I recently purchased an Athearn GP15-1 with Tsunami sound and have loved it. The sound and detail is phenomenal and 99% of the time it runs great, just as good as my Atlas and Proto 2000 units.
The problem happens mostly on turnouts, where it has intermittent pickup at times, especially on turnouts with their unpowered #6 frogs and rougher track. After I discovered it, I spent an hour removing variables - cleaning track and wheels, soldering feeders to every rail and testing with a voltmeter, and testing other locomotives on the same track.
After doing some research, I discovered it’s probably a problem with the locomotive’s pickup method. The ends of the axles fit into the metal-backed side frames which are connected by wire to the decoder. It’s NOT like Blue Box Athearns - the metal side frame is outside of the wheels, not inside. The ends of the axles fit into the bearings that take the power.
Other people have had problems with Genesis locomotives, with paint or lube oil being between the axle and the side frame and breaking the electrical connection, so I pried the side frames off both sides of the front truck and found oil or grease on the end of one axle. It wiped off easily with a bit of paper towel on the end of a screwdriver.
While reassembling the truck, I found I hadn’t actually disassembled it, I had broken the tabs holding the side frames tightly to the trucks. (The tabs still insert and the wire holds them in place, but not tightly.) I glued the side frames back in place, but the plastic cement I didn’t work so well and the frames are loose, although so far it’s not a huge problem. I’ve tested wiggling them around and found they don’t move enough in normal operation to lose contact with the axles.
Now I’ve found that if I take the front truck off the rails and wiggle the rear truck’s side frames while on normal, powered track, I can cut off electrical contact to the whole locomotive. I theorize that the rear truck has been the problem all along. My questio
The trucks you describe sound like ones I’ve on some Kato, Stewart and Atlas locos I have. For future reference the way to get the side frames off is you have to pry the plate on the bottom of the truck up using a flat blade screwdriver. You won’t see the separation point until it actually does separate. Only then will the frames slide out. You have to keep the plate held up or it’ll snap back into place. I learned to hate this kind of truck long ago. Athearn once used something similar back in the 70’s I believe but it was designed to split apart. I have an Athearn SD45 that still has the original trucks and I hate working on them.
I also have a Genesis GP 15-1 that is exhibiting the same behavior as yours. I have gone through the rail and wheel cleaning routine with no permanent results. I tried lifting one end of the loco at a time and it appears that both trucks are conducting so the problem must be elsewhere. I haven’t taken the shell off yet but I guess that I’ll have to bite the bullet and see what’s up inside. I’ll be following this thread to see if possible solutions appear that we can try.
I tried lifting the trucks as well and both trucks are usually conducting. Try wiggling the side frames of the truck on the rails, and there’s either a loose connection of the wire attaching the side frame to the decoder or something blocking the electrical flow between the axle and the side frame.
Let me know if you find anything wrong inside the shell! I’ve already broken some of the details and I’m really hesitant to even weather the locomotive…let alone open it up!
Ugh, that sounds like fun. I’ll give that a try, and hopefully won’t break that bottom plate. I still have a P2K GP7 missing one of those after a truck swap.
As far as I know they do come off. They have clips on the sides and can be somewhat difficult to get to. I successfully removed the bottom plates on an Atlas U30C and an Atlas SD24 without breaking anything but I’m not looking forward to doing that again.
I do work on a lot of locos that have those bottom plates. Inhave found that if you use a hook pick works really well to get the plate off without breaking it. I bought my set in the dollar bin at my local hardware and comes with an assortment of different hooks. Ypu can get then at habor freight, sears, and even probably at an auto pars store. Commonly know as or ring picks. Hope this helps.
After a little more testing, I’ve changed my hypothesis. I now believe the problem is not the axles, but the unsoldered electrical contact plates where the wire from the truck side frames to the decoder connects. It’s a really thin wire and it’s a loose connection waiting - or in this case already beginning - to happen. One wonders why anyone thought soldering that wasn’t necessary.
Off to attempt not to melt the trucks of the most expensive locomotive I’ve ever owned. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’ve had similar problems with an Athearn Genesis SD70. The pickup wire is not soldered to the truck frame, but has one of those press on clips. Kind of a cheap method, considering the price of the units. My next move will be to solder the pickup wire to the truck frame.
All that said, I have found a good breaking in does wonders. Often there is a paint film on the inside of the truck frames, that interferes with electrical contact. What I do is to take a couple good runners and make a consist. Then I take the new loco, give it the same address, add it to the consist, and let them run around the layout for a couple hours. The problem loco stumbles and tries to stall, but the two good locos just kick it in the butt, and or drag it around the layout. After a while, I notice a definate improvement in the performance of the problem loco. Also, no matter how much I clean the tracks, various locos still stall or stumble, usually on the far side of the layout, forcing me to crawl under to get it moving. Since I usually run consists of two or three locos, I plan to hardwire the power pickups of a couple locos together, for better performance. After all, real locos use MU cables between the units, so it would not look out of place. I already wired the power pickups from a dummy B unit to the powered A unit, in an AB set of F units, and was amazed at the difference in performance. 8 axles picking up, instead of 4 makes the difference going through turnouts that previously stalled the unit. I will keep my very best running units to use singly, and start hard wiring the problem locos into consists.
Soldering is labor intensive. Even though they knew soldering would be better, they could keep the price down on that most-expensive-locomotive-ever-owned by not paying someone to solder it.[8o|]
BTW: Wish you would update your website more often. I like to watch the progress of your layout.
Unfortunately, it seems that every manufacturer is using those plastic clips instead of solder. They save not only on labor costs but environmental considerations – no lead and no hot soldering tools.
The first thing I do with any model that starts to exhibit pickup problems that I know are not related to dirt is solder the wires to the trucks and decoder.
Thanks for the update. I’ve been interested in following your progress since the theme and size of your layout it similar to mine. I like what you did with the space.