power pack controller

[trailrider]

Thankfully it wasnt the S4, it is an old Athearns GP-38 i bought second hand and i was running in DC mode. (snip by Trailrider for bandwidth) I did just replace the wheels on the loco like 2 weeks ago when i retooled it. i noticed the replacement wheels from Athearn were a bit smaller and a deep colored shiny metal, they were better then the orginal wheels that were on it. i did gauge the wheels with an NMRA gauge. the wheel set itself does have play in it back and forth though. Not sure how to fix that through.

Do you mean that the wheel/axle has sideplay? It depends on the type of frame the truck has. The older Athearn power trucks had the bearings in the sideframes and the axles had squared ends. These do have quite a bit of sideplay. Not sure how much sideplaty they have, as all mine are of the old type. The newer versions had square bearings riding on an inner formed sheet metal frame. The big advantage of the older type is that on 6-axle Athearn diesels, you could remove the wheels from the axles on the center axle to facilitate going around tighter curves, leaving the gears on the axle. Can't do that on the newer type as the wheels keep the bearings in place laterally. Without the wheels on, the bearings won't stay in place!

Unless the sideplay causes problems derailing the truck, I'd not worry about it.

 

[Cjcrescent]

...

Have other people hadt this happen. ...

Not saying that this is what happened on yours, but on a layout our club is now in possession of, the original owner had "rewired" it 3 times for the three different power systems he had over the years. One was straight DC, One was the old CTC16, from the 1980's and then finally, the PSI (Power Systems Incorp) analog command control. They were in effect, on top of each other. Why he did it this way, we'll never know.

His system was wired using old make/break circuits breakers that would trip at 5amps. Trouble was, those old style breakers didn't trip sometimes as the were supposed to. The PSI system was a power hog and a short circuit on his layout was always interesting. Couple the breakers and the fact that he had cut gaps in the track incorrectly, and at least you were guaranteed a short at once every op session.

One night we were having a session, and the inevitable short occurred, but no one heard a breaker trip, and shortly afterwards, we smelled burning plastic. The receiver in one of the locos had gotten so hot, that the body melted around the chassis, and the string of 10 tank cars it was pulling, got welded to the rails! The cars had metal wheels and trucks. It took a couple of hours to correct the damage to the track. Since the track was hand laid, that didn't take long, but replacing the body of the loco, the receiver and all those wheels took a couple of weeks.

 

[trailrider]

Cjcrescent,
Think what would have happened if those tank cars were loaded with gasoline, chlorine, molten sulfur!) I'm sure you still had burning plastic fumes for awhile. (One reason I had an exhaust fan installed in my purpose-built layout room. Walther's GOO and other cements can really be bad!)

 

[Cjcrescent]

Bad part about it was, he really did "rewire" the layout with each and every system change, without altering what was there before! He would run whatever new wire from the new system, and attach it to the feeders from the old system, but would not remove the old wiring! He also had a crazy way of gapping his rails. Instead of gapping the two inner most on a turnout for example on a siding, on each end, (these are power routing turnouts), he would place a gap on one rail at one turnout, and then place a gap on the other rail, on the turnout at the other end of the siding! He would use only 2 gaps where 4 were needed.

Now that the club "owns" the layout, first thing we have done is rip out the old systems, and have rewired it, with proper gaps, to DCC standards.

 

[cfinn]

My Athearns has the brass/bronze square bearings in it. But the amount of sidplay is enough that sometimes the bearing will slip inside the steel sheet that you were talking about.

Anyhow ran the loco for an hour or so last night with no problems so no permenate damage just the loss of two wheel sets from the melt down.

thanks for the replies.

 

[trailrider]

My Athearns has the brass/bronze square bearings in it. But the amount of sidplay is enough that sometimes the bearing will slip inside the steel sheet that you were talking about.

Anyhow ran the loco for an hour or so last night with no problems so no permenate damage just the loss of two wheel sets from the melt down.

thanks for the replies.

That's one reason I look for a junker Athearn with that type of truck, which you could cannebalize for parts. I don't have one handy to see if there is a way to modify the wheelsets you have to prevent the bearings from shifting.

(On a side note, last night I took a couple of 2-6-6-2 steamers that I kitbashed a long time ago from Mantua 2-6-2 Prairies, and tweaked them for "better" performance. The smaller one is now a passable runner. The one I made from the same chassis parts, but used cut-and-spliced Mikado and Pacific boiler parts runs better, though I probably won't use either much, as I have some very smooth-running 2-10-2's, 2-10-4's a 4-8-2 and a 4-8-4, also kitbashed from Mantua/Tyco kits. All these have been re-motored with the now-out-of-production Canon 20mm diameter coreless motors. Ain't this hobby fun?! )