Athearn Gp15-1 HELP!

[Nathan Jahreis]

I just bought the new athearn genesis gp15-1 with sound and hoping I would get something that runs good for the $. Nope (my bachmann gp7 runs smoother) I ran a break-in period of 20+ mins in each direction no cars, and then with cars (about 16). It is hard to get going, it should slowly go from stop to go,  looks like someones popping the clutch.  At higher speeds it kind of bobbles around like it has half square and half round wheels (fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, type of speed pattern), however the wheels are round and not bent. Motor spins freely but I can hear it with the Tsunami. Other than that it looks very nice and sounds good. I am using DC (Troller 1001). Help greatly wanted/needed, should I return it?

[Chock]

Assuming your track is laid okay, and clean (very important, especially with fancier locos), then other possibilities worth investigating include ensuring the bottom edge of the pilot is not fouling track items (typically points is where that will happen), and that the coupler on the car that is attached to it is not fouling it in some way (another possibility with some rolling stock couplers), especially through curved track sections.

Even though the GP-15 is not a heavyweight loco, more often used in yards these days, your model should still be able to pull about 20 freight cars with a smooth set off without too many problems, even on gradients. If you can eliminate the possibility of any track or coupler fouling issues, then it may indeed be faulty, which would be rare, but it's not impossible for even expensive locos to get the odd gremlin from new.

Al

[Nathan Jahreis]

I use old atlas brass track, but it is smooth and clean, I have no gradients on my layout. My couplers are not grabbing/catching the ties. When I was running it now at the higher speeds it seemed to be better, but still doesn't like to start up nicely, it kinda jolts around almost like the flywheels aren't there. Thanks for the info.

[Doneldon]

Nathan-

Chock had some good ideas so don't dismiss him too quickly. But there is another consideration. You say you have Athearn's new GP-15. Is it a dual mode loco which is designed to run on both DC and DCC? If so, you will likely get somewhat smoother running if you remove the DCC decoder and replace it with the jumpers which shoud have come with it.
                                                                                        -- D

[Nathan Jahreis]

Actually it has the Tsunami that works in DCC and DC. So no 8 or 9 pin decoder slot, it has an IC soldered right onto the PC board. Heres a pic http://mrr.trains.com/~/media/import/images/5/a/9/mrr-pr0910-11.ashx?mw=900

[Nathan Jahreis]

Took the front and back trucks off to check them, the front seems to hang back as if there is flashing on one of the gears.  The back is fine.  When I had the worms off and ran the motor, to see if it was to fault, it ran fast to slow repeatedly, is that because of the "back EMF" decoder? Athearn emailed me back and I found out if I want it repaired I should send it to some place in CA, now I live in western NY (hefty freight bill), so I think I will try to fix it myself. This is so disappointing

[r0bert]

try running loco with pulse power turned off on your power pack.
IIRC, those dinosaur trollers have an "extended range" switch
which activates pulse power, and that pulse may be fighting with the keep alive
capacitors of the Tsunami sound decoder.

[Nathan Jahreis]

I don't use the extended range that much with the good loco's.  Then I tried it with an mrc tech 4 and the loco turned on off on off down the track. Not so good.  I then tried it with an OLD mrc gold pack with pulse off,  it did the same on off thing, just less intermittently.

[Nathan Jahreis]

Update: Now it works with the Tech 4 but still does not run right

[Nathan Jahreis]

Well now I think it is the decoder because if I run the motor directly from its leads to my transformer (attached to the drive) it runs fine. But with the decoder it runs erratically.  Without the drive attached,  I ran the motor with the decoder it runs fast and slows down and speeds up again. With the decoder, If I put enough resistance on the flywheels to slow it down I can feel it "pulse" about the timing of the second hand of a clock. Do you think the decoder is bad? or is that just its characteristics

[ACY]

Well now I think it is the decoder because if I run the motor directly from its leads to my transformer (attached to the drive) it runs fine. But with the decoder it runs erratically.  Without the drive attached,  I ran the motor with the decoder it runs fast and slows down and speeds up again. With the decoder, If I put enough resistance on the flywheels to slow it down I can feel it "pulse" about the timing of the second hand of a clock. Do you think the decoder is bad? or is that just its characteristics

If you run this loco with a DCC system and decoder installed it runs great if you want to run it on Analog/DC then it runs best with the decoder removed (even though it is dual mode).

[Nathan Jahreis]

Only problem is that I don't have a DCC controller.

[Nathan Jahreis]

Thank you everyone for your input, you have helped a newbie out allot.
Hunt, with the fact that I run DC would you recommend an MRC tech 6?

[Nathan Jahreis]

Than what do you recommend?

[Jim Banner]

Hunt has given you good advice.  If you can find someone to reset your Tsunami decoder, have them turn the Back EMF control off as well.  The speed up/slow down/speed up that you are observing sounds like the back EMF control in the decoder is fighting with with your Troller controller.  If memory serves, Troller was quite advanced for its time, being one of the first to use things like momentum effects and pulse width modulation back in the 1970's.  Unfortunately, that is not the smooth dc that DCC decoder like to find when they switch to analogue (dc) mode operation.

Here is how you can test to see if your locomotive will run properly on pure dc.  Disconnect all the wiring from your track or set up a temporary test track.  Place your locomotive on that track.  Then connect a good 9 volt battery to the rails by touching one battery terminal to each rail.  See how your locomotive runs.  To reverse its direction, just reverse the battery.  You will not be able to adjust the speed but that is okay.  What you want to see is if your locomotive runs smoothly without the hesitations and speed changes.

Jim