Atlas SD45's shipping

[pastoolio]

Can post photos after 25 posts on the forum

Ah, gotcha! I'll try to get my posts up then!

Mike, where have you been?   Post more often. 

Ben!!!
I've been doing the same 'ol stuff, working on the layout, detailing locos and cars, just been lurking a bit, haven't been as active as I used to be on the forums. I'll try to check in and post more often!

-Mike

[pastoolio]

Well, I'm fixing the f#$*!$.  Here is before and after on the lightboard that goes in the top of the cab.

(Attachment Link)

The actual fix is as simple as unsoldering the headlight wire, and moving the interior Cab light LED wire over to the headlight pad.  They even labeled them for you!  I should add that the soldering was a total piece of cake compared to getting the light board installed back into the cab properly.  That was a royal f#!$^ pain the !#$%.  But mission accomplished.  I plugged it back and checked and the lights look good.

Still gotta fully reassemble and program and stuff.  But we're almost there.

Ben, in your opinion, would it be easier to cut the wires and swap them around (while adding some length to make plugging back in easier) rather than removing the board from the cab? I pulled mine apart tonight and they sure don't give you much wire to make plug removal/reinstall very easy.

-Mike

[C855B]

... I'm talking about how SP had the headlight in the nose and the gryalight above the cab as seen here.  One of many film examples that can be found, standard SP equipment in the 70s even though it wasn't always turned on.  And once you know, a solid headlight above the cab on an SP engine looks wrong.

Well, I'm fixing the f#$*!$.  Here is before and after on the lightboard that goes in the top of the cab.

The actual fix is as simple as unsoldering the headlight wire, and moving the interior Cab light LED wire over to the headlight pad.  They even labeled them for you!  I should add that the soldering was a total piece of cake compared to getting the light board installed back into the cab properly.  That was a royal f#!$^ pain the !#$%.  But mission accomplished.  I plugged it back and checked and the lights look good. ...

Damn. I should've reviewed this thread before (or while) taking mine apart an hour ago to install the LokPilot 5. Swapping the cab light lead is genius... although... I'm going to poke around on the main board and see if there's a solder pad corresponding to an unused AUX to run a separate wire. There are AUX solder pads on the decoder itself, but there are perils in doing that relative to disassembly.

[jagged ben]

Ben, in your opinion, would it be easier to cut the wires and swap them around (while adding some length to make plugging back in easier) rather than removing the board from the cab? I pulled mine apart tonight and they sure don't give you much wire to make plug removal/reinstall very easy.

-Mike

Doing it without removing the board would involve bringing a soldering iron a lot closer to the decorated shell than I trust myself to do.  I guess if you have all the right tools it could be easier, but risky.

Another strategy might be to remove the cab from the rest of the shell.  I'm pretty sure at the factory they install the lightboard to the cab roof before attaching the cab to the rest of the shell.  But I couldn't really figure out everything holding the cab down and was afraid of breaking something.  Not 100% sure they didn't use some glue.
 

Damn. I should've reviewed this thread before (or while) taking mine apart an hour ago to install the LokPilot 5. Swapping the cab light lead is genius... although... I'm going to poke around on the main board and see if there's a solder pad corresponding to an unused AUX to run a separate wire. There are AUX solder pads on the decoder itself, but there are perils in doing that relative to disassembly.

Yeah I poked around a bit but couldn't find any such thing on the main board.  BUT, I wasn't sure if I was getting good readings with my probes.  IIRC, there were 7 resistors on the board, 6 of which had the same value which I concluded was for the LEDs.  (I think they put two LEDS in series for the numberboards and cab light, but not absolutely sure.)  There was one other resistor I couldn't figure out.  (Speaker?)  And there was set of pads marked for a resistor that didn't have a resistor, but I couldn't get any voltage reading off of.   If you find anything let me know as I do have a 2nd one of these to still deal with.

...

Also, if anyone knows or finds out anything about adding keep alive to these decoders, please post.  The first outing at the club was a bit disappointing.  I mean, we can always do a better job with track cleaning, but ESU decoders do better. 

[CBQ Fan]

Mine is pretty slick. Hoping for Great Northern in the next round!

[C855B]

... Also, if anyone knows or finds out anything about adding keep alive to these decoders, please post.  The first outing at the club was a bit disappointing.  I mean, we can always do a better job with track cleaning, but ESU decoders do better.

Probably preachin' to the choir, but did you clean the wheels? The blackening is definitely a problem. Two out of two decodered so far (of seven) didn't run for crap until I cleaned 'em. Nice black streaks on the paper towel soaked with contact cleaner. Then they ran great.

[C855B]

... Yeah I poked around a bit but couldn't find any such thing on the main board.  BUT, I wasn't sure if I was getting good readings with my probes.  IIRC, there were 7 resistors on the board, 6 of which had the same value which I concluded was for the LEDs.  (I think they put two LEDS in series for the numberboards and cab light, but not absolutely sure.)  There was one other resistor I couldn't figure out.  (Speaker?)  And there was set of pads marked for a resistor that didn't have a resistor, but I couldn't get any voltage reading off of.   If you find anything let me know as I do have a 2nd one of these to still deal with. ...

I'll take a closer look at the resistor layout. I did notice a bunch were 2.2KΩ, which is on the high side for LEDs @ 12V. Apparently they're using very-high-efficiency LEDs. Anyway, the point I'm making is anything we do as far as soldering to AUX pads on the decoder itself are going to need an equivalent resistor.

I only have one SP version, so I will likely fall back on your cab light hack to get the Gyralight function. OTOH, the rest are undecs to be detailed for UP. Their SD45s of my era all had Federal Signal "Commander" amber beacons. If I go crazy and do a 3D-printed version and light it up, I'll probably do the same hack for the relative ease.

[jagged ben]

Probably preachin' to the choir, but did you clean the wheels? The blackening is definitely a problem. Two out of two decodered so far (of seven) didn't run for crap until I cleaned 'em. Nice black streaks on the paper towel soaked with contact cleaner. Then they ran great.

No I didn't do anything to the wheels yet, because it ran just fine on my test track at home.  But will do before next run.

[pastoolio]

Doing it without removing the board would involve bringing a soldering iron a lot closer to the decorated shell than I trust myself to do.  I guess if you have all the right tools it could be easier, but risky.

Another strategy might be to remove the cab from the rest of the shell.  I'm pretty sure at the factory they install the lightboard to the cab roof before attaching the cab to the rest of the shell.  But I couldn't really figure out everything holding the cab down and was afraid of breaking something.  Not 100% sure they didn't use some glue.
 

I came to the same conclusion you did, it would be tight to try to get everything held down to be able to solder that wires that close to the shell. So I went ahead and removed the screw and popped up the black cover piece. Wasn't too difficult getting the light board out. Following you pics, I unsoldered the blue wire and swapped the grey in it's place. Putting the light board back in under that black cover was kinda a pain like you said, but it snapped back in without too much fuss. All in all, it took about an hour to get all 5 of mine swapped around.

Changing all the CV's in JMRI was pretty straight forward, once I figured out that Soundtraxx uses FX3 function output for F24. If only had I read the instruction sheet supplied with the decoder first, I could have saved myself some time! 
I'm actually quite happy with how the Gyralight looks on these locos, really makes it "SP"!

-Mike
(I really need to get my post count up so I can post pics of all the CV changes in JMRI!)

[u18b]

Another strategy might be to remove the cab from the rest of the shell.  I'm pretty sure at the factory they install the lightboard to the cab roof before attaching the cab to the rest of the shell.  But I couldn't really figure out everything holding the cab down and was afraid of breaking something.  Not 100% sure they didn't use some glue.
 

If so, that would be a drastic departure from Atlas practice.
Based on decades of Atlas models, my default assumption would be that no glue is used.

There is usually/typically a few tabs at the bottom of the Cab.    On some locos, it's on the shell itself.     On others, it's at the bottom of the side window glass.

[jagged ben]

If so, that would be a drastic departure from Atlas practice.
Based on decades of Atlas models, my default assumption would be that no glue is used.

There is usually/typically a few tabs at the bottom of the Cab.    On some locos, it's on the shell itself.     On others, it's at the bottom of the side window glass.

Well, this locomotive is a drastic departure in all other ways.  As peteski noticed, it looks like it was made by the BLI factory.  The fuel tank is metal and I can't figure out how to remove the trucks. 

[peteski]

Well, this locomotive is a drastic departure in all other ways.  As peteski noticed, it looks like it was made by the BLI factory.  The fuel tank is metal and I can't figure out how to remove the trucks.

If these are built like  BLI Centipedes, and  the worm is  integral with the truck (as opposed to it being affixed to the chassis), then if you remove the worm cover and the worm, the truck should drop out from the bottom. Just throwing that out since I don't own one of these models.

[jagged ben]

If these are built like  BLI Centipedes, and  the worm is  integral with the truck (as opposed to it being affixed to the chassis), then if you remove the worm cover and the worm, the truck should drop out from the bottom. Just throwing that out since I don't own one of these models.

Yeah, that's what it looked like to me, but actually popping the worm cover off seems easier said than done.  Probably not going to try until I have a critical reason.

[peteski]

Yeah, that's what it looked like to me, but actually popping the worm cover off seems easier said than done.  Probably not going to try until I have a critical reason.

IIRC (it was few years ago), that was the case on the Centipede. I had to use one of the dental tools I have to unsnap it  from the truck's gearcase.

[chessie system fan]

The fuel tank is metal...

Are the air tanks metal too and part of the casting? That seems like a missed opportunity.

In reading this thread and seeing our puzzlement at some of the design choices, it makes me wonder how long this locomotive was in development.  Had this come out ten or fifteen years ago, I think our collective reaction would have been more praiseworthy.   But in the mean time, the Scale Trains SD40-2 detail level passed it by (fuel tank kerfuffle aside) and it's hard to unsee it.