I’ve been having a nasty intermittent pickup problem with my new Athearn Genesis GP15-1. These locomotives use bearings contacting the ends of the axles for electrical connection to the decoder, rather than the more common bearings inside the wheels.
When I first noticed this problem, I thought this connection might be poor due to dirt, grime, or paint, so I cleaned everything. After seeing no change, I soldered the wire attaching the decoder to the truck sideframe, which had been held on by a clip. That was tonight, and nothing has been fixed.
Doing some more tests, the problem manifests itself when the axle moves sideways in the truck, losing contact with the bearing on the side frame.
I believe this to be a design flaw and would like to replace both trucks with Athearn’s old style of trucks, with the bearings safely inside the wheels.
Does anyone know if the older style of Athearn trucks will fit this locomotive? Would another brand of trucks, like older Proto 2000 fit better? The front truck has plenty of space but the rear is directly under the speaker and P2K trucks lack the huge metal tab on top that Athearn’s design has (had?).
Thanks in advance!
Check to make sure your wheels are in gauge. If the wheels are too far apart, they can move end-to-end enough to lose contact with the bearings, especially if the sideframes are loose.
Atlas, Kato, Stewart, and Proto use this same method of electrical pickup, but they’re about as trouble free as you can get. I have a couple Genesis diesels with the same design, and they’ve never had electrical problems.
Is there anything within the sideframes that might prevent the axles from making contact with the metal bearing plates? Something like, the axle is somehow riding on the sideframe plastic instead of the metal? Or maybe they used a non-conductive blackening like they did with some of their RTR diesels, and it got in the holes or on the axles?
The wheels are in gauge, but the sideframes are a bit loose. It’s certainly a bigger problem with the front truck (since I took it apart incorrectly and caused them to become looser) but the rear trucks, untouched by my meddling fingers, are also loose enough to lose connection from time to time.
I’d just order new trucks, but whatever the original problem was, it happened before I went in and loosened the side frames trying to fix it.