I took delivery of two Walthers Proto E7 units in the A-A formation. Numbers 1424 and 1428 for the B&O Railroad.
I found both units to be packed to the max in each of thier boxes. Combination of tabs and foam inserts along with plastic overlay covering the spare parts ensure that these things dont move during shipping.
There were a number of parts, instructions etc included with these engines. Im pleased overall with the presentation. It will be quite some time before I will examine those small parts and learn where they go.
I dropped each of these units out of the cases, easily slipped the A bodies on via the front cowcatcher (I know.. be gentle) where the coupler passes thru the hole. I found that the red and yellow fuel tank caps are actually small pins that fit thier holes on the body and makes a good fit.
The QSI Modules indicated version 7 which I think is the latest availible as of 2006. I will have to cross check it against the QSI Industries upgrade list but am pretty sure that these QSI modules are the most current availible. Version 6 is pretty good as well, Im not particularly worried about software versions right now.
I whipped out a section of Kato track connected to my Super Chief and it had a number 6 Kato Unitrack switch on as well. The diverging route has a 34" Kato curved section before running parallel to the main. The frog on the Kato switch was also powered. The switch itself was controlled by a DS-64 via loconet. The DS 64 had a PS12 power supply on it.
Enough about the stuff let's have the locos.
Number 24 and 28 ran well, they need about an hour's worth of run around time before breaking in I suppose.
Coupling the two units back to back and mu'ing them revealed a slight surging problem that will eventually destroy the middle coupling. I did a quick and dirty MU and will try to define one unit as the lead engine and the other unit as the number two engine and get them to work properly with change of direction headlights etc.
I ran down the line and grabbed a Rapido Passenger Car.
It turns out the Grey of the Rapido's paint just about matches the Grey on the engines. Same for the blue. To my eye I cannot tell the difference much if any. That Grey on the Proto engine influenced very heavy my selection of these engines versus the ones availible from BLI. BLI engines featured white and blue which I dont think matches the Rapido Set.
The Rapido passenger car behaved well and true with the units. I suspect that there is a Freight cowl under the front of each unit with a slightly bigger Passenger Cowl (Cowcatcher) that came in the box and could be put on. The Cowls that were on the units as delivered from the store did not interfere with the Pax cars.
I manually tested one unit on a 3% grade and it very narrowly escaped bottoming out at the top. I used the Woodland scenics inclines and risers with short sections of Kato track to define the transitions at the top and bottoms of the grade. I did not attempt to test the unit on the bottom of the grade yet.
They came with quite some heft. They behave as passenger units but I would imagine the two can haul a pretty good size freight train if called to it. I dont know what is my max number of passenger cars pulled yet. Rapido only made three availible so far and Im expecting three more soon.
I will need to mu these units and get them to behave correctly and hopefully solve the surging between them.
The engine sounds and the associated sounds were very clear and loud to me. Quite pleasing. I might knock down the volumes a tad to keep the wife happy. 2 Desiels roaring out of the station does not a happy home make =)
Bottom line, I got these units at a good price after tax and am well pleased with them. If I identify a need for more of these E7's I would not hesitate for a moment to buy another set. However I usually only run one set of each engine type.
I think the pricing for the two came in at right at 200 dollars each and I am quite happy with this price point.
At the end of the day, Proto did a fantastic job and Im pleased. I dont know much about the lighting and the stuff like mars. I dont think the B&O did mars. However playing with the lights revealed a nice dimming effect. Very nice.
Hi,
I have a question about the new E7. The old P2K E7's nose near the windshields didn't quite have the right contour. If you look at the side of the front near where the side starts to wrap around the nose nearest the wind shield there was almost a slight indentation there. I'm just wondering if that was improved.
I'd also like to see the E8's windshield improved. There was a sizable lip around the edge that was suppose to be the gasket but it stuck out and didnt look quite right either.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
No, they have not retooled the E7 nose yet. It is rumored to be redone this next spring.
The E8/9 nose is still the same except the tooling was "cleaned" a few years back. The lip around the windshields is gone, the doors are tooled shut, the side louvers behind the grilles were tooled in and a few other small changes were made.
Keith Turley/Details West
Being dissatisfied with the action between the two units I brewed a pot of coffee and immersed myself into the online PDF manuals availible from QSI Industries. I used the Version 3.1 PDF's because I was not absolutely sure if the chips in my units are Q version or Q1a version (Those PDF manuals are version 4.1 and beyond)
The manuals that came with the Proto units showed a exploded diagram. They also inlcuded a warrantry card although I have no idea what the serial numbers represent on them. The two warrantry cards had a serial numbers of: A084 and A038. Now I can think... oh those are numbers 38 and 84 in a total run of... how many? In the past you recieved information such as unit number 5 in a run of 300 particularly in brass years ago.
I think they left the total run out to keep us from knowing how many total were produced or something.
Anyhow.
Back to the two units fighting each other. I settled down and did a CV reset on them. The Proto Packing came with a tiny Reed Magnet which will be familiar to previous owners of QSI Reed engines. I dont do reeds.
The CV Reset values were:
CV49 = 128
CV50 = 255
CV56 = 113
when completed you need to hear the spoken word "Reset" when finished.
Discovering the provided proto manual for DCC programming to be rather thin and model specific, I turned to the online PDF manuals from QSI and dug out a old BLI desiel manual for QSI engines as well.
Both engines were confirmed to respond to address 03. Then one engine at a time set on the program track and the DT400 sent into program "Po" mode on the display and I entered the values 24 for engine 1424:
ad2 = 24 on the DT400 throttle display.
I did the same for engine 28 (Engine 1428)
I selected 24 to be the lead engine and 28 to be the end helper. They are to always run together with the passenger train.
I broke out a index card and wrote values down as I programmed them. I learned the hard way to always write the values going into that engine in real time. No one is ever going to recall all the dozens of different values.
I programmed engine 24 with CV 21= 251 and CV 22 = 31; engine 28 with CV 21 = 252 and CV 22 = 20
That should make the engine 24 "Lead" and engine 28 "End Helper" There is a MID helper CV but Im not addressing that today. There are no B units availible for the B&O. (Dont really need it anyhow.. 4000-5000 HP availible with the two A's) The End Helper is also understood as the rear engine.
The manual went more deeply into each of the 8 bits and introduced more CV's and options for those who have steam helpers that might be double headed and shining the reverse light against the train it is pulling. I left it alone for now... more on that later.
Now the surging between the units.
There are three different way to "Drive" these units:
0 = Standard Throttle Control
1 = Throttle Speed Control
2 = Regulated Throttle Control
The default is number 1 for throttle speed control. I set both units to RTC this way:
Regulated Throttle Control
CV 49 = 4
CV 56 = 2
I didnt understand what 49 did yet but was recommended by the manual.
Both engines started trying to work together at this configuration until one will hit something or speed up dragging the other one. Both engines then attempted to find the new common speed. It was better than the Speed control but still not good enough.
With Speed control, both engines sorta marched off and if one was slower.. oh well! That slow engine gets dragged and the decoder constantly tries to find the correct speed. Not working well for me.
Speed Control (Default for the E units)
CV 56 = 1
Now I thought back to the old Blue Box Athearns, those engines ran reasonably well because the motors, gearing, wheels and track condition was very close to each other.
With that in mind I put both E units into Standard Throttle Control. Both decoders will march off disregarding each other outside of the Consist. Maybe one unit will stumble on a spot of dirt on the track but that is why I run two units or more.
The surging disappeared pretty much 90% I think also with the Standard throttle control, I dont get the Resistance to speed changes or grade changes as offered by RTC.
CV 56 = 0
This is for the option to configure Standard Throttle Control.
At this point I decided enough programming for one day.
Both engines were then consisted to each other, direction verified and both throttles of the DT400 carried one engine. Selecting one engine (Usually the right throttle) will operate the entire consist as one unit.
Once in a while I needed to stop the consist and drive it "Backwards" so I select the left throttle for the rear engine, turn on it's headlight and turn off the right throttle for the lead engine's headlight to either off or dim.
I have not learned the CV's necessary to allow this consist to do that automatically on a direction change.
I built and uploaded the video a short time ago. I find this site to be pretty fast in uploads and not so fast in streaming. You might want to pause it until 100% of it is loaded.
http://www.dropshots.com/FallsValleyRR#date/2007-10-19/18:53:29
user="GM&O 100A" No, they have not retooled the E7 nose yet. It is rumored to be redone this next spring.The E8/9 nose is still the same except the tooling was "cleaned" a few years back. The lip around the windshields is gone, the doors are tooled shut, the side louvers behind the grilles were tooled in and a few other small changes were made.Keith Turley/Details West
Ah good, at least they seem to have acknowkeged the issue with the E7 nose and the E8 windshields. Windshields are such a noticable feature that they really need to be done right like Athearn Genesis and the new P2K F7's.
The Headlights dim and brighten properly when the consist programming listed in a previous post is done. The actual turning off of the rear facing unit's headlight is by the throttle when it's time to depart or changing direction.
I discovered this when running the units in a dark room. The headlights threw a beam down the track and against the wall 12 feet away. I think that is pretty durn good for a small LED light.
I ran the units some more today breaking them in. The more they "Run-in" the more I think that these units are outstanding. I dont know anything about the nose molding or associated points that were brought up; it might bother a rivet counter but not me.