My Athearn challengers do not ‘recover’ from a short like my other DCC-equipped engines.
I have a NCE system with PowerShields from Tony’s Train Exchange. When another engine trips the Powershield, I can correct the problem causing the short and the affected engine returns to normal.
If a Challenger causes a short, simply correcting the situation isn’t enough. The engine is unresponsive and just makes a ticking noise and the Powershield continues to indicate a short. The only way to restore control and clear the short is to turn the system off and on again. The short indication goes away and the engine is back to normal.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is there something that can be done about it?
I have the same problem you do, and I deal with it the same way as well. You might consider changing out the board, but then that might cause problems with the sound effects (?)… I’m just going to leave my as is and continue to shut it off and on when it acts up.
For the past year so many users get on this forum, and presumably others, to complain about how crappy they perform. Does nobody from Athearn keep an eye on the major forums to get a sense of how well their various models are received? Their Challenger and P2K’s GP and other models sure have gotten slammed regularly. Walthers has apparently begun to issue replacement gears for the P2K’s, but I haven’t read of anyone getting a new decoder from Athearn. Have any of you asked? Since you paid for it, wouldn’t you be entitled to a replacement decoder of your choice since the MRC ones are utter dogs? A replacement such as a Tsunami. Yeah, it’ll happen…I can feel it.
I won’t ever need a reminder not to go near an Athearn Challenger.
For the past year so many users get on this forum, and presumably others, to complain about how crappy they perform. Does nobody from Athearn keep an eye on the major forums to get a sense of how well their various models are received? Their Challenger and P2K’s GP and other models sure have gotten slammed regularly. Walthers has apparently begun to issue replacement gears for the P2K’s, but I haven’t read of anyone getting a new decoder from Athearn. Have any of you asked? Since you paid for it, wouldn’t you be entitled to a replacement decoder of your choice since the MRC ones are utter dogs? A replacement such as a Tsunami. Yeah, it’ll happen…I can feel it.
I won’t ever need a reminder not to go near an Athearn Challenger, or anything with an MRC decoder.