I recently purchased two used Proto 2000 ACL U30Bs at a local train show. Original store inventory sticker listed them as LL 31110 and 31111. Warranty postcard had LL address in Baltimore, so unsure if they were owned by Walthers then. Regardless, I don't expect any help from them.
Tested before purchase - one ran somewhat and one dead, not even lights. Good price, so figured I could always use as dummies.
Once home, opened them up. The runner does so in an undulating fashion, regardless of speed. Speeds up, slows down, speeds up, slows down. No clicking or apparent binding.
The dead one has insulation burnt off several places on the black and blue wires. One bare wire was touching the shell and had melted the plastic slightly. Have never seen anything like this before on any locos I've worked on. Must have been one heck of an overload.
First, any ideas on the up and down movement with the runner?
Second, does anyone have a wiring schematic diagram for these units? I have no idea what the modules under the hood do (these are DC only). I can rewire, but I'd like to know what I can and can't eliminate.
TIA,
Patrick
iggi.geoFirst, any ideas on the up and down movement with the runner?
Dried out grease?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
This is a smooth and rythmic change in speed, like a sine wave. Not jerky at all.
It could be dried up grease and or the split axle gear issue ,Maybe dry bearings on the motor. Remove the axles and gears clean the grease out check for loose or split axle gear and replace them. Relube including motor bearings.
The burned wires sound like it is a light board likely with diodes and resistors. If you are staying with DC rip it out and wire direct motor to pickups.Wire leds for headlights You should do the same for the running gear as I suggested on the other engine.If you are going DCC perhaps a DCC person can tell you what can be done.
Ron High
I second checking the gear lub. I've been redoing some SD7/SD9 models and the gear grease is brown, peanut butter, looking color and it has turned into a paste about as thick as peanut butter. Appears that the petroleum used in the gease evaporated away. Two ways to solve this - one is the disassemble the trucks and clean all the old grease away and then lub with some quality stuff. The second is to use one those micro brushes (aka make-up ) and wipe it out. I found WD40 works well to soften up the grease and then if you are taking them apart use Dawn to clean out the WD40. The U28B/U30B and SD7/9's have the new type of trucks with side bearings for the wheel axles.
iggi.geo This is a smooth and rythmic change in speed, like a sine wave. Not jerky at all.
Could be a crooked wheel rubbing against the side of the truck gear casing producing resistence in a repeating fashion. Or, excessive thick grease in the worm gear chamber. Or the motor receives intermittent current in a repeating fashion.
I suspect that these are used, and somebody boogered up the PC Boards somehow or slathered the worm gear with auto grease.
Just remove the whole green board and direct wire the truck wires to the proper motor tabs, even leaving the light bulbs unattached and see if they run normally. Both left side wires to the same motor tab, and the two right side wires to the other motor tab.
You can either hook up the lights for direct lighting or buy a pc board from any locomotive of any manufacturer if you want directional lightning and are just going to run DC, as long as the board fits in the same space on the weight as the original. Athearn sells boards.
What does the bottom of the truck look like? If I asked does it look like an Athearn blue box truck would that mean anything to you?
- Douglas
kinda sounds like some one put these units on a dcc layout and smoked all the electronics and from the sounds of the motors also.
j. c. kinda sounds like some one put these units on a dcc layout and smoked all the electronics and from the sounds of the motors also.
deleted
Unless it's a really, really old DCC system, I highly doubt this is the case. Many of the newer ones will run a single DC locomotive.
I had 2 dead proto 2000 units and they both run fine now, but I cleaned and rewired everything.
Really, your problem stems from the perspective of thinking that there is a single fault with the engine. Clean it out and rewire it, and make sure all leads are soldered.
You really won't know how well they'll run until you do this.
While you're in there, check the trucks for cracked gears as well.
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
well not knowing anything much about new dcc ,but are they not they still a fixed voltage in the 15 volt range. don't know what dcc system the club i belonged to used but it was set up for dcc/dc some one left a dc loco on rails and switched it to dcc loco ran about a half a lap that way motor got hot and warped the shell and burned out the light.thats what i based my post on.
As others have indicated, they both are likely suffering from a similar cause. I find that the motor wires can and will come off in normal conditions. When things have gotten this hot, the path is likely broken.
You need to work this in a systematic manner. I think most of the issues are electrical. The gear and truck grease problem is likely there as well, but you should just fix both of those regardless.
I find P2K light boards are prone to have problems. Often just fail.
You have tested the running engine as is. What I like to do next is take the motor leads and the track power leads off the light board. Then connect these appropriately. P2K has a poor color coding to their wires, not the NMRA RP colors. I do think the track power leads are red and black. I believe the U30B is after they stopped using the frame as a electrical conduit. If so there will be two black wires and two red wires. Make a note about where they are removed from. The motor leads can be any color. With some wire following, you should be able to figure which they are. Again, make a note of where they are removed from. These notes are in case you want to put them back on this or a new light broad. You want to connect the two track leads from the right side, maybe red, to the bottom motor lead. Thus is opposite the normal, but correct for P2K. The other two track wires then are connected to the last motor lead. This effectively has disconnected the light board from the power circuit. At this point, retest the drive. If the problem persists then the fault is not in the board. Usually it vastly improves, pointing to a board issue.
Because one is badly burned, the other is likely to have some similar wire issues. As was ndicated in an earlier post, a rewire job is required on one, and it will give you peace of mind on the other. When doing that, you can use the NMRA RP colors, so issues down the road will be easier.
What you do next will depend on how you going to control you system. In DCC, the light boards get in the way. Often they are additional voltage drops for no return. If your going that way, you will replace the board with the decoder module and all will be good. If your staying in old style DC, you need to decide if you want the directional light control. That is the good feature of the board. There is additional electronics on the board that controls the motor start voltage. This was done for light intensity reasons, but the engine performance is compromised to much IMHO. I chose to leave out the board.
Good luck.
So many trains, so little time,
Larry
www.llxlocomotives.com
IMO, Proto engines would run so much better if Walthers redesigned the pickup trucks and built a new motor so the unit runs smooth and quiet. Get rid of all those complicated gears.
It seems Proto is okay, it's not great but Proto always seems to have problems regarding cracked gearboxes and poor pickups.
That's why I think a new motor/gear system would eliminate most of these problems
If it were me, I'd systematically disassemble and troubleshoot the whole chassis and mechanism as much as I could. Remove the motor and connect the leads to a power pack to test it. Then clean, relube, reassemble the trucks, and test their rolling ability before putting the worm gear back on. Test electrical continuity with a multimeter for each component (each half of each truck, the pickup wires that go to the motor, etc.). Check for shorts between the motor and frame and correct them as required. Install worm gears and drive train and test run. If using DCC, replace the circuit board with a decoder. If using DC, chuck the circuit board and plan to hard wire everything together. Once satisfied everything is working well, solder all the wire connections.
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
I want to thank everyone who contributed their suggestions concerning this issue. It took me awhile to get in gear and follow up on them, but I have the problem solved.
I removed the light boards from both locomotives. I don't believe they were wired for DCC - in fact, I think the problem was solely due to DC locomotives sitting on a DCC track for too long. Must have smelt like burnt bacon.
There was a slight amount of "hard" grease on the drive worm gear, but that didn't stop the drive train from operating properly. I cleaned it off with alcohol. The remaining gears were well lubricated and free turning.
I connected the motors directly to the power supply and they turned perfectly with no bumps. Then I replaced all power feeds from the trucks to the motors.
These units don't have lights at the moment, but they run extremely well.
Again, thanks for all your suggestions.
If you are planning to go DCC, just remove the factory board and hard wire a decoder. If keeping them DC, the circuit board is just 6 diodes wired to get a constant (2 in each direction) directional (one of the diodes for each direction) light, the bulbs are 3V.
Definitely from before Walthers. There was a run that added number board lights, but rathr than rework their circuit board they wired them directly across the motor. These cause problems with just plugging in a decoder - yet another reason to just rip out the factory board and hard wire the decoder. The original run is only the second or third P2K loco produced. Before Walthers there was a full listing on Life Like's site with all the releases listed, wish I would have printed that out and saved it.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Glad to hear that you've got those locomotives running again.
rrinker Before Walthers there was a full listing on Life Like's site with all the releases listed, wish I would have printed that out and saved it.
Have you tried the "internet wayback machine"?