.  I never had issues with the sintered iron wheels, they help with adhesion and pulling power over nickel silver ones.  Both need to be kept clean.   With no cap interior, plenty of room for sugar cube or other small high output speakers with a sound decoder as well.  Install the LED for the rear lighting first obviously.  A piece of  brass tubing can isolate the LED to keep it from lighting up the cab space. I mount the tube and LED using my hot glue gun.  Then everything else.   These old Athearns are bulletproof engines and will run for a few lifetimes with proper car.    Mikie

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I agree these things are tough, and that's one of the reason I like working on them. I've isolated the motor with that capton tape too, really it's pre-wired and waiting on the decoder at this point. I do plan on adding a little bit of basic cab interior which will complicate things a bit, but I should be able to squeeze the speaker at the base or at the nose if that doesn't work. I've also swapped the wheelset for nickle silver, if only for better electrical contact. This won't be hauling more than 6-8 cars on level track. Thanks for the tips on LEDs!

 

rrebell

Unless there is a sentamental value you are spending alot for an Athearn BB.

I see this sentiment a lot, and I understand it. Why spend the money and time when there's much better newer stuff? The trouble is, the livery is not at all common. If BLI released a NASA scheme from their run of DCC and Paragon sound SW1500s I would have spent the $200 and would have been plenty happy. If I thought I could get this shell onto a BLI or RTR DCC ready Athearn chassis I would do that, but it ends up being about the same effort and money anyway. 

And if I did that, I'd mess out on my favorite aspect of this hobby which is detailing to match a specific prototype. It might still not be as nice as a model tooled and made in the last 5-10 years, but I'm going to have a heck of a lot of fun studying photos and adding parts and pieces. 

That, and when all is said and done assuming I don't remotor the model - which its looking like I'm not going to for now and keep it stock - then it's $90 for the Athearn model, $80 for the decoder, and $60 in detail parts. Assuming I don't go whole hog and remotor/repower, it's not a lot of money in the long run for the enjoyment I get out of it. 

chutton01

I have been following this thread with some interest, as I have 2 Athearn Blue-Box era SW1500 Switchers (the 1990s release, so 'true' SW1500s, not the older SW7/1500 wannabe). They were put away in attic storage since the late 1990s, but last summer I came across them again looking for what could be salvaged. Nice models, except for some unknown reason in the late '90s I took the models apart; well OK, the body shells I did for painting and detailing, but the drive train for...I have no idea why, but those parts were scattered. I managed to find everything except...one of the truck assemblies (the 39021/39022 Athearn part numbers - all praise the mighty HO Seeker).  Going to the Athearn parts catalog on line, entering various combinations of 39021 always yields "We have found 0 items that match your search criteria.". Well, great...I guess its not 2005 anymore.  Web searching didn't bring up much of use, so the backup plan was to visit the Amherst train show this year and maybe find  donor parts...oops on that idea.

So the question - Stanton 8'-0", 110 - 42" wheels (I have to remeasure, might be 40") for 'DCC ready' drive for 84.00 or so - how difficult is the drive to adapt to the Athearn chassis (probably not snap in like the original parts), and any issues with using the existing rear truck assembly (I supposed so, just have to wire it correctly, but it would have provide no motive power of course).

 

I know that for the Stanton drive it wouldn't be a job without a little fabrication to the chassis, really just removing some material and adding a styrene floor. This blogger decided to take an old blue blox SW1500 and added a stanton to it (and he also converted it to RC control). Check it out! I find it very useful and if I decide to procure a staton at some point it may prove invaluable so I printed out his posts. If it ends up that I can't fit the decoder and speaker into the SW1500 I may pruchase a stanton to experiment with. 

 

Thank you for your responses folks! I am itching to start this one and now its just waiting on parts and pieces to come in. 

Here's a photo of the speaker pulled out of the speaker pulled out of my old cell phone. I'm going to build a baffle for it before installing it with the decoder after that comes in. Perhaps I could use the baffle as part of the cab floor. If it works well and doesn't immediately self-implode then I think it should do fine, but I have a compliment of other micro speakers to test as well coming in.

-Mike

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • 3,139 posts
Posted by chutton01 on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 2:30 PM

I have been following this thread with some interest, as I have 2 Athearn Blue-Box era SW1500 Switchers (the 1990s release, so 'true' SW1500s, not the older SW7/1500 wannabe). They were put away in attic storage since the late 1990s, but last summer I came across them again looking for what could be salvaged. Nice models, except for some unknown reason in the late '90s I took the models apart; well OK, the body shells I did for painting and detailing, but the drive train for...I have no idea why, but those parts were scattered. I managed to find everything except...one of the truck assemblies (the 39021/39022 Athearn part numbers - all praise the mighty HO Seeker).  Going to the Athearn parts catalog on line, entering various combinations of 39021 always yields "We have found 0 items that match your search criteria.". Well, great...I guess its not 2005 anymore.  Web searching didn't bring up much of use, so the backup plan was to visit the Amherst train show this year and maybe find  donor parts...oops on that idea.

So the question - Stanton 8'-0", 110 - 42" wheels (I have to remeasure, might be 40") for 'DCC ready' drive for 84.00 or so - how difficult is the drive to adapt to the Athearn chassis (probably not snap in like the original parts), and any issues with using the existing rear truck assembly (I supposed so, just have to wire it correctly, but it would have provide no motive power of course).

 

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: west coast
  • 7,667 posts
Posted by rrebell on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 1:37 PM

Unless there is a sentamental value you are spending alot for an Athearn BB.

  • Member since
    November 2012
  • From: Kokomo, Indiana
  • 1,463 posts
Posted by emdmike on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 1:19 PM

No need to remotor ect, the later blue box Athearns were great for DCC, just needs the motor pulled, the copper fingers cut off that ground the motor to the frame, a piece of Capton tap on the frame just to be safe and reinstall.  Then, its time to do the toothpaste and drops of water trick to the trucks to wear in the gears and eliminate any flash and other casting flaws that make these a bit noisy, some more than others.  There was a paperback book years ago on tuning these drives, getting rid of the noise and growl.   I have seen Athearn BB drives run nearly as quiet as a Kato drive.  I never had issues with the sintered iron wheels, they help with adhesion and pulling power over nickel silver ones.  Both need to be kept clean.   With no cap interior, plenty of room for sugar cube or other small high output speakers with a sound decoder as well.  Install the LED for the rear lighting first obviously.  A piece of  brass tubing can isolate the LED to keep it from lighting up the cab space. I mount the tube and LED using my hot glue gun.  Then everything else.   These old Athearns are bulletproof engines and will run for a few lifetimes with proper car.    Mikie

Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome

  • Member since
    November 2013
  • 2,775 posts
Posted by snjroy on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 10:56 AM

The Athearn gold motors are fine, I would keep it. As for a stay-alive, I don't think it's necessary for a 4 axle diesel switcher. For installing the DCC components, I've used silicone to "glue" the components on the underside of the shells. In some cases, I glued mini plastic "shelves" inside the loco's shell so I could slide the decoders in and out. 

Simon

  • Member since
    January 2017
  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
  • 18,255 posts
Posted by SeeYou190 on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 10:23 AM

micktropolis
. It does draw just over an amp at full stall, but otherwise it is very smooth on DC and slow speeds are very nice. Considering this switcher won't be doing more than 20(scale)mph if that I am rethinking my approach of whether I want to replace the motor or not.

I assume by full stall you mean holding it so the wheels cannot turn and applying 12 volts. It should not pull a full amp at wheel slip.

If you are only running it slowly, you might consider seeking out an Ernst Gear Kit for this model. That will change the gear ratio so the locomotive runs slower, but it will be silky-smooth. The Ernst Gears are a little bit more noisy though.

-Kevin

Living the dream.

  • Member since
    February 2019
  • 82 posts
Posted by micktropolis on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 10:07 AM

SeeYou190

 

 
snjroy
A new motor might not fix the infamous BB "growl" though, that comes from entire drive and gear driveline.

 

Honest-to-goodness... for removing noise from Athearn Blue-Box models, using NWSL shims to get the slop out of the worm drives gives you a lot of good results for very little effort or expense.

-Kevin

 

I hadn't considered that - and that is why I post here. Thank you for the advice Kevin. I'll have to order some washers to tame the growl. 

Yesterday I did some work on this SW1500 and ran it on DC to check the amps. It does draw just over an amp at full stall, but otherwise it is very smooth on DC and slow speeds are very nice. Considering this switcher won't be doing more than 20(scale)mph if that I am rethinking my approach of whether I want to replace the motor or not. AFAIK the gold can motors with brass flywheels may not be as efficient as newer cans, but this one does operate incredibly well. 

Maybe in the future I'll repower it but I should be able to fit a full 2amp TCS Wow101 decoder in there - I've already did some test fitting with another non-suitable (TCS Wow101 steam) decoder for fit check.

Fitting a keep alive is going to be another challenge, but I'm going to see how the loco gets on with the included short duration capacitor the base Wow101 decoder comes with before deciding to try to fit a KA1 somewhere.

I have a few 1watt speakers on order to try, a few iPhone speakers and sugar cubes, and I pulled a loudspeaker out of my old Microsoft Lumina phone to try - apparently it should be 8ohms from what I've gleaned but we'll see. It's only 11mm by 15mm and I'll need to make sure to keep the volume lower and build a baffle for it. 

Thanks all for your suggestions and advice! I'll have to see how I get on with fitting everything into this little switcher, but I'm more confident now than I was a week ago. Still have to decide on SMD LED options and order a few more detail parts. Should be a fun project!

-Mike

  • Member since
    May 2010
  • From: SE. WI.
  • 8,253 posts
Posted by mbinsewi on Monday, March 15, 2021 3:57 PM

Yea, I seen that too.

Just making sure I wasn't missing anything.  Thanks.

Mike.

  • Member since
    January 2017
  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
  • 18,255 posts
Posted by SeeYou190 on Monday, March 15, 2021 3:32 PM

mbinsewi
Kevin, you talking about thrust washers? on each end of the worm gear? Never heard them called shims before.  Just wondering.

Yes, thrust washers. 

Funny thing is I looked up the name on the NWSL packaging before I posted, but I did not realize they use both terms on some of the packaging.

Laugh

-Kevin

Living the dream.

  • Member since
    May 2010
  • From: SE. WI.
  • 8,253 posts
Posted by mbinsewi on Monday, March 15, 2021 3:11 PM

Kevin, you talking about thrust washers? on each end of the worm gear?

Never heard them called shims before.  Just wondering.

Mike.

  • Member since
    November 2013
  • 2,775 posts
Posted by snjroy on Monday, March 15, 2021 3:09 PM

I should try that!

  • Member since
    January 2017
  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
  • 18,255 posts
Posted by SeeYou190 on Monday, March 15, 2021 1:36 PM

snjroy
A new motor might not fix the infamous BB "growl" though, that comes from entire drive and gear driveline.

Honest-to-goodness... for removing noise from Athearn Blue-Box models, using NWSL shims to get the slop out of the worm drives gives you a lot of good results for very little effort or expense.

-Kevin

Living the dream.

  • Member since
    January 2009
  • From: Bakersfield, CA 93308
  • 6,526 posts
Posted by RR_Mel on Monday, March 15, 2021 11:04 AM

 

I have 19 Athearn BB locomotive drives and none are what I would call noisy.  Proper lube takes care of noise for me.  I have remotored all 19 with can motors.  Two came with A-Line conversions and both are very quite running.
 
My E-7 power houses are Athearn SD40-2 Frame and trucks with Mabuchi FK280SA motors and Bowser Cary E7 metal bodies.  They weigh in at a bit over 2 pounds each and have over 9 ounces of drawbar.  Running without sound about the only noise I hear is wheel click on the track.




Mel



 
My Model Railroad   
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
 
Bakersfield, California
 
I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

 

  • Member since
    November 2013
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Posted by snjroy on Sunday, March 14, 2021 11:02 AM

If you call NWSL, you might want to enquire about their other driveline solutions. I upgraded a BB GP using NWSL parts and it came out OK. New polished wheels also improved the performance. Athearn also sells motors that might fit.

A new motor might not fix the infamous BB "growl" though, that comes from entire drive and gear driveline. Adding sound will definitely mask some of the noise. It did on mine.  

Simon

  • Member since
    February 2019
  • 82 posts
Posted by micktropolis on Sunday, March 14, 2021 10:21 AM

Thank you Mel and Simon for your responses! I'll have to check the model with the multimeter, but first I need a new multimeter. The last one took a nasty spill onto a concrete floor and I've been meaning to replace it. The model may very well not pull much amperage and it might just be noisy.

I don't mind the Stanton drive being more expensive if it allows for an easier install of decoder and speaker, but the A-line motor and frame option is also tempting especially if the performance and noise is a big improvement. 

I'm going to contact NWSL and see if I can get some more information on the Stantons, as it seems there isn't a whole lot out there but it is a very interesting option, having the drive in the truck as such. Will keep the options open for now.

- Mike

  • Member since
    January 2009
  • From: Bakersfield, CA 93308
  • 6,526 posts
Posted by RR_Mel on Saturday, March 13, 2021 5:10 PM

I have purchased several used Athearns with the A-Line remotor kits and they are very nice.  I vote for the A-Line, it’s a bit pricy for me at $165 but would make a fine runner.

A decoder should fit between the flywheel and shell and a speaker in the cab.

The 1833 Mashima is a fine motor and the A-Line kits are very nice!!!
 

Mel



 
My Model Railroad   
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
 
Bakersfield, California
 
I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

  • Member since
    November 2013
  • 2,775 posts
Posted by snjroy on Saturday, March 13, 2021 4:12 PM

Hi there. The stanton drive is the most expensive option, if that matters. If the original motor is smooth, check the current draw. If it is below 1 amp, which I assume will be the case, you can isolate the motor from the frame and install the decoder.

Simon

  • Member since
    February 2019
  • 82 posts
Athearn BB SW1500 - repowering options (Stanton Drive?)
Posted by micktropolis on Saturday, March 13, 2021 2:26 PM

Hey folks. I have an Athearn blue box SW1500, the more recent but not RTR/DCC ready version. I hope to have this be the main motive power on a small shelft switching layout. The original owner removed the copper strips that run the length of the locomotive and hard-wired the trucks to the motor instead. I've swapped the iron wheels for nickle-silver for better pickup.

 

It runs very smooth if not a little noisy. My goal is to install DCC and sound with a keep-alive device, swap the bulb at the front for LEDs, install an LED at the rear in the cab, and maybe an LED on the cab roof for a beacon.

From all I've read and researched, I can approach this in a few different ways.

1. I send the model off as is to be professionally installed with DCC. Normally, I would do it myself, but with such a small space available I don't mind leaving this to someone who does it more for a living. Would still have some noisy drive-train issues, but maybe the sound of an EMD 645 would drown it out?

2. Procure a spare Athearn BB SW1500 chassis on the cheap, install one or two powered Stanton drive into the chassis, and have the entirety of the rest of the body for speaker and decoder placement and weight. (A new chassis is very cheap and allows me to make modifications and if things don't work out I can always just swap it back to the old one) 

3. Buy a DCC ready Athearn RTR model and jerry rig the shell to fit onto the new chassis but at least it would have an updated smoother drive on top of already being wired for DCC. I just need to make the decoder and speaker fit. The issue here is BB shells are attached to the chassis with plastic tabs, while the RTR shells are screwed if I read correctly? 

4. Order an A-line remotoring kit and the milled chassis to fit the new motor and flywheels. This would improve noise and offer an increase in performance - even though that isn't really lacking at the moment. I still have to fit the decoder and speaker in there somehow.

All of these methods are about the same in terms of cost and time. I know some might scoff at spending so much money on an Athearn BB, but NASA liveries don't seem to come up very often, and if it is going to be the only motive power on this switching layout then why not make it exactly as I want it?

So far I'm leaning towards the Stanton drive and spare chassis. The only article I've seen about using and installing one is from an article where the author installed them onto an SW1500 and uses it for radio-controlled operation. With the Stanton drive, I can add more weight, although this switcher won't be pulling much more than 6-8 free-rolling cars on level track so that isn't a very pressing issue. 

Has anyone used a Stanton drive? Have you installed DCC on a stock Athearn BB SW1500? Have you repowered one? If anyone has any insight I'm open to hearing it! 

-Mike

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