Anyone who has been around the forum for a while might remember my story of the Athearn Genesis Challenger. Basically it ran on DCC channel three from the layout yard onto the programming track (about 10 feet). On the programming track it promptly lost its little DCC brain. This loco has one of those junky MRC brilliance decoders in it. I tried ever trick I knew of to reset or reprogram it. Gave up in disgust and let the loco sit in a box from Jan 2006 until Christmas 2006 when I got it back out and tried everything again including using a different DCC control system and even a new power booster for the programming track. I called Athearn support, I called MRC support. Nothing worked it refused to budge. Worked all Christmas break trying to get it to go. Double disgust and throw it in the junk box in the back of the closet.
So the locomotive has been sitting in storage for almost 8 years and I basically forgot about it. The museum where I volunter announces a “Rio Grande Day” tomorrow (10/26) where everyone is supposed to bring D&RGW equipment to run on the museum layout. I was rather down because last summer (2012) I moved all my train stuff to the “other” house. That included the D&RGW equipment. I have very little here, mostly just what I’ve purchased from the beginning of the year. Anyway, then for some reason (maybe the 4-6-6-4 adversiment pop up on the side of this screen), I suddenly remembered the Challenger that had been kicked to the back of the closet. It had missed the big move.
So I dug it out tonight thinking that if I couldn’t get it going I could throw in a Tsunami really quick. On a whim the first thing I did was put it on a DC track. Wanted to see if it still ran at all. It fired right up and I ran it back and forth on the one piece of flex track.
Glad to hear it ‘decided’ to play right. There’s been a time or two when something similar happened to me, couldn’t figure out for the life of me why things suddenly started acting right. It’s like they were haunted or something… [:|]
I had the same thing happen with a Bachmann DCC dual mode decoder. Stopped working at the club on Saturday, and wouldn’t run all day Sunday. I took it home, wouldn’t run, then about a week later it was running fine.
I haven’t had it happen with an MRC decoder yet [knock, knock]. These incidents give real credit to “ghosts in the machine”.
It’s funny how these decoders seem to have a life of their own. I used a few of those MRC decoders a few years ago, but I was never happy with their sound. The only one I still have is in a proto 2000 FA2. I did like the ALCO sound and it’s been in there for about seven years now. I think I would have installed a Tsunami decoder in the Challenger a few years ago if I was in your situation. Anyway, it’s good to see you’ve brought it back from the dead just in time for Halloween!
First off most don’t seem to know that wires can grow microscopically when powered (many a satellite has died for this reason) but it usually takes some time to happen and when doing small electronics sometimes things get too close but don’t actually touch. Running on DC may have caused a short that repaired the item, and no, you wouldn’t have noticed because of the size of the growth which makes a human hail look like a monster.
Anyone who has been around the forum for a while might remember my story of the Athearn Genesis Challenger. Basically it ran on DCC channel three from the layout yard onto the programming track (about 10 feet). On the programming track it promptly lost its little DCC brain. This loco has one of those junky MRC brilliance decoders in it. I tried ever trick I knew of to reset or reprogram it. Gave up in disgust and let the loco sit in a box from Jan 2006 until Christmas 2006 when I got it back out and tried everything again including using a different DCC control system and even a new power booster for the programming track. I called Athearn support, I called MRC support. Nothing worked it refused to budge. Worked all Christmas break trying to get it to go. Double disgust and throw it in the junk box in the back of the closet.
So the locomotive has been sitting in storage for almost 8 years and I basically forgot about it. The museum where I volunter announces a “Rio Grande Day” tomorrow (10/26) where everyone is supposed to bring D&RGW equipment to run on the museum layout. I was rather down because last summer (2012) I moved all my train stuff to the “other” house. That included the D&RGW equipment. I have very little here, mostly just what I’ve purchased from the beginning of the year. Anyway, then for some reason (maybe the 4-6-6-4 adversiment pop up on the side of this screen), I suddenly remembered the Challenger that had been kicked to the back of the closet. It had missed the big move.
So I dug it out tonight thinking that if I couldn’t get it going I could throw in a Tsunami really quick. On a whim the first thing I did was put it on a DC track. Wanted to see if it still ran at all. It fired right up and I ran it back and forth on the one piece of flex track.&n
I have an Athearn Genesis Big Boy (and a challenger) from that same period. It now just sits and hums and that’s it. I’ll give your dc to dcc path a try-what the heck. Does anyone who participates regularly in the dcc forum know if the DC to DCC “path” could really make this difference?
I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one with those types of problems. Sadly my Challenger suffered major damage when a visiting cat knocked it onto the concrete floor. I don’t think trying to run it in DC would solve those problems. It now sits as a static display.
An update. The Zombie performed great! Smooth, quiet, strong. It was assigned to mixed/drag freight #504, and I was able to run it through the layout 4 times. That logs 82 scale miles today. Speed limit is 20 smph. Each time through I added more cars. The last lap it was able to pull 27 NMRA weighted cars up the worst grade ( 2.2% ruling ). That is more than twice what the Sunset Challenger will do. I believe most of that is due to the traction tires. I’m guessing it would be able to pull at least 8 more.
