Improving Athearn F59PHI? (DCC Speed Matching & Lights)

[MetroRedLine]

I have an Athearn Metrolink F59PHI (2nd generation) with a factory-installed Tsunami decoder. I have two issues with it:

1. I cannot speed-match it. It runs at around 125mph max speed no matter how I set the speed table. According to JMRI Decoder Pro, there are no VMid/VMax parameters and in the CV table, CVs 6 and 5 are not listed. The only parameter listed in "Basic Speed Control" is VStart. How do I speed match on this thing?

2. The headlights. I can barely see them, even in the dark. Do I replace the stock front LED, or does the light piping actually hinder the brightness?

Or does chucking the stock decoder and going with a wired sound decoder (plus individually-mounted LEDs) become the only real option here?

[ednadolski]

IDK if this is your exact decoder, but perhaps the Loadable Speed Table in CVs 67-94?

https://soundtraxx.com/content/Reference/Manuals/Tsunami/tsunami_diesel_technical_reference_0213.pdf

WRT light pipes, yes, they can really lose a lot of the brightness, esp. if not properly aligned.  It's up to you tho if you want to go thru the effort of installing individual LEDs (and living with the bundle of wires linking the shell to the decoder -- always fun when you want to remove/replace the shell).

HTH,
Ed

[peteski]

No CV5 and CV6?  IMO, another nail in the coffin for Tsunami decoders (although this must st be an older decoder since Spookshow mentions that this loco was made in 2011).  I thought only Bachmann's own low-end decoders had only CV2.  Like Ed said, Soundtraxx is basically forcing you to use the full speed table.

[Dwight in Toronto]

I’m going to guess that this is an N scale F59PHI?  If so, I recently spent several weeks “hotrodding” an ESU 58741 into mine.

Mine was not a factory sound unit; it wasn’t even DCC.  But I had a lot of fun and learned a heckuva lot with all that I went through.  Eventually got much brighter head- and tail-lights, as well as alternating ditch lights, and the sound file is pretty good, in my opinion.

[MetroRedLine]

I’m going to guess that this is an N scale F59PHI?  If so, I recently spent several weeks “hotrodding” an ESU 58741 into mine.

Mine was not a factory sound unit; it wasn’t even DCC.  But I had a lot of fun and learned a heckuva lot with all that I went through.  Eventually got much brighter head- and tail-lights, as well as alternating ditch lights, and the sound file is pretty good, in my opinion.

Indeed it is.

Also want to point out that I have another Athearn N scale F59PHI (Amtrak West) that's been on the project block for a while. I fried that decoder and decided a new one (I bought an ESU 58923) is a more economical choice than getting a replacement from Athearn, besides, I wanted to install flashing ditch lights and a reverse marker light on that one. Been procrastinating for several months, currently waiting on a larger SMD LED for the headlights.

I'm curious to know how more on how you did yours.

[MetroRedLine]

IDK if this is your exact decoder, but perhaps the Loadable Speed Table in CVs 67-94?

https://soundtraxx.com/content/Reference/Manuals/Tsunami/tsunami_diesel_technical_reference_0213.pdf

WRT light pipes, yes, they can really lose a lot of the brightness, esp. if not properly aligned.  It's up to you tho if you want to go thru the effort of installing individual LEDs (and living with the bundle of wires linking the shell to the decoder -- always fun when you want to remove/replace the shell).

HTH,
Ed

I've tried the 28-step speed table. No matter what I set the settings on, it doesn't seem to change the max speed or default speed curve. I've even set the max speed to "1" and it still runs 125mph max.

[Dwight in Toronto]

Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos (and my few previous attempts to post photos on the Railwire did not play out very good!).

Regardless, suffice to say that I transferred the motor contact paddles from the old Athearn light board to the 58741, and fabricated a styrene ‘retainer’ that enabled me to slide the new decoder into place, effectively making it a drop-in fit.  Since the decoder was now easy to install/remove, if/as/when required, my goal was to do the same for the ancillary details.  That is, I wanted to be able to readily remove the shell as well (ie - no tethered led’s).

I had an ESU speaker kit on-hand … it was a single white nylon-like plastic housing consisting of two round speaker enclosures.  I carefully separated the two, and found that the one circular housing was a perfect fit within the round depression in the rear of the Athearn chassis.  So, that took care of the speaker.

For the rear light, I soldered an smd led to short extension leads, connected them to the AUX2 output on the rear of the board, positioned the leads on top of the speaker, and located the led as close as possible to where the rear lamp housing is located when the shell is in place.   The result was that the backup light is at least twice as bright.  I rigged up a similar arrangement for the front light … smd led soldered to extension leads, connected to AUX1 at the front of the 58741, and located as close as possible to the front lamp housing.  This necessitated removal of the clear (lexan?) light-pipe assembly (a challenge in its own right), and some extensive surgery to same (since there are fragile light-pipe segments that extend down to the ditch lights).

The ditch lighting was significantly more complicated.  I ended up fabricating a very small pc board featuring left- and right-hand smd led’s placed in the lowest corners of the board.  If you can, picture this board being mounted as a small, vertical ‘wall’ snugly within the nose section of the shell, with the led’s immediately behind the ditch lamp housings, with a thin styrene strip between the led’s to prevent light bleed-through.  This involved a lot of careful Dremel work within the nose section of the shell, and numerous trial fittings to get the right fit.  I included 1000 ohm smd resistors beside each led, and their respective leads (blue, green, violet) were soldered to a very small 3-prong connector plug.  The mating socket was wired to the 58741 +ve, AUX 3, and AUX4 pads.  In this way, the shell is removable from the frame.

After a good many twists and tweaks to get the shell to fit properly, it was a fairly simple matter to configure the alternating ditch lights on the LokProgrammer to flash when the horn is sounded at grade crossings. 

Without photos, my guess is that this little writeup is probably nowhere near descriptive enough, but maybe there’s enough poop there to give you your own ideas on how to proceed. 

It was a tremendously satisfying little project, with huge improvements over those miserably pathetic factory light effects!

[jdcolombo]

I've tried the 28-step speed table. No matter what I set the settings on, it doesn't seem to change the max speed or default speed curve. I've even set the max speed to "1" and it still runs 125mph max.

With the original Tsunami, you have to enable the 28-step speed table by setting CV25 to 16.  See page 22 of the Tsunami Diesel Reference Manual linked above.

But if you want to go the ESU route (which I would highly recommend), I'd probably try a LokSound Nano and hardwire it.  It looks to me like there is plenty of room in the chassis for the Nano based on the photos on Spookshow; you might even be able to fit the Nano and a commercial keep alive like a TCS KA-1 in there.  Ditch the factory speaker, and replace it with an 11x15mm cell-phone type in a custom enclosure (or an 8x12mm, if you want to minimize any chassis filing).  You'll get vastly better sound this way.

Actually, there might be enough room for a regular LokSound Micro 5DCC, too.  But either way I'd hard-wire instead of trying to use an ESU board decoder.  Using a nano or a hard-wire Micro will probably be easier to wire and find room for various tidbits than using a board decoder.

John C.