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Athearn RTR DCC Quick-Plug Equipped

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gcarter1945:
I purchased an Athearn GP-35 RTR DCC Quick-Plug Equipped with the idea of giving a clinic at our next Division event showing how easy it is to plug in the LM-3S and get your loco running.  I thought this would be an easy, no-brainer exercise because I have swapped out DCC decoders in other locomotives in my fleet, no problems.

It was easy enough to remove the DCC jumper board and plug in the LM-3S.  However, when I put the loco on the track it caused an immediate short circuit and shut down the Power Supply.  I ended up removing the Athearn circuit board and hard wired the WH-9 and plugging in the LM-3S.  So much for being able to show this easy process in my clinic.

Thinking that I possibly got a bad unit the first time, I was able to pick up another Athearn GP-40X RTR DCC Quick-Plug Equipped loco at our last Train Show.  Lo and behold, but I experienced the same exact problem with this unit when trying to plug in the LM-3S... instant short circuit.

I don't have any of my fleet that I can use to show this because the ones that are still DCC have proprietary decoders or have already been hardwired, and I am not going to buy another locomotive.

So, my friends, what is going wrong, what have I failed to do, and is there a fix?

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Geoff
Too soon old, too late smart

KPack:
That's odd.  It's definitely not the LM-3S, that's for sure.  If anything it is something in the Athearn board, but what I'm not sure.  Could possibly be that someone previously wired the track wires wrong to the board. 

I've never bothered plugging a LM into an Athearn board....I always just remove it.  But I have plugged LM's into MTH, Atlas, and Kato boards without any issues whatsoever. 

-Kevin

nodcc4me:
Did you happen to use the same 9-to-8 pin harness on both locomotives? If so, maybe that harness is bad.

KPack:

--- Quote from: nodcc4me on March 07, 2018, 06:40:01 PM ---Did you happen to use the same 9-to-8 pin harness on both locomotives? If so, maybe that harness is bad.

--- End quote ---

The Athearn RTR locos usually have a short 9 pin plug hardwired into the board, so a separate harness shouldn't be needed.

gcarter1945:
The GP-35 was brand new still sealed package.  The GP-40X had been out of the box and test run.  I doubt that either factory board had been messed with.  They both ran as expected on straight DC before I tried messing with the decoder.

Maybe I'll try one of my remaining DCC locos that use the 9-pin plug vs. some proprietary board.

Thanks for your inputs.

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