Hello folks. Today I ordered a couple of sound decoders for my Atlas (Maine Central) GP 7's. When I purchased these locos back around 2004, they came as "DCC Ready" i.e equipped with a circuit board that had the 8 PIN NMRA socket. At the time, I immediately converted them to DCC using a TCS T1 decoder https://tcsdcc.com/1021 Although this was approx 16 years ago, this decoder is still in production today - and I must admit, the decoder still works fine to this day. I will be replacing these decoders with Soundtraxx PNP Econami decoders https://soundtraxx.com/products/econami-digital-sound-decoders/eco-pnp/ . Although I have been using ESU Lok Sound decoders lately, I decided to give these a try in my GP7's. They are a more economical version of the well know Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 decoders. When I reviewed the specs on the Ecomani, I decided that it had everything that I would need for my GP's and are a bit more budget friendly. I decided to remove the shell on one of GP7s today to investigate how much room I had for speaker placement and to ensure that the Ecomnai PNP would be a simple board replacement ( it is). I didn't remember how big the internal weights were and wondered if they filled the entire interior of the shell - to my surprise , there is no internal weight ( as there were on the Atlas GP38's that I converted to sound recently) - the weight of the loco is in the diecast frame - I really like this as it allows a lot more internal space in the loco shell (Atlas should use this arrangement more often!!!) and the Atlas is actually heavier than my recently purchased Athearn Genesis GP7. When I had the shell off, I decided to strip down the trucks and gearboxes of the locos -essentially doing a complete overhaul of them. They still ran good , but after approx 16 years , I decided it was time to give them some TLC. It is a relatively easy procedure to do and this video is excellent in explaining how to do this on a 4 truck Atlas diesel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=xt9hbfa0al0. Here is a picture of the disassembled trucks and gearboxes
One of the important things is to ensure you lay out all the parts in a manner that you will remember how they go back together again, esp the orientation of the gears themselves in the gear tower. I washed the parts with warm soapy water using a toothbrush to remove all the old coagulated low quality grease that would have been used when the locos were assembled in the factory in China. Parts should then be allowed to dry thoroughly before reassemble. I recommend using a high quality plastic compatible grease and oil applied appropriate during reassemble. In the below photo, you can see the old grease on the gears prior to cleaning. Besides being low quality, both locos had excessive lubrication which as most modelers know can be as bad as not enough!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment