That Coonskin is nifty. Sounds like adding a gyro light bulb/lamp could be tricky. I'll get to it though. BTW Keith are you still planning to come Sunday?
I now have the |-|Three Musketeers |-| in service, except for their gyra lights. Here are a few photos of them rolling through Lenexa. I included a close up shot of 943 with the beacon on. Took a few tries to get this since it is a flashing unit now. I luv DCC .
Whoo-Weee! For a moment I thought I could hear a rumbling sound and feel my chair shaking! Nice, Nice, Nice!
Rick, it appears the trip through the wash rack stripped the paint off the handrails. you might want to turn it down a bit or send them back to LaGrange for warranty work
Yeah I think that orange paint is stickier than the white paint. You know Athearn lightly weathered the grilles on these things which make them look pretty good.
Many comments have been made about how Atlas sets the benchmark for diesels. I for one wish they (Atlas) take some advice back from Athearn on the brightness and detail of their headlights and the detailing of their classification lights.
That is so true. Sometimes I have to look twice to make sure the lights are burning on 38's and they are DCC equipped. I can see Athearn models coming from a mile away
My trainman 38-2 is nice and bright. So is my B30-7 and MP15DC. My 38AC doesn't make since because the front light is barley, but the back is nice and bright.
I know have one. I tested it on dc and every thing was good. So I took the shell off to install the decoder. The Only spare decoder I had was an A6X (which is an atlas style board). So I unhooked the factory board and soldered in a wire to the top motor lead. I proceeded to hook up the motor contacts and track leads. The thing took off like a rocket with out me telling it to. I was able to hold it back long enough to factory reset it, but didn't fix it. I tried reprogramming the address, that didn't fix it. So I took it back out, and put the factory board in. I then stole the decoder out of my mike, a TCS T1, and put it in. Then connected the track leads and motor leads. It responded correctly. Then I went to hook up the lights in the back. I hooked them up, and a hole burned in the plastic of the decoder. So I cut the power and took out the bulb wires. The loco still ran fine, but I tried lights again and no luck. I then put the decoder in the mike again, and every thing worked fine, the speed, direction and the light. So now I'm really confused because the loco will run, but I can't get the lights to work on the mike, but not the SD45. The Manual said that I wouldn't need resistors hooking straight into the board. Any help?
Ethan It sounds like you burnt the bulb out in the SD45. It sounds like you are very lucky that you didn't burn up the A6X and the M1. If you haven't gotten it fixed by Katy Days bring it with you and I will look at it. That is assuming you are coming to Katy Days. By the way, Ghetto Rail an invitational only operating sessions will be held during Katy Days. There will be two layouts operating that weekend. Hope to see you then. Bob Wintle
How would it be possible to burn them all out if they never came on in DCC mode? How hard is it to replace them? Bob, I do plan on coming, if all goes according to plan. I am supose to be getting back from Washington DC the day before, but I will try my hardest to come.
And here are some photos I took. The First one is 943 by its self. The second is 943 with a Atlas B30-7 beside it. The Athearn Color is almost the same, but a LOT brighter, but the orange is a good match and the brightness will go away with weathering.
Ethan: Thanks for posting the side by side photo of the SD45 next to the B30-7. Athearn, as they promised, has truly gotten the color right. Also, you are correct in the fact that a little weathering will knock down the shine. On a related matter, as I mentioned in another post, we have asked Atlas to use the dual light nose casting that they have in stock vs. the plain one that came with your B30-7 when they do the U30b for the Frisco. Therefore hopefully it will come with lights in place and wired and all we will then need to do is scrape off the casting and replace it with the single lens one. Thanks again!
What if you want to do it as one of the earlier series of SLSF U30b's (up to SLSF 843) that did not have a nose gyralight? Is there anyway they could give you two nose castings? Ken
Ken: That poses a great question. Please post which units did and did not have them and I will pass the information on to my contact at Atlas.
Bob - Frisco U30b's SLSF 832 through SLSF 843 did not have a nose gyralight. From SLSF 844 on, they had the single plate-mounted gyralight you are talking about. None had the dual light. See the attached pic of 843's nose. What numbers does Atlas plan to do? What style(s) will they offer in undec? Ken
Ken: I will need to go back and look at the notes that I submitted to Atlas. I did ask for #846 in a special "Platinum Edition" form. Having said that, was there a Phase difference starting with the XR unit or am I thinking about the Bowser U25b? Someone please advise.
Bob - See David Thompson's GE U30b roster with phase descriptions and phases of each unit noted, at: http://www.trainweb.org/jaydeet/u30b.htm All of the Frisco U30b's were "Phase IIb" or later, but the various series as purchased had some minor differences with the air filters, headlight casings, and side door latches. See the roster. One important thing to look for on the Atlas units is the transition taper between the body hood and the start of the radiator housing. This taper was there on the Phase IIa units (and is on the Athearn "Blue Box" model). As of the Phase IIb units, the taper was removed and the wider radiator housing just jutted out. None of the Frisco U30b's had the taper. It will be interesting to see which phase the Atlas model will be. Ken ps - Update: I just checked the Atlas website - their previous HO U30b releases were units with no taper. On this point, these units would be correct for the Frisco's U30b's. Hope they hold to that as the taper is obvious (but easy to remove). I removed it on my Athearn Blue Box SLSF 835 and you can't tell it was ever there.
