Thank you for the support. Fortunately the Broadway Limited F3 loco is running near the great performance as when it was "repaired" in May. Had a slight and noticeable decrease in performance by early this month but after wheel cleaning and using microbrush, cleaned as much of contacts as possible without removing trucks or shell (my loco luck has not been good and don't want to risk accident until I have a 2nd working loco) restoring it back to near peak performance. At least with the BLI loco, if I can clean periodically, and it restores performance, definitely ok with that. The SD 35 is now a real problem. Again, will be halting layout progress until resolved. Was about to order switch decoder and booster-- going to wait now. How demoralizing. :-(
I'm not sure of the intricacies involved, but maybe you could hunt up a previous gen Atlas SD-35 and swap body shells. My older gen 35s run better than the new ones. I'm not impressed with the new gens' hard-wired trucks. The inflexibility of the wires cause mine to want to derail on Kato #4s.
Thank you for the feedback. Could not agree with you more and there have been a number of people who have mentioned SD35 truck and connection issues. Noticed that inflexibility too. Sad that it appears your suggestion is really the only true fix for the SD35. Just got off phone with Atlas and they are sending a label so it can go back.
There is no excuse for this latest problem. Atlas has not lived up to a minimum expectation on many fronts. The directly wired trucks should be better than a compression joint for an electronic circuit. The wires must be to stiff. There are many wire choices that would not impede the truck position. They have to follow the track & be free to tilt & rotate. I have been hard wiring engine trucks for years without biasing the truck. Obviously an improvement that the botched, just like the last repair.
It's "funny" how many of the earliest N scale locos (not Arnold Rapido ) had hard wired trucks and one of the priorities was to get away from that and manufacturers finally did. And now, they go back to it, probably out of an effort to eliminate some contacts in locos with sound? Ix-nay on that. Doug
Saying this from a novice POV as don't even feel very comfortable that I can correctly remove the loco's trucks or shell.... Electronics is my game... No matter how one looks at it, at some point, metal has to strike metal. And, the higher the compression, the better the electrical conduction. The manufacturer's thinking about these 2 methods of ultimately maximizing power transfer to the decoders is understandable but in the end, it is believed that the older bottom compression method, used in my F3 is better, than the side "compression method used in the SD 35. First, bottom pressure pickups use gravity and the loco's weight which improves conduction. The SD35 is a fairly heavy loco for its size. In reviewing the exploded parts diagram and how the truck wires are connected to a side connection contacts like in the SD35, that extra help by gravity is lost. The characteristics of the increased pressure of bottom pickups in the F3 has negatives, increased dirt pickup and higher levels of fretting. But, to me, when cleaned, with little or no fretting, and at proper center (setting angle of bottom bottom pickup) is superior. IMHO, the only improvement is to design the bottom pickups in such a way to make them an easy, user installable replacement. I personally would be more than happy to replace periodically if easy enough assuming the current outstanding operation of this loco can be maintained. The lack of truck vertical mobility further exacerbates conduction issue. Whether this lack of movement is a design tradeoff when incorporating the side conduction and wires method in the SD35 trucks or the belief that it aids in conduction is unknown. If I read the the parts diagram correctly, the wire is soldered to the side pickup which strikes the sides of the wheels. Maybe the designers thoughts.. less dirt and fretting=fewer issues. Interesting, there is one track section on my layout where 2 segments are joined that one can see the SD35 kinda dip for a second. Have run the F3 along with about 12 pieces of rolling stock back and forth multiple times and NONE, follow this dip because of the vertical mobility of their trucks. Wonder if the stiffness is also designed to minimize the potential movement and angle of whether that side contact maintains sufficient contact area (parallel flatness) with the side of the wheel? If that is the case, it would seem to me like borrowing from Paul to pay Peter, whatever plus the truck stiffness has in maximizing surface connection to the side wheel is lost when the trucks vertical mobility results in less wheel pressure on the track. Part of the issue is with the dealer. All I will say is that they are a fairly large authorized reseller and not an eBay seller? Received Loco on a Sat after dealer closed. Knew I wanted to return minutes after putting on track. Called them first thing Monday and quite frankly, they said no returns and call Atlas. Gee, they could have put a box of rocks inside the loco or a defect loco. LOL Gotta believe the dealer is well aware of the SD35 issues. Specifically, with Atlas, would have hoped for a faster turnaround time on new, recently purchased products especially when the dealer blows off the customer. Interesting article on Atlas SD35. They must have gotten a different loco.... LOL https://www.trains.com/mrr/news-rev.../atlas-master-series-n-scale-emd-sd35-diesel/ The BLI loco had issues too, and if I didn't break it which ultimately led to the solution, most likely the layout would have ended in the dumpster. Of course, some blame on myself too for this mess. And, that I own only 2 locomotives, both brand new, to make troubleshooting decisions--certainly contributed to the drastic measures, wasted time and money that has occurred to date. For those who have followed this thread from its beginning, or who have been in this situation before, know the frustration. Thank you to all who have contributed to date. Its been very helpful.
Compression “wiper” connections should be only a last resort. This is particularly true with DCC. The voltage difference prior to the decoder is 30 volts. All connections that are not hard wired will experience the wheel to track fretting issue. It is caused by current passing through the connection. It increases with voltage/power & different alloys. The problem of moving electrical power from the track to the motor unfortunately requires two of this type connection per wheel. The first is the wheel to track contact. That is at least exposed & can be cleaned easily. The second occurs between the wheel and a fixed strip on the truck. The best practice, although not perfect, is to provide the connection through a wheel-axle into a bearing in this fixed strip. Apparently, N scale engine manufacturers used a third of these connections near the motor. I suspect it has to do with ease of manufacture. Kato’s designs follow this logic, but in N scale they rely on the near motor compression connection. On HO that would be hard wired. Peculiar indeed.
Well, after electrical conduction issues with the BLI F3 and Atlas SD35, decided to try once more time with a new Locomotive. Have a new Bachmann GP7 #62459 CNJ 1523 coming. Anyone want to wager whether this one out of the box will perform as expected or will it be, strike 3, your out? LOL!
If the Bachmann fails, maybe you can find an Atlas or Kato RS-3. These are not the latest and greatest, but mine run well. If you can't find one in CNJ, you can quickly model the 1554 as I saw in in Flemington, NJ in July 1976. It's all black with white Miss Liberty heralds.
Wow, what a cool loco. At 56' nice in length.... Just looked for it and saw maybe a cleaned up version of 1554?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_RS-3#/media/File:CNJ_1554_(6125339203).jpg Don't own any Kato Locos so maybe something to consider..
Holy cow, that's the one! The 1558's assignment in Flemington was to serve several industries on an isolated section of CNJ track, with interchange made by the Black River & Western. Operational changes allowed the BR&W to buy the CNJ line and the BR&W picked up the 1554, which they used for many years. I knew it survived, but I had no idea where. Here's the 1554 working for the BR&W two summers later in July 1978 at Three Bridges, NJ. The BR&W added the plows.
Thank you. I couldn't find any other shots of them, but if I get a chance, I'll take a photo. I painted the pair decades ago.
Always loved the locos with the curved roof, like sw7s nw2s. Can't tell the color of your Alcos... - which cnj green?? --Austerity Green or Deep Sea Green?
Received Bachmann GP7 yesterday late afternoon. First Impressions WOW! Think the best accolade to state if GP7 was the first 1 bought, this thread probably never would have never begun. The slow speed it can pass through the D Crossover, #2 wye and #4s can be best described as excruciatingly slow. Going thru the equivalent of a thrown #6 (1 quarter of D Crossover) CAN BE so slow, it takes 1min, 30 s to pass thru. It makes the BLI F3 look fast by comparison, and even with the sound off, the BLI can't make it thru as slow as a snails pace the GP7 does. Amazing! Only time will tell as loco is used if this slow speed can be maintained. About the only negative discovered so far, besides its limited decoder functions, are 2 unwanted sounds; shell vibration and motor noise at the very slow speeds . Once throttle is raised to a average level, both noises seem to stop. Unsure if motor noise is typical when operating small dc motors under PWM or other reason. More on this later. Received SD35 back from Atlas (2nd time). While significantly improved in slow speed performance, 2 issues were found; the loco makes a strange aperiodic or random noise, at any speed, about 95% time thru straight track, remainder around radii. During straight track passage, random sound but not always at the same place. Important to note the overall noise is higher, especially the slowest of throttle settings is a sound characteristic of motors as mentioned about the GP7 above paragragh. 2nd, the loco derails in reverse when going around either 11.25 or 9.75 radii. This was not observed after 1st return from Atlas, but only ran loco an hour before boxing it and returning to Atlas the 2nd time so its possible that the derailment issue is result of something going out of alignment from 1st service or shipping. BLI F3 can go backwards for hours on track, Bach GP7 last night had no problems either. Atlas support has been very helpful but thinking this particular SD35 received is a lemon. Called Atlas a couple of hours after receipt on Tuesday so guess it needs to go back again. Been waiting to see preliminary performance of GP7 before returning.
