Last year, I bought two new Athearn Genesis F3 consists, a Monon AA and an Erie AB. Set them up as two separate consists on my DCC layout powered by a PH-Pro 5 amp system. Everything worked fine. I parked them on two tracks at my passenger station and haven’t touched them all summer and autumn.
I go down to the layout today and decide to run them both, and I have problems with the lead loco in each consist.
The lesser problem seems to be with the Monon F3A. The Mars light (F5) works but the headlight (F0) does not. I killed the consist and tested the lighting on each A unit. On the rear consist F3A, all headlights work as they should. On the lead consist F3A, the Mars light works, but the headlight doesn’t. Nor does the rear light when the loco runs in reverse. But the headlights work in forward and reverse on the rear consist loco. Again, this is being tested without a consist. I reset the loco to factory defaults but still no headlight in forward or reverse. My gut tells me that the bulbs are not burned out. Why should they be? Two separate bulbs for front and rear. No derailments or shorts. Any ideas?
The second problem is with the Erie F3A. The F3B works fine. At first, this morning, the consist ran fine coming out of the station, but then it stalled over a 3-way turnout. I killed the consist and tested each loco. F3B runs fine. However, F3A is misbehaving and badly. It makes all of the diesel sounds, but no horn and no lights. It runs on its own, won’t stop, and runs smoothly but slowly. It is as if I cannot control this loco. In fact, I have no control over the loco. Any ideas?
These are my only Tsunami sound units. All the rest of my sound locos are QSI, and they are all running fine.
After letting any locomotive sit that long without being ran, the first thing I always do is clean the wheels and track.
As you surmise, it’s unlikely that the bulbs burned out or the decoder(s) went bad just sitting, but those small plastic clips that hold wires to the trucks and decoders could certainly have allowed corrosion. Remove all of them and solder every wire connection and your problems should go away.
When you did a reset, did you turn the power off to the track, wait 10seconds or so and turned the power back on? If not try this. You may have burnt out bulbs. The 1.5 v bulbs Athearn uses aren’t the best. Joe
Rich, where you can do this safely (no other decoders but the Monon will get the command), enter Ops Mode, or programming on the main, but AFTER acquiring the address “00” on your throttle. Then, get CV8 dialled in and assign it the value of “08”. Press enter or whatever you DCC system does to complete the programming. Then, cut power to the rails, restore it again (you don’t need to wait more than a second or two unless you KNOW your decoder has a keep-alive circuit good for a few seconds), acquire Add “03”, and see what you have working. If the lights still don’t work, there are two possibilities: the light’s shot, or the decoder’s output is shot. Okay, one other…the circuit between the two is shot…maybe a faulty solder, connector…
If the loco now responds on address 3 - then your rest worked. If the headlight still will not come on, sorry to say but you will be going under the hood. Even if it is just a loose wire or those pesky clips working loose. My money’s on the bulb being burned out - still amazes me that Athearn uses those bulbs on even their top line locos. Everyone else switched to LEDs long ago, and even on their lower end stuff. I’ve got a few RTR RS-3s, those silly bulbs (which on that model actually stick out through the headlight casting - what is this, 1930’s Lionel?!?) WILL be coming out and LEDs installed like in all my locos - because I too hate taking off the shells once they are set up. LEDs will outlive my grandkids, should I ever have any.
The new Athearn Genesis Big Boys and Challenger come with LEDs installed, so they have the ability to do this with their other models. Why I have no idea.
The Erie F3A is fine following the reset (CV30=2). The loco reverted to the short address of 3, and then I re-programmed the long address and rebuilt the consist. All is good.
Now to the Monon F3A. I took the shell off to see if I could figure out why the headlight wasn’t working in forward or reverse. I am sorry that I did. What a mess under the hood. I bought this loco new in September, 2012 from MB Klein, as reputable as they come. I ran it a few times, then parked it in the downtown passenger station where it has sat for months, undisturbed, no derailments, no shorts, no nothing. It came factory equipped with Tsunami sound.
When I opened up the shell, the first thing that I noticed was that the pickup wires were frayed, bare wires exposed in the middle of the front and rear wires. I have attached photo so that you can see the bare wires. I checked the function outputs and I got nothing. So, apparently, the bulbs are burned out as well.
When I look at the wiring job, I did better on my first decoder install 10 years ago. This is awful. I need to get the decoder fixed or replaced, and I need to replace the front and rear headlights.
I needed these Monon F3 passenger locos, so I had to buy the Athearn Genesis, but never again. I have had nothing but trouble with Athearn Genesis diesels. I fully expected to avoid any problems with this pair since the decoder and sound were factory installled. Ugh
Holy crap, that looks like a blind Chinese guy installed that. Nice quality control on that one. Hope you get Soundtraxx to replace the decoder for you.
Yikes, I wired better than than as a teenager building the Knight Kits back in the early '60s!
As sad as it is, I would send the loco back for repairs and pay the $45 and let them deal with it. I would not do a thing to it beforehand, for it is just a mess.
Irv Athearn is definitely spinning in his grave. The man built Athearn on quality and price and was a cornerstone of the hobby as we know it. After he passed, his family let it all go to … China.
That’s my dilemma at the moment. Who do I turn to?
I have to assume that the Soundtraxx decoder did not cause the problem. The wiring in the assembly process did in my studied opinion.
So, do I turn to Athearn to fix the problem who, in turn, will have to install a new decoder or repair the old decoder by sending it back to Soundtraxx? Do I pay $45 to Soundtraxx to fix or replace the out of warranty decoder?
I plan to call both Soundtraxx and Athearn today to discuss the problem.
Whatever the outcome, I need a new or repaired Tsunami decoder, new lights, and a complete rewiring job.
It nevers hurts to go hat in hand and ask, Rich. If they dig in, you then have options. You can hunt around for a decoder and have someone who installs them professionally do the job. I believe Tony’s Trains has professional installers, although I don’t know more than that. Maybe a kind soul here would accept delivery of the loco and repair it fully for a small fee plus return shipping.
It’s always a pain where the sun don’t shine when you have to package up and pay for a repair, but at least you know you’re getting the problem resolved that way. After all, playing with that one diesel is important…right?
Actually, all of the preliminary work is done what with the decoder and speaker in place.
So, I don’t have a problem removing the decoder and re-installing it. I can rewire it because I have been forced to partially rewire more than one Genesis loco in the past. And I recently replaced those crappy Athearn bulbs with LEDs.
I just resent that I paid $322 for the locos and now I have to fork over more for a problem that was not of my making.
I have 2 Athearn RS3’s I put Tsunamis in. I have a roll of fiber optic( can;t remember what size) that was perfect for the head light openings. No more pesky bulbs for me either. I have an Athearn SW I need to replace the bulbs with LED’s as well. Joe
