Quote from: Joe323 on July 21, 2010, 12:19:27 PM
ABC Your showing you

Quote from: ABC on July 21, 2010, 11:57:55 AM

Quote from: richg on July 21, 2010, 11:20:23 AMWorks for me except when it lands on edge.

You must frequent the twilight zone a lot if your quarter is always landing on edge.

ABC Your showing your age if you remember that episode. LOL

One of the first eisodes I've ever seen and I was 10 but that in no way gives you any indication of my actual age, lol.

Back to the topic at hand:

I'm at the point where the rollingstock and locomotives I "need" have not been manufactured yet or are currently in production and not yet released.

My "needs" are more focused on infrastructure at this point (switch track replacements, re-configuration of station approaches and sidings, etc.

I'm also on a budget crunch (as is everybody these days) so I don't give myself the leisure others do when it comes to a model railroad shopping spree:(

I'll second that!  Thanks for bringing these buildings back.  Hope they remain part of the production line for a long time (at least long enough for me to get space for them.  In the meantime I'll see what I can do to incorporate a few into my existing layout.

Don't cut anything or do anything to the shell if you don't have to.

In this case you don't.

Look into getting Kadee coupler #18 (http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page18.htm)  or any variant that is appropriate (raised shank or centered shank).  You'll notice that the nose cone clip and the #18 coupler have similar ends (i.e. the y-shaped clips).  You may have to file down the thickness of the shank in order to fit through the opening for the nose cone clip.

The benefit to this is that you can use the nose cone and knuckle coupler interchangeably without any further modification.  You won't be able to use the nose cone to cover up the coupler as suggested by "Tylerf" unless you modify the nose cone and as he suggests, it will take a bit more ingenuity.  

Hope this helps.  If the above sounds confusing feel free to write back and I'll try to explain in a different way.

I think it's important that Bachmann not re-invent the wheel when it comes to Amtrak models.  So far they've done an excellent job releasing models such as:

E60
Metroliner
Acela Express
HHP-8
Phase V and later amfleet coach and cafe cars *

I put an asterisk next to the amfleet cars because I'm not a big fan of them nor am I impressed with the paint jobs.  Also keep in mind that walthers also produces these cars (I think Bachmann was first though)  The older Bachmann tooling was a bit more accurate but lacking bulkhead details.  I'm not a fan of the re-tooling.

Unless other manufacturers got it COMPLETELY WRONG, it's not necessary to duplicate what's already available on a continual basis unless they were to significantly step up quality and features.  I see no need for Bachmann to re-produce superliners when Walthers has metal plated superliners with interiors in every paint scheme that these cars have shown up in.

All Acela products from Bachmann in HO (motive power) are AT LEAST DCC ready with a quick plug for a drop-in decoder.  The latest run of HHPs (651, 656 and 663) and Acela Express Dual Locomotive (2018 and 2001) come with pre-installed decoders.  I'm speaking from personal experience.

I took the shell off both number 651 and 655 this weekend to inspect the circuit board.  I can't determine any differences aside from the the different sized component parts used.  I have no idea how to read the values of these components but they all seem to be in the same relative positions with respect to one another.  I wonder how much these new pc boards for the new HHPs cost.  It would be interesting to see if that is where the problem resides (that seems to be the case according to others).

One draw back to these new locos is that they don't use the incandescent bulbs that the earlier models used (the plus side to that is the extended life of the bulbs).  Therefore when creating the prototypical set which has power cars 2018 and 2004 (part of an earlier Acela Express train set run) one will have the "correct" incandescent bulb in power car 2004 and the other will have a bluish headlight as a result of the new LEDs in power car 2018 (the new power car). 

Fortunately all I had to do was swap shells with earlier power cars.

Other than that, I feel Bachmann did a nice job.  I'm happy to finally have two "prototypical" sets (as far as power car numbers are concerned, now if I can only get the space for two six-car train sets)

The latest HHPs with DCC on-board don't seem to have this problem (651, 656, 663).  I test-ran it yesterday (running light) and it made it over 125 MPH.  The initial run (650, 655, 664) of the HHPs did not make it up to that speed under the same conditions.

I'm trying to find a post on a forum where someone recommended getting rid of a capacitor on the PCB board and that may solve the slow seed problem.

Just to note (I'm not sure if this was an isolated incident): My HHP motor clicked and slow speeds for a while.  I think it had something to do with the wound can motor and I had to take it apart.  It seems that by taking the motor out of the chassis and letting it run on its own for a little while eliminated that problem.  The problem must've been caused by excess residue in the motor.  It runs fine now!

The wheels definitely need to be lubricated.  Lube the wheel bearings and the wheel wipe contacts.  The squeal is mostly from the contact between the copper pick-up and the inside of the wheels.  I lubed these spots Monday.  It seems that this needs to be done fairly often.

When you say the train runs reasonably, I assume it tops out near or close to 150 MPH under DCC?

Members on other forums support your earlier claim that removing the PC board and hard-wiring improves performance.  I have yet to try this myself but the confirmation eases my mind a bit.

One thing I want to point out is that the HHPs on DC power started up and slowed down smoothly in addition to getting up to 125 MPH scale speed.  The Acelas that I have don't start up smoothly on DC control.  Lubing the cars helps a LITTLE bit.

Thanks gentlemen!  I found it!  Unfortunately I went through all this trouble for nothing as after I lubed what I thought were the trouble spots, the only improvement I noticed was that the Acela lurched at a lower speed (i.e. 0 - 25 in 1 sec as opposed to 0 - 50 in the same time frame) lol.

Keep in mind, this is an issue that I had with the Acela set since I first had it, I just wasn't as anal about having the smooth start-ups then like I am now.

Thanks again for your help guys!

Thanks for the reply. 

I've been aware of this website resource for almost ten years; however, the tutorial does not go beyond removing the shell from the body.  I need to get under the actual motor weight to get to the motor itself. 

The "Bach-Man's" input would be helpful too.

Thanks again!

Kyle

I need to gain access to the motor under the weights and lube some of the contacts down there.  Can someone tell me how to do this safely?

Thanks!

Quote from: Jhanecker2 on January 11, 2010, 08:31:31 PM
It will release the "magic" smoke from the components .Voltage is equivalent to pressure. How much wattage does your system put out and how much wattage (VA) does your system use up in powering multiple trains ?

I'm not sure what the wattage is that my system puts out.  It's a powerhouse pro from NCE and according to them it puts out about 14.5 Volts.  Can you explain the reasoning in your question further as it may help me to understand more clearly or even help me find a solution to this issue on my end.

Thanks!

Kyle

I'm glad this was posted.  I referenced the same problem/concern in a post I made earlier today.  I have this EXACT problem with my HHP-8 locomotives.  This is why I have yet to switch to DCC with the Acelas.

I would say that the track voltage needs to be higher but my Atlas AEM7s run at their prototypically maximum speeds on the same system.  (I have a NCE Power House Pro).

People keep telling me to check my CVs but what other CVs are there to check?  I've set my MAX Voltage at 255 for all HHPs and the best they'll do is just under a hundred.  Under DC they easilly did their prototypical speeds with power to spare.

DC control varies the voltage to the track while DCC has a set voltage.  Most DCC systems do not put out more than about 14.5 to 15 Volts while DC systems that I've used put out up to about 18 Volts.  Herein may lie the answer.  If it wasn't for the performance of the AEM7s I would have made the adjustments already.

I'm worried about adjusting the output voltage from my command station because I don't know what that'll do the lamps on my locomotives or the decoders themselves. 

Quote from: CAB_IV on November 14, 2009, 11:45:22 PM
Hello!

I was told that the PC-board on the HHP8 actually slows it down and that most bachmann engines perform better when directly wired to a decoder. (at the very least, they go faster. the HHP-8 is almost laughably slow compared to the AEM7s from atlas,  and even the AEM7 only reaches 125 scale MPH.  Realistically, i'd like to make the speeds comparable if possible).

The reason i want to do this is to get some extra performance out of my engine.   I have a club open house coming up, and i wanted to run a long distance amtrak train (Baggage-dorm/lounge-2 viewliners-diner-amfleet cafe/5 coaches.   the club's westbound mainline has a long 4% grade, so this is a tough spot.   I've already made one test attempt with the HHP-8 with bullfrog snot (increases traction) applied to one wheel set, and it wasn't quite able to pull far up the hill, and couldn't really handle the full train even on level track.   

My only other option is a pair of AEM7s or an American GK E60MA Kitbash (this burte can actually pull the whole train by itself no problem when it works, lol), but i wanted to go for the attractive streamlined engine first. besides, i've hardly run the HHP8, and i've had it for years, lol.

this is a photo of the train i'm going for.

Thanks for posting!  I've been bothered by this as well!  I can attest to the fact that the AEM7 on a NCE Powerhouse Pro system does reach a top speed of 125 scale MPH with TCS drop-in decoders.  I have a trainspeed speedometer installed on my layout.  This past weekend, the throttle wasn't even near 110/126 on my NCE cab and engine number 907 was doing 125 scale MPH pulling 5 cars (three cars short of a prototypical Northeast Regional). 

On the other hand, my Bachmann HHP (equipped with a DH123 decoder) with no load, was flirting with around 100 MPH (just barely) at a setting of 126/126 on the same system.  If hard-wiring the decoder will help that would be great!  The only thing holding me up currently is the prospect of installing a QSI sound decoder.  As soon as the sound sets become available for these locos, they're going right in.  If it needs to be hard-wired, so be it.

Thanks again for starting this thread!  Has anyone noticed this issue with the Acela power cars too?  I still run them on DC because I'm afraid they'll perform like the HHPs under dcc.