Genesis Challenger wire harness

[PHARMD98233]

OK, it is time to put a Tsunami in my Genesis Challenger. Which wires in the harness go to the motor, engine pickups, and lights? Does anyone know where I can find this information? Thanks guys.

[mecovey]

I'm ready to upgrade my Challanger too - I would appreciate a "how to primer" ...you know as in "Tsunami Installation for Dummies"

[PHARMD98233]

OK, if I have done this correctly, install instructions will appear below.

These are the steps I followed to install a Soundtraxx Tsunami Heavy Steam decoder in my Atheran Genesis Challenger. If this is your first install, be alert and up for it.

I use a Radio Shack 15 watt pencil point soldering iron….highly recommended for fine work. Cost about $8-10. Well worth the time and effort to get one. A larger iron may cause you lots of trouble.

Components:

Miniatronics 3 mm dia Yeloglo white LED w 470 Ohm resistor (12-310-05)

Oval speakers with enclosures ( I used 2 edgeport speakers until I can replace them with oval speakers) Tony’s Trains make an enclosure for the oval speaker and sells the speakers

Tsunami Heavy Steam decoder

Heat shrink tubing

Unplug the engine from the tender. Remove the coal load by gently prying up at the back corners of the load. This will reveal two Phillips head screws. Remove the screws.

Gently pry up and remove the rear water hatch to reveal another screw. Remove the screw.

Flip the tender over and remove the coupler and two small Phillips head screws which hold the rear of the tender in place. Gently pry out the rear piece. Turn the tender right- side up.

The tender shell is now loose and can be gently slid backward and up. The front wall of the tender remains in place.

Cut the six MRC decoder wires about ¼ inch from the board. Do not cut the red and black MRC wires from the tender wheel pickups.

Remove the two screws which hold the MRC board to the frame. The MRC sound board can now be removed and sold on e-bay or better yet, crushed and sent back to Atheran.

Remove the two Phillips head screws which hold the small black weight in place & remove weight.









Match up the wires according to the following table.

MRC Tsunami

Blue Gray
Red Red
Green White
White Blue
Black Black
Yellow Orange

Cut the 6 above listed Tsunami wires about 1.5 to 2 inches from the decoder

Strip the ends of the MRC and Tsunami wires back about 1/8 inch.

Cut a 3/8 to ½ inch piece of heat shrink tubing and place over each of the 6 Tsunami wires.

Insert a 470 ohm resistor onto the end of the BLUE Tsunami wire. Place another length of heat shrink tubing over the end of the white MRC wire.

Solder the wires together ( I lap them instead of twisting them together) and slide the heat shrink tubing over the solder connections. Use the iron to shrink the tubing.

Bring the Tsunami brown, yellow, green and tan wires together and heat shrink a piece of tubing on the end. (I chose not to use the yellow wire for the rear light at this time) IF you do use the rear tender LED, you will need to bring a lead off of the Tsunami blue wire beyond the resistor.

Speakers: When I first did this install, I foolishly used the two MRC speakers. Don’t make that mistake. They sound too tinney.


Drill two small holes just big enough for the purple wires in the back of each of the enclosure boxes. Feed the + purple wire thru the enclosure box and solder the + purple wire to the + pad of the speaker.

Solder a 3 inch (or so) wire from the – speaker pad and run it thru the enclosure box and then thru the back of the second speaker enclosure box. Solder this wire to the second speaker + pad. Bring the – purple wire thru the back of the second enclosure and solder to the – pad of the second speaker.

At this point you may want to connect the engine and the tender and listen to the sound. Please do this on a fused test track using a 1 amp fuse from Radio Shack. I think I use fast blow fuses. This will protect your decoder from a wiring mis-step. If all is well, a red LED will light up on the decoder side. If the decoder detects something wrong a red LED will light up at the rear of the decoder.

OK, stop playing and get back to work.

Unplug the tender from the engine and carefully glue the speakers into the enclosures. I use Walthers Goo for this. Just use a light coat of Goo and DO NOT get any Goo on the speaker cones.

Now take a break for 15 to 30 minutes to allow the glue to set.

Determine where you will mount your speakers. I will mount mine facing down and separated from the frame by some 1/8 inch square length of styrene which will be glued along the ends of the speaker face, but not obstruct the speaker. GOO the styrene lengths to the tender frame.

OK, if you can’t control yourself, connect the tender and the engine and test again on a FUSED test track. Pretty sweet, huh. Self control is overated in matters of model railroading.

With the speakers mounted on the frame, place a strip of double-sided foam tape ( I use 3M ) on the back of the decoder and stick it to the back of the speaker enclosures. Super glue (CA) the capacitor to anything that is handy and out of the way.

At this point, I bundle my wires together with string or thread. Replace the black weight with the wires running thru it. Be careful not to damage the wires with the weight. Replace the tender shell, rear tender end and coupler. You are using a KD # 5 aren’t you? Replace the two small screws on the top of the tender, replace the water hatch and coal load. You should have 1 larger Phillips head screw left over. It held the MRC speakers in place, but you took my advice and got rid of those, didn’t you.

If you listen to you tender now, you should notice an increased “fullness” of the sound.

OK, back to work. Now we work on replacing the headlight.

Unplug the tender from the engine, turn the engine upside down and gently pry the air pumps away from the pilot frame. There is one on each side. Note how the pumps are oriented for replacement later. Flip the engine rightside up and gently pull the headlight assembly upward. Look down in the hole to see the top of that hideous yellow LED.

Now wiggle the pilot shield backward to disconnect its two pins from the holes in the pilot. Once the pilot shield is off, the LED will be revealed along with its small board. Gently pry the board up.

Carefully using minimal heat, de-solder the original LED from the bottom of the board, pry up and remove. This is where having that pencil tip soldering iron really pays off. Cru***his LED and send it back to Atheran. On the new 3 mm diameter yeloglo LED, note which side is the anode (long pin) and clip the leads to leave them 1/8 inch long. Put a little solder on the LED pins. Place the LED in the board with the anode on the fireman’s side. Carefully, since there is not much room to work, use your handy dandy pencil tip low wattage soldering iron from Radio Shack which only cost you about $10 or less, solder the LED in place from the underside of the board. Now place the LED board snuggly in its pocket.

Now plug in the tender and test the light on your fused test track. If it does not work, you will want to turn the LED around and see if it lights. IF it still does not work, it may have become too hot (especially if you did not use the low wattage pencil tip soldering iron from Radio Shack).

Re-install the pilot shield and align the pins into the pilot and install the headlight assembly.

Lay the loco on its side and gently install the air pumps. Remember you took the time to note how they were oriented and so it is easy.

OK, while you have the engine before you, put a KD # 5 in the pilot coupler pocket, placing the screw in the second hole back. Why you ask?

Just test your engine, turn on the light, blow the whistle (you have a choice of 5 whistles) let her chuff around for a while. Wouldn’t it be neat to double head a couple of these. Sure and you already have a coupler on the pilot. Why waste a good coupler? Father’s day is coming up you know.

Number boards: I have not summoned the courage to try and replace the yellow surface mount LEDs which light the number boards. So mine are still yellow. But I have removed the number board lenses and put several coats of black paint on the tiny LEDs , so not so much yellow light shines thru and they don’t look nuclear powered now.

You have now done a fairly complicated install and have a very fine running and sounding locomotive. I am certain you will find that it has been worth the effort and extra expense. I just hope that Atheran does the same in the future.

CV’s: I am working on getting the sound CV’s right. I am not there yet, but when I get there I will post them to this list. If you get there before me, please post them to the list.

If you need to reach me, you can do so at: [e-mail]

[mecovey]

Wow! I am really impressed that you took so much time and effort to respond in such a thorough and detailed manner. I really appreciate it! Although there are many steps involved, it looks like thanks to your excellant instructions that the process should be relatively straight forward. Thanks again - I'll let you know how it goes.

Mike

[Texas Zepher]

I'm preparing to do this exact same operation.  So I will follow these directions and try to get some pictures of each step.

In addition I am going to try to get a speaker or two up in the engine where the sound SHOULD be coming from. 

[jcopilot]

Pharmd98233,

That was a very detailed and helpful reply. I plan to replace the decoder in my Challengers one day and I'm keeping your instructions in a Word file to refer to when the time comes, thank you.

I have a question - You suggest using a Radio Shack soldering iron.  Do you think a resistance soldering unit would work as well?

 

Jcopilot

[lvanhen]

Pharmd98233,

That was a very detailed and helpful reply. I plan to replace the decoder in my Challengers one day and I'm keeping your instructions in a Word file to refer to when the time comes, thank you.

I have a question - You suggest using a Radio Shack soldering iron.  Do you think a resistance soldering unit would work as well?

 

Jcopilot

WHAT HE SAID!  MANY THANKS!!

[PHARMD98233]

JCOPILOT,

It sounds like a good approach, but since I have no experience with resistance soldering, I can't provide any guidance.  I mentioned the Radio Shack soldering iron because of the small wattage and widespread availability. 

Anyway, I am sure you will be pleased to get rid of that MRC decoder!  It just does not belong in such a fine running locomotive as the Genesis Challenger.

[jcopilot]

Fair enough, Pharmd98233.  Thanks for the quick reply.

Jcopilot

[PHARMD98233]

New title and bump

[CAZEPHYR]

OK, if I have done this correctly, install instructions will appear below.

These are the steps I followed to install a Soundtraxx Tsunami Heavy Steam decoder in my Atheran Genesis Challenger. If this is your first install, be alert and up for it.

I use a Radio Shack 15 watt pencil point soldering iron….highly recommended for fine work. Cost about $8-10. Well worth the time and effort to get one. A larger iron may cause you lots of trouble.


CV’s: I am working on getting the sound CV’s right. I am not there yet, but when I get there I will post them to this list. If you get there before me, please post them to the list.

If you need to reach me, you can do so at: [e-mail]

 Good luck in getting the Tsunami DCC drive to work correctly with the Genesis Challenger or Big Boy.  I gave up and replaced the DCC drive portion with a Zimo.  It makes the Athearn run on a par with the Trix or PCM Big Boy.

The problem with the Zimo drive is when you get the Back EMF up to the amount to allow the chuffs to be correct, the engine gets jerky at slow speeds.   I called Soundtraxx several times and they called me back trying to help, but no fix was ever discovered to fix this problem. 

The Zimo will fit into the Genesis engine shell and the motor wires are disconnected form the Soundtrax.

Your instructions are good for the installation as I have done some of these.

Cheers  

 

 

 

[betamax]

Do you think a resistance soldering unit would work as well?

 

Jcopilot

Not a good idea. Resistance soldering uses large currents flowing through the work, and electronic devices really don't like things like that.

Good soldering irons for electronic work isolate the tip from the AC power, so there is no voltage present at the tip. The best ones are labelled "ESD Safe", since they won't damage static sensitive components.

[loathar]

Do you think a resistance soldering unit would work as well?

 

Jcopilot

Not a good idea. Resistance soldering uses large currents flowing through the work, and electronic devices really don't like things like that.

Good soldering irons for electronic work isolate the tip from the AC power, so there is no voltage present at the tip. The best ones are labelled "ESD Safe", since they won't damage static sensitive components.

That's like installing delicate electronics with a mini arc welder. NOT a good idea.