RailPro > RailPro Specific Help & Discussion

Athearn RTR SD40 pick up issue

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CPRail:
Hi Group,

I've got an Athearn RTR SD40 that I've put a LM-2S and a iPhone speaker into, using the Athearn board. It ran with no hassles at home all over my layout. Took it to a friends layout who is using NCE DCC and it worked fine until the electrical bugs started bothering the whole layout. Then it would barely move one wheel revolution before cutting out.

It ran fine on the host's test stand, but put it on the layout and no joy. There were no error messages on RailPro, but it kept losing connectivity when it died.

Figuring the gremlins were out in full force that night (boy were they ever - how we got the op session done, I have no idea), I switched to using the Host's power (at least they would move) and packed my units up.

At home, I cleaned the unit all up, hard wired the truck wires to the board, ensured the solder connections between the wires and trucks were fresh and solid. All good. Put it on the track, and it runs fine until it gets to a switch, and then it has a momentary loss of contact, fires back up and continues on.

Again, no Error messages.

I did have to pull the weights from the Athearn chassis to get everything to fit. Could that loss of weight be enough to cause the problems? Do I need to ditch the board and hard wire everything?

It seems that you can get a loss of contact just by lightly touching one side of the unit (maybe a .5% tilt either way), but I can't confirm.

Model Railroading is Fun!!  :-\

Ian Lisakowski

Alan:
Sounds like you may have only a single wheel per side picking up power.

nodcc4me:
If it originally ran well on your layout, I don't think the weight removal is the problem. You said you cleaned it up, but did you give the wheels a good cleaning? If your friend's track was dirty that would cause problems for the module.

CPRail:
Yes, wheels were the first thing I cleaned, as I knew that there were some seriously dirty sections we were running on. I even cleaned the track on my layout just in case.

Took the meter to the wheelsets and trucks and it showed power coming on both sides.

Ian Lisakowski

Alan:
The rocking observation you made caused me to think wheel problems. Do the trucks move freely in both x and y axis? Do all of the wheels touch when observed on a plate of glass?

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