:hey: [b]Hello all, does anyone on the gauge repair engines, I bought an Athearn 4-6-6-4 Challenger new a few years ago, and it is my favorite engine, I ran it whenever I was able to get down to my basement, a couple of years my grandson was visiting, and he ran it too fast coming into a curve, and it jumped the track and dropped about 30 inches to the concrete floor, a couple of trim pieces were broken, and one of the wires broke off of the wire harness, I wrote a letter and boxed it up and sent it to Athearn, and advised them to make the repairs and notify me of the charges, approximately 6 weeks later it was returned with a hand written note saying it was repaired at no charge. At the time I had recently had a heart attack and was unable to run it for a few months, anyway when I finally put it on the track, it causes my MRC DCC system to short out, I am hoping to find someone on the gauge that has the ability to repair it, if the cost is not prohibitively high, Hopping to hear from someone with the ability, :cry: please advise...

Please PM for contact information.

As much as I could use the income, I think it should not be to difficult to ferret out the solution without sending your locomotive away to strangers.

First, check the wheelsets. Make sure all insulated wheel-sets are oriented properly. If a wheel set is "backwards", it could explain the shorts.

Next, I would try to check the wires and make sure none of the pick-up wires are crossed heading into the decoder or plug.

I would also try temporarily wiring the locomotive to run in DC mode, without the decoder, and run it on a DC power pack. This will help isolate the source of the problem.

If your challenger is of the older variety, it may have an MRC Sound Decoder in it. the MRC sound decoders are really hit-or-miss. Its entirely possible the decoder is malfunctioning. If this is the case, I reccomend trying to replace it with a Tsunami decoder. Trying to replace it with another MRC decoder will not likely improve peformance.



So at the very least, check the wheels and wires, it may be a simple fix that doesn't necessistate sending it out.

Hi SFD,

Please check your messages.

Andrew

Sorry to hear of your troubles with the engine!

I am not sure of members here who offer such services, but two places that get consistently good reviews for DCC are:

Tony's Train Exchange: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.tonystrains.com/">http://www.tonystrains.com/</a><!-- m -->

Litchfield Station: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.litchfieldstation.com/xcart/home.php">http://www.litchfieldstation.com/xcart/home.php</a><!-- m -->

I looked up the manual: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.athearn.com/ProdInfo/Files/G">http://www.athearn.com/ProdInfo/Files/G</a><!-- m --> ... Manual.pdf

If that is the right one, is it possible that one of the tender trucks is reversed, or even one of the wheelsets was reversed upon reassembly. I would think they would have caught this by testing after the repair, but anything is possible. I had this happen on one of my steamers, and it is difficult to find, as it may be hard to tell which wheel is insulated. Anyway, not sure if that could be it, but worth checking. One other quick check is to see if it's possible the plug was reversed from the tender?


Andrew

Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:As much as I could use the income, I think it should not be to difficult to ferret out the solution without sending your locomotive away to strangers.

First, check the wheelsets. Make sure all insulated wheel-sets are oriented properly. If a wheel set is "backwards", it could explain the shorts.

Next, I would try to check the wires and make sure none of the pick-up wires are crossed heading into the decoder or plug.

I would also try temporarily wiring the locomotive to run in DC mode, without the decoder, and run it on a DC power pack. This will help isolate the source of the problem.

If your challenger is of the older variety, it may have an MRC Sound Decoder in it. the MRC sound decoders are really hit-or-miss. Its entirely possible the decoder is malfunctioning. If this is the case, I reccomend trying to replace it with a Tsunami decoder. Trying to replace it with another MRC decoder will not likely improve peformance.



So at the very least, check the wheels and wires, it may be a simple fix that doesn't necessistate sending it out.

Thank you for the great ideas Green_Elite_Cab, but with my eyesight and also have hand tremmors, there is no way I could attempt to remove the wheelsets, and yes it does have the MRC sound decoder, they came equipt to run both DC and DCC without doing anything, I will put it on an isolated track section tonight and hook up a standard DC transformer and check that idea out, Thank You again for the ideas.

SantaFeDu

I wish I could help...I'm in the middle of a big move over the next 2-3 weeks and, while it wouldn't get lost in the mail, it might get lost in the shuffle. If after that you haven't found anybody, I'd be more than happy to look at it. My resume' includes a Mantua Classic 2-6-6-2 that took a 3 foot header off of a layout that is now the pride of my fleet...





I hope you get her runnin' soon....