Atlas GP-7/9 announcement

[bigdawgks]

Using wires at the truck to chassis connection eliminates one point of metal-to-metal contacts, but then there is the axle point to bearing cup connection, the PC board to motor connection, the PC board to speaker connection, and even the track to wheel tread connection. None of those connections are soldered - just metal touching metal. By what you mentioned, those all would be causing problems.

Don't be obtuse, there's no way to eliminate those connections, but the new design replaces up to 3 contact points (truck to strip, strip to frame, and frame to board) with one solder joint and one solderless connector. That's 3 connections that could have poor fit or poor conductivity because of dirtiness, replaced by 2 connections that are less likely to fail. That's a pretty obvious reduction in complexity and potential failure points. It's unquestionably an improvement in that criteria alone.

Now it may score fewer points in accessibility or secondary effects such as suspension in some cases, but personally I feel those are minor points. Either way there's no way anyone should be so dismissive without applying some scientific processes. I'm sure the manufacturers tested this new design to compare against the old (otherwise why invest in it). Exactly what practical testing have you done?

[tehachapifan]

Manufactures in general still don't seem to know that you need an adequately sized and completely sealed speaker enclosure on one side of the speaker and also still think you need egress holes in the shell or fuel tank to "let the sound out" (thankfully, Atlas isn't doing egress holes as of late). I'm not sure they are always operating strictly on empirical scientific evidence like you seem to think.

....Exactly what practical testing have you done?

Of all the people to say that to!

[ridinshotgun]

Don't be obtuse, there's no way to eliminate those connections, but the new design replaces up to 3 contact points (truck to strip, strip to frame, and frame to board) with one solder joint and one solderless connector. That's 3 connections that could have poor fit or poor conductivity because of dirtiness, replaced by 2 connections that are less likely to fail. That's a pretty obvious reduction in complexity and potential failure points. It's unquestionably an improvement in that criteria alone.

Now it may score fewer points in accessibility or secondary effects such as suspension in some cases, but personally I feel those are minor points. Either way there's no way anyone should be so dismissive without applying some scientific processes. I'm sure the manufacturers tested this new design to compare against the old (otherwise why invest in it). Exactly what practical testing have you done?

You know this made me laugh so hard with your claim that manufacturers test their new designs.  If that were so we would have none of the issues that we are currently having with the whole gamut of manufacturers.  Bad designs causing fuel tanks to drag on track by more than one manufacturer, air lines interfering with trucks, break details coming loose, wheels rubbing on frames. couplers that self destruct, incorrect coupler heights and so on and so on.  Really you must not live on reality with a comment like that especially the dig at someone that has probably done more testing in his sleep that you have in real life.

[peteski]

Don't be obtuse, there's no way to eliminate those connections, but the new design replaces up to 3 contact points (truck to strip, strip to frame, and frame to board) with one solder joint and one solderless connector. That's 3 connections that could have poor fit or poor conductivity because of dirtiness, replaced by 2 connections that are less likely to fail. That's a pretty obvious reduction in complexity and potential failure points. It's unquestionably an improvement in that criteria alone.

Obtuse?  Far from it. I'm just pointing out that there are other non-soldered connections.   I'm not only disusing the new truck connectivity method for this specific loco. Some of the wired truck locos use split frame and the "plugs" on the ends of the wire install into the chassis.

Now it may score fewer points in accessibility or secondary effects such as suspension in some cases, but personally I feel those are minor points. Either way there's no way anyone should be so dismissive without applying some scientific processes. I'm sure the manufacturers tested this new design to compare against the old (otherwise why invest in it). Exactly what practical testing have you done?

If you think that model manufacturers did some "scientific" testing, you would be in for a surprise.  Yes, this is just my semi-educated guess.

As for my experience, I have about 40 years of "testing" models in their real life operating environment.  Models with several different means of power pickup.  Would that be considered "street smarts"? Often that type of experience is better than knowledge learned in school. 

What scientific experiments have you conducted in providing your opinions?  Are you one of the model designers?  This is really getting to the point of being a pointless discussion.

If you want to see some proof how I can dissect a model and find things which were not optimally designed which can be improved  upon, I wrote a 2-part article for N-Scale magazine about improving the FVM Hiawatha set (both the loco and the cars).

[bigdawgks]

You know this made me laugh so hard with your claim that manufacturers test their new designs.  If that were so we would have none of the issues that we are currently having with the whole gamut of manufacturers.  Bad designs causing fuel tanks to drag on track by more than one manufacturer, air lines interfering with trucks, break details coming loose, wheels rubbing on frames. couplers that self destruct, incorrect coupler heights and so on and so on.  Really you must not live on reality with a comment like that especially the dig at someone that has probably done more testing in his sleep that you have in real life.

A lot of issues like that are a combination of compromises made in the design (realism vs functionality) and poor quality control. In this case I don't see any compromise being made, the design seems to work just as well as older designs while reducing complexity. To truly believe they wouldn't do basic testing of the electronics and mechanisms would be giving too little credit. I know they won't be able to catch every flaw and quality issue but this is a pretty core part of being able to run the loco. It wouldn't have made it to customers if it couldn't pass that test.

Like I said, this design is perfectly fine. I do believe there's a dangerous fallacy of believing that just because something's been working for many years with few issues that it cannot be improved upon, and some of the folks around here may think that being in the hobby for many decades makes them more expert engineers than the people actually payed to engineer these things. Look, I'm not discrediting your experience here, just pointing out that it's easy to criticize something online when you aren't the one on making those choices yourself.

I think it's a sound design and I won't be a bit upset if the classic contact strip design fades from existence. Time will tell whether wired trucks prove to be as reliable but I see no reason to doubt it.

[tehachapifan]

Well, they can send all their unused contact strips to me!

[peteski]

In this case I don't see any compromise being made, the design seems to work just as well as older designs while reducing complexity. To truly believe they wouldn't do basic testing of the electronics and mechanisms would be giving too little credit. I know they won't be able to catch every to be as reliable but I see no reason to doubt it.

Well, basic testing will not reveal any issues with wires breaking.  It is a long term use problem.   The weak point is right where the insulation insulation stripped from the wire.  The flexibility of the wire also plays a role in its long term reliability.  Wire with a high number of strands using very  fine gauge strands will be very flexible, but if it is a wire with few thicker strands, it will not be as robust.

However I don't disagree that wiring the trucks provides a more reliable connection than depending on 2 metal surfaces rubbing together under some light pressure. 

In this case I don't see any compromise being made, the design seems to work just as well as older designs while reducing complexity.

I disagree.  You are replacing 2 metal strips pressed into the chassis with 4 wires which have to their ends stripped and soldered to the trucks (or in some designs to the PC board).  Wires seems more complex and labor intensive.

Based on decades of experience with wires used in model trains I'm just not a fan of wires using used for this purpose. We just have to agree to disagree.

[bigdawgks]

Actually I would like to correct myself. I do believe the choice of wired connection of trucks was  probably a necessity given the new frame design - classic contact strips wouldn't really work here without their own wires and insulators. In that sense you could argue it's a compromise, but I still think it's a logical design and the redesigned frame has more benefits over older split frame designs. It is so much easier to replace the motor now, for example. I suspect the simplicity of assembly here is what provided the most motivation for the design decisions.

[bbussey]

Geez, direct wiring was used for 30+ years with no issues on most N motive power before Kato designed the copper contact strips on I don't even remember which engine.  GP50?  U30?  U25B?  It wasn't the revolutionary RS3 / RSD4-5 / RS11 / RS12 chassis, as that breakthrough design was direct contact from the truck frames to the chassis frame.  The wires aren’t going to break on the latest interation of hard-wired pickup.

[Point353]

Geez, direct wiring was used for 30+ years with no issues on most N motive power before Kato designed the copper contact strips on I don't even remember which engine.  GP50?  U30?  U25B?  It wasn't the revolutionary RS3 / RSD4-5 / RS11 / RS12 chassis, as that breakthrough design was direct contact from the truck frames to the chassis frame.  The wires are going to break on the latest interation of hard-wired pickup.

50 years ago I had far fewer locos, so the ones that I did have saw a lot of use on my layout.
The Arnold Rapido locos had wipers on the trucks which contacted the bottom of the metal frame or PC board, and they ran reliably with no wires to break.
The Atlas and MRC locos had wired trucks, and those wires would break periodically and had to be resoldered.
Back then, my layout had 9-3/4" and 11" radius curves, so the wires to the trucks experienced significant and frequent flexing.
The introduction of the Kato wireless design on Atlas locos was a welcome development for me.

[peteski]

The introduction of the Kato wireless design on Atlas locos was a welcome development for me.

 I wish Victor Miranda was still around here. Wired trucks?  Yuck! 

[Angus Shops]

Wow! All of this because some dummy (me) managed to pinch a wire.

[Kentuckian]

The newest hard wired chassis is more flexible than the previous pickup strip one at least in my experience. The older one derails when going around the approximately 7.25” radius on my micro layout. The newer one does not.

[OldEastRR]

Do these Atlas trucks use the axle-end to metal cup pick-up system? Or wipers on the wheel backs? Because one place that actually does pick up dirt or crud is those cups the axle points spin in. I've taken apart locos that needed to have one or more of those cup holes cleaned because they were dirty, right there where the axle point rests. That involves quite a bit of disassembly, and having wires holding truck to chassis board is a hassle.

At least it seems Atlas fixed this problem their S2 (old version) had. The wires from the soldered truck pick-ups was soldered directly to the circuit board, with very little play to get the trucks off w/0 breaking a connection. If Atlas has replaced soldered-on circuit board connections with plug-ins, it means they were listening to the complaints. (You needed a micro-mini soldering iron with adjustable voltage control to re-attach the wires to the tiny circuit board solder pads).

[peteski]

Do these Atlas trucks use the axle-end to metal cup pick-up system? Or wipers on the wheel backs?

They still use the Kato style axle-point pickups. They simply soldered wires to the bearing plates.  No wheel-back wipers.

But as a point of interest, the ancient wheel-back wipers are still used on most newly releases European prototype models.  And yes, they will collect crud, but Europeans don't seem to mind.