I have a pair of Athearn Genesis B&O F7As with Digitrax decoders in them that have been driving me nuts. They do this strange pulsating, slight up and down speed thing. It is subtle, but noticible when pulling a coal train. I have done everything: cleaning the wheels, reprogramming, starting over with the programming.
I finally took the decoders out and installed them in a pair of old Stewart- Kato F7 drives. I then mounted the Genesis shells on them. THEY RUN PERFECT! It isn’t the decoders, it has to be the drives. I also don’t like the idea of gluing the light bulbs so that if one burns out, you have to dig through the glue to pull the bulb out.
The old Stewart Kato F7 drive remains the absolute standard when it comes to smoothness and reliability. The only problem now is that I have the Kadee 450 close coupling system on them and it looks great, but the shells come very close to touching on a couple of my curves. - Nevin
Mine used to do that. I found two spots where solder joints had come unstuck, fixed it right up. These guys draw too much power, even without sound, to chance friction connections to the bus.
Nevin,
There are so many options available for coupler height and length with the 30 series Kadee. The #450 uses the 33 shank(short centerset) in the #30 box. You have a couple of options to increase the spacing. The box usually mounts on the inner hole on the rear of the F, both ends on B unit, and the outer hole on the front of the A. First, try moving the coupler to the outer holes, if this won’t solve the problem, change the coupler/ shank to #38 med centerset or #5. Check clearances and play with the mounting positions in the brakets for the desired spacing. If you end up with a bit more space than looks good for proper operation, Add a set of diaphrams if applicable for prototype. The American Limited are one of the best, I found . Your increased spacing won’t let the diaphram faces to touch, but will help the appearance somewhat.
Bob K.
If they do the ‘pulsate’ thing going down a grade with a heavy train behind them; the problem is ‘gear lash’ between the worm and the first spur gear. The simple fix is to use ‘thrust’ washers so that th worm does not ride up on the spur gear. The worm rides up on the gear and then ‘falls off’ - you get that ‘hunting’ motion. Walthers, NWSL, and others have the washers.
that’s interesting, Jeffers. My p2k Berkshire has the same problem, especially at somewhat higher speeds, to have a not very constant speed. As this is THE “high speed service” (NKP) steamer I hate having to restrict its speed… Where should I look for joints to be resoldered? tx, Rik
I agree the old Kato drive is the best. I used train control decoders in my Geneses F3s. Had trouble until I disadled DC & locked the CV values in. You may also try soldering the connections. I solder ALL "plug& play " decoders
Was your Genesis F7 one of the older ones with a Buehler German motor, or a newer one with a Roco Austrian motor?(Buehler motors are gold, Roco motors are silver open-frame) The older Genesis drives weren’t really that good, and my SD75M has been running poorer and poorer.[:(] But the newer ones, I hear, run very well.[:D]
From wiring the layout i already knew which joints went in clean and which ones I had to fight with. When I checked the obvious suspects with needlenose pliers and the Optis, it was clear that part of the joint was no longer adhering to the rails.
I’ve been considering getting one, possibly two Genesis F units. I’ve heard and read various comments that they ran exceptionally well, drawing low current.
I hope more owners post comments. I find it annoying to purchase a locomotive with a drive that needs a lot of tweaking. That’s why I stopped buying Athearn BBs.
Out of 6, 5 run perfect and the last one has a slight clicking sound once in a while. It’s very quiet, but I have good ears, otherwise i wouldn’t even mention it.
Dunno about low current draw though…for any given throttle setting, these are among my slowest engines, and they don’t start moving until well past 40% throttle. Much of that probably relates to the weight, and the number of them running at one time. Adding a decoder and sound will exacerbate this. I think this is why they were sensitive to bad solder joints, where the rest of the fleet didn’t have problems.
With three A/B sets costing right at $155 each, and looking as good and running as smooth as these do, I recommend these to anyone without qualification, if you have 22" or larger curves. 18" radius is the dead minimum, at that radius, the brake actuator is in contact with the ladder, any variation in radius from there and it comes right off the track without exception. If you run18" curves, I recommend trying them out, trying to correct trackwork first, and if they are still too sensitive, filing the offending ladder from the back at a slight bevel until you can make it round ok. Of ours, the freight livery pair has been filed, the other 4 are stock. Other than that, get some, run them in, then sit back and enjoy the show.
I am curious to know what vintage Genesis Athearn F units you have. The first year of production, they had bad gearing and wheels that were out of round. They would surge on DC also and I replaced all of the gear sets with Kato wheels and gears. One of my units would actually start and stop over and over at about 15 MPH.
Athearn upgraded the gears at least once and advertised the improved gears. I did notice that the latest F units run much better than the first ones. However, you have the best when you use the old Kato drives. Proto 1000 drives are also very good and were very cheap at one time.
So this is similar to P2K in that there were some problems with the early models. Just assuming, but it I guess it then stands to reason then that a number of the Genesis F units that show up on ebay are “early run” models.