I just received a GP-9 NKP with DCC and sound today. I was disappointed that it stalled about a dozen times running on my my layout. Yes the track has not been cleaned in a couple of months. I then pulled out my Proto 2000 GP-7 with sound from 2005 and even a very low speeds it never stalled. I then decided to weigh both locos. The Athearn is a couple ounces lighter which probably accounts for the poor electrical contact. By the way when it started to stall the horn also sounded for a second or to.
In addition one of the fan housings fell off even before I placed it on the track.
For the price of these locomotives I’ll run my Proto 2000 plus my old Atlas engines without sound decoders.
Everything coming out of China today uses those small plastic clips to hold the wires onto the decoder and trucks, thus avoiding any environmental laws about lead based solder and the expense of a soldering station.
Sometimes those clips slip off during handling, resulting in intermittent electrical contact.
The best solution is to solder all of those wire joints, but for the prices they charge, solder should be used.
In the past I posted topics regarding poor power pickup of Athearn Genesis diesels on the Atlas Forum, and other forums as well, and was somewhat flamed for it by those who love Athearn.
Although it is possible something may have come loose during shipping, I noticed significant black deposits on my trackwork (as a result of excessive power arcing between wheels and track) whenever I operated Athearn Genesis F Units, and other Athearn motive power including the SD45-2’s, and regular (recent production) SD40-2’s, GP40X’s, etc. I subsequently learned that even if I had freshly cleaned track, a brand new out of the box Genesis F unit would trash my entire mainline in about 1 hour’s run time, such that there were significant black deposits on both the track and the wheels of the locomotive, and it would begin to pick up power poorly and run poorly. Was it residual oil on the Athearn wheelsets from the factory? Doubtful–because this continued as long as I owned the Athearn motive power. Also, most Genesis F units I purchased ran at different speeds in plain DC, such that they would actually fight each other in consists and not even remain coupled. When I ran them long enough for the plating to wear off the wheels (say about 30 hours run time) the track dirt problems did not improve but continued. I actually converted one Genesis F-7 to a dummy unit because I grew too tired of always cleaning the wheels, only to have continued poor performance.
Notable exceptions were the FP45’s, which apparently are big enough and heavy enough not to leave deposits on my trackwork, and the Big Boys and Southern Pacific 4-8-2’s, all of which, for whatever reason, did not produce nearly the amount of track dirt that the Genesis F-7’s and SD45-2’s produced for me.
I currently use Bachmann steam of all kinds (moguls up through the EM-1) and have also used P2K, MTH and BLI steam power, all with far less track
Funny as I get similar results when I run my Athearn diesels. Most of my locos are Blue Box units. Some are old enough to have the sintered iron wheels but most have the newer plated wheels. Regardless, all of them require wheel cleaning after about 10 to 15 laps of my 10’ by 19’ two-level layout. I use the alcohol on paper towel method to clean the wheels which results in long black stripes on the paper towel.
I normally run a track cleaning car in one of my trains that does a pretty good job cleaning the NS rails. Any trouble spots I clean by hand with alcohol until I can get the track cleaning train to complete multiple laps without stalling. All of the rails have been polished using 1500 grit sandpaper but not yet “gleamed” with a stainless washer. All of my Athearn locos run smoothly once their wheels are cleaned yet, after about 10 or 15 laps, every one of my Athearn locos needs the wheel cleaning process repeated.
Before you say that I’m just not getting the tracks clean enough, keep in mind that my old MDC steamers never seem to need their wheels cleaned. They just continue to cruise around the layout at about 15 scale miles per hour without stalling or stuttering for hours at a time. Granted, all three steamers have been remotored with A-Line can motors and regeared using NWSL 1:72 gear sets so they may just not be drawing enough current to cause any arcing. All of the Blue Box Athearn locos still retain their original motors. One of my Athearn F units is a super-weighted version but it seems to require just as much wheel cleaning as the other normal weight units.
The new Athearn unit probably doesn’t have as good as keep alive as does the P2000. I frequently add keep alive capacitance to those units. I suspect that Athearn is trying to get Soundtraxx to reduce the cost as much as possible???