Week of 9/10 lounge

[bnsf971]

Once again, it's Monday, hope everything is going well with everybody else.
My friends arrived from out of town, they are spending the night in their motor home in my back yard. I dropped the truck off at the body shop, it's been repaired, but of course the pinstripes they ordered for it were incorrect, so I will have to take it back this evening for them to apply the correct pinstripes.
Everybody have a good day.

[rhpd42002]

Hello Terry and the rest of the Forum Folks.

Another nice start to the day here. 58F just after sunup. Made to 81F yesterday and probably the same today. Light breezes out of the NW help, along with cooler, drier air. Should last most of the week.
Had too much trouble with my ISP last night, so gave up trying to peruse/post to the Forum.
Staying home with LD today, as she's hurting a good bit. Not sure why, but possibly a pulled muscle, making it difficult for her to breathe, naturally/deeply. We're hoping it gets better as the day progresses.

On Sunday evening, I tore down 1 non-sound and 1 sound, Atlas MP-15DC loco to try and determine why they are surging or running as if there's a bind in the mechanism.
I found nothing obvious that would indicate binding. No cracked gears anywhere, no loose flywheels or worm gears. I cleaned out some excess grease/oil, cleaned out the electical pickup bars that the axles stubs roll in. Cleaned the axle ends and light re-greased the gears and put ultra light oil on the stub axle ends that roll in the electrical pickup bars.
Then I test ran them.
The non-sound unit seemed to run a good bit better, but it's very slow speed still showed some shuddering as it moved.
The sound unit had no improvement whatsoever. I have also set the decoder back to factory defaults, even though I haven't changed any CV's, and still no improvement. I plan to try this on the other 2 sound units that are exhibiting the same behavior and HOPE that those show some improvement. If not, I don't know what I can do next, short of finding new, sound equipped locos and swapping out chassis. Kind of an expensive fix, if that's my only option.
Any suggestions from anyone else on what I can do/try?

I posted the DCC problem in the DCC part of the Forum, too.

[calzephyr]

Sept 11, 2012 7:08:05 GMT -8 rhpd42002 said:

Hello Terry and the rest of the Forum Folks.

Another nice start to the day here. 58F just after sunup. Made to 81F yesterday and probably the same today. Light breezes out of the NW help, along with cooler, drier air. Should last most of the week.
Had too much trouble with my ISP last night, so gave up trying to peruse/post to the Forum.
Staying home with LD today, as she's hurting a good bit. Not sure why, but possibly a pulled muscle, making it difficult for her to breathe, naturally/deeply. We're hoping it gets better as the day progresses.

On Sunday evening, I tore down 1 non-sound and 1 sound, Atlas MP-15DC loco to try and determine why they are surging or running as if there's a bind in the mechanism.
I found nothing obvious that would indicate binding. No cracked gears anywhere, no loose flywheels or worm gears. I cleaned out some excess grease/oil, cleaned out the electical pickup bars that the axles stubs roll in. Cleaned the axle ends and light re-greased the gears and put ultra light oil on the stub axle ends that roll in the electrical pickup bars.
Then I test ran them.
The non-sound unit seemed to run a good bit better, but it's very slow speed still showed some shuddering as it moved.
The sound unit had no improvement whatsoever. I have also set the decoder back to factory defaults, even though I haven't changed any CV's, and still no improvement. I plan to try this on the other 2 sound units that are exhibiting the same behavior and HOPE that those show some improvement. If not, I don't know what I can do next, short of finding new, sound equipped locos and swapping out chassis. Kind of an expensive fix, if that's my only option.
Any suggestions from anyone else on what I can do/try?

I posted the DCC problem in the DCC part of the Forum, too.

Mike
Those units seem to be a real hard puzzle to figure out what is causing the problem. Have you tried running them on a roller set for an hour or so?? I don't know if you use rollers, but I have found running a model for an hour or so and changing the direction every 15 minutes does help the running qualities of many models.

Have you considered that maybe the motors really are the problem. I don't know of problems with the motors on these units, but something has to be causing this issue.

Larry

[rhpd42002]

Thanks for the suggestion about the rollers, Larry.

I don't have any of them but it's one of those things I intend to get, "one day".

These locos really are a puzzle, as they have performed very well for me, up till now. They are all about the same age as far as usage. They have been my most run locos for the past 4 years.
The only engines I have with more run time are some Stewart F-units and one "torture tested" BLI SW-7. One of the Stewarts had to have the wheels replaced, as I ran the nickel plating off of 'em!!

Since it has happened with both sound & non-sound units, I also think it may be the motors. If that turns out to be the case, I would be very surprised, since Atlas uses a very good motor. None of my other atlas locos have ever exhibited this behavior. I'm stumped!!