I have a old FP-45 blue box with steel wheels so it is old. I bought a few motors and drive shafts for Athearn Dash 8 DCC ready with Hex drive shafts. But no matter what I do it wants to run backwards on DC and Now DCC?
Motor will only fit one way, I tried to turn it around and one drive shaft was to long and other was to short. Flipped the PC board backwards, still runs backwards. Crossed the power leds from the trucks to the PC board. Took the + side to the - side, still runs backwards?
I have had this problem when it was DC only, I have tried all of the above with a Digitrax DH132D decoder and still the same problem.
Can I change the decoder CV so it runs the same way as the other engines on start up? I added about 1 oz of weight and it pulls great and good slow speed as well. Looking forward to some help on this one.
Did the old athearn Blue boxs turn in a driffrent drection than the new Athearn?
Does it run backwards, when the throttle is set for reverse? You can change CV 29 to a value of 7, I believe, to change the norman direction of travel.
If this is an older one, you should be able to open the motor easily. Try flipping the magnets upside-down, so the top magnet is on the bottom, and the bottom on the top. This will reverse the direction the motor turns, which is how Athearn’s SD40s, DASH 9s and 2 motor DD40s run forward (I’ve played with Athearn motors enough to figure these things out [:D]).
Ok - Let me make sure I understand … it will only run backwards ??? No matter what you do, the engine will NOT run forward ???
Have you bench tested the motor by itself on DC to be certain the motor WILL turn in both directions ? The original Athearn board may have a diode oriented incorrectly (rare) that will prevent reverse polarity from reaching the motor - if that is the case, a decoder plugged into the board will act in the same manner. Try eliminating the Athearn board and hard wire the motor directly for DC and see how it works.
If swapping the truck leads don’t change the direction, reversing the motor magnets WILL change the rotation, but it still won’t reverse when the polarity is changed.
In DC…if you swap the truck of a BB Athearn front to back, it will run in reverse. In DCC it makes no difference…the front of the decoder is always front.
Set the CVs mentioned above and be done with it. If that doesnt fix it, then give up.
IF it’s an old blue-box engine, the trucks are common ground to the frame - where are you getting the two truck wires ???
A new motor with circuit board is isolated from the frame - no common ground, again, where are you picking up the “ground” connection?
Get the thing functioning properly on DC first, if you can’t get it to work on DC, adding a decoder won’t cure anything. There’s something missing in the equasion …
Oh, the downfall of the Athearn BB. This is simpily remidied. Remove the truck and use a dremel tool to remove the stamped steel that touches the frame. Place a piece of styrene on the frame to compensate for the height loss of the stamped steel. Solder wires to the two remaining stamped steel contacts and use the wires instead of the old steel. Voila! You no longer have a grounded frame with a reliable power pickup system to boot!
True. The older ones require that you remove the bottom brass brush clip thingy (remember to remove it slowly as to not loose your spring). Using nippers, remove the 2 brass ‘fingers’ that origionally touched the frame. Solder a wire to the underside of the clip (between the motor and the clip) and then cover the bottom of the clip (the side that originally contacted the frame) with electrician’s tape. Reinstall.
…or you can just buy a DH163AT…it does the same thing (except with a live frame…no Kadee #5s).
I had this same problem. Trust me when they say switch the trucks out. By you saying that dont work means your train is defying the laws of DC current. It is posible you might have put the same truck back in the same spot. Before switching them out Tag them on the bottem like CT for cab truck and RT for rear truck. ( Mark them for where you want to switch to not where they currently are.)
Nope, it still runs the wrong way. Here are some PIC I was sent when I bought the motors.
This is sort of where it is now.
In the above PIC you should be able to see the added weight under the fly wheels.
While trying to get it to run forward when the command station is sat for forward it runs backwards when I set the command station for backwards it run forward. I flipped the the board and the decoder is toward the rear where the loan coupler is. Could that be the problem? I had the plug facing toward the front while I was running it in DC? Now in DCC Decoder is toward the rear.
Either way it runs great! Low power draw, pulling 32 cars like there is nothing behind it. Plus it will cook at WOT going to guess 120 sMPH.
Are you saying it only goes in one direction? If you push the other direction button does it just stop or does it go the same direction no matter which button you press? If it just stops, it’s probably the decoder.
If it’s going in the oppisite direction from what it should, ie: reverse when the other loco is going forward and forward when the other is in reverse, it sounds to me that the motor has somehow been turned upside down. I had an analog Athearn BB F7 that did that. The previous owner had taken out the contact strip and soldered in wires. They were hooked up + pickup to the - side of the motor and - pickup to the + side of the motor. It ran the wrong way every time. I simply took the wires loose and resoldered them where they belonged, + to + and - to -. It’s run the right way ever since. It runs so well that I even converted it to DCC.
Man, I swear - we’re getting as frustrated as you are !!! So, are you saying it’s working ok now or not !?! If not, have you followed ALL the suggestions / tests given to you above ? IF it runs in one direction, there is NO physical means the motor will not run in the other direction. Unfortunately for those of us trying to help, we’re getting zero feedback from you on all the individual tests we’ve submitted to help you narrow down the problem … sorry, pictures are of little or no value when trying to decipher a problem like this. If you can’t give us any results to the tests we’ve provided, we’re stuck at square one indefinitely.
