I have had an ongoing saga of parts replacement and repairs with my latest purchase of an Athearn Challenger. ! have just about come to the end of my rope on this one. First, it picks a Kato switch when it is virtually brand new and melts down the center axle on the front set of drivers. replaced the switch and boned up to Athearn on what happened. Bought the New $90.00 lead driver assembly. Put her back together and everything seems great. Except the motor runs erratically and the decoder sound is erratic at best. Athearn comes to the plate and we swap out the DCC Board and new motor. Back together she goes and I am thrilled. Everything it hunky dory. After about a week WHAM!!! A screw in the lead driver assembly comes loose and side rods try to go everywhere. Keep in mind, you have unsolder several wires on a "distribution" board to get the lead set of drivers out of the frame. Finally after several hours, I get the drivers and side rods working perfectly again, sooth rotation, no binding. everything is in quarter. Mechanically assembled and wires resoldered but she hums and decoder makes erratic sounds but motor does not turn. Tried a reset, still doesn't run. Unsoldered the board that runs the length of the boiler resolder everything back and locomotive now RUNS fine but front headlight does not come on. Now I've just about had enough of this money pit! Do Tsunami decoders have overloads built in to prevent blowing the outputs for the lights and other functions? I have successfully reset the decoder with CV8 but still no front light. I know it's not the LED. Wired a spare to the board and it did not illuminate either. Wired it to dc and it lights up. Obviously unsoldered from the dcc circuit. I will request Athearn service the loco one more time, then I will rig my own front light circuit that runs off the main motor. Already tested the concept and hardware. It will work. I have yet to take the tender apart and check blue and white voltage output to see if the circuit is fried. After all this crap, the locomotive mechanically like a Swiss watch and pulls like a mule. Anybody got any suggestions on the Tsunami decoder and resetting?
This one is from the latest run that had quality issues from the factory. All the other functions of the locomotive are great just no front headlight. It is Tsunami made for Athearn.
When I think of Athearn Steam locomotives I am reminded of a license plate that I once saw on a Porsche Car "If you buy one, you'd better buy two, one will always be in for repair"
I had heard that Athearn's Challenger was reliable, but horribly complex and cumbersome to repair. Articulated locomotives in particular tend to be a puzzle box of parts, though why they have a circuit board integral to the front engine is way, way beyond me.
you probably know, everything from the decoder in the tender comes to a long board with multiple soldering pads and a terminal strip located near the cab. In order to remove the driver mechanisms, you have to de-solder 8 tabs which are super close together. And if you take that one screw loose behind the gear tower that holds the split frame for the side rods, steam piston rods, and all the pivoting points in the valve gear, YOU ASKED FOR IT! I have 7 Kato USA prototype Steam Locos that can haul every train I have. If Kato ever comes out with an articulated steam of an American Prototype I will jump all over at least one. If they did, it probably would not be as detailed but who can see all that when it's moving? In their defense my 1st 2 Athearn Steam engines run fine. I got them when they 1st came out. I think I have this latest one mechanically sound and tuned up but we'll see. By the way, it's not a split frame and everything goes in from the top and bottom.
I think N scale steam is finally getting to a place where it can be considered "good". The offerings from P2K, the recent ones from Bachmann, the Katos, and now BLI all produce wonderful models. I've heard mixed things about Athearn, though to my knowledge the Challenger was an absolute gem.
Hehe, that really was true for Saabs. Back in the eighties, the manager of the Stereo store where I worked part time actually did have two of them because he always had one of them in the second stall of the car stereo install bay, being fixed. He also had a Porsche convertible and that got messed up once when he hit a deer and the deer slid up the hood and landed right in his lap. He had a white suit on, at the time. Doug
