An Athearn Rant

[Tom]

I bought an Athearn RTR GP35 (HO) a while back from the museum gift shop. I think it was because I was so happy SOMEBODY was doing a Western Pacific road engine in something other than Silver and Orange at the time, so home it went with me. This past week, Alicia and I had been cleaning out closets, desk drawers, and my filing cabinet. In one of these drawers, I found a TCS decoder. I have no idea where it came from, and no idea when I got it, but it was all there. Probably a gift from one of my friends who are always trying to talk me into DCC, I'll have to check. I couldn't sleep tonight, so I decided to see if I can install it in one of my locos. I wanted to put it in my Sacramento Northern Atlas GP7, but it is one of the old school Kato units, I know NOTHING about DCC (I have one Digitrax decodered Proto GP7 a late friend built for me, and some sound decodered On30 stuff), but I took apart the Atlas GP7 and went "whoa!" Deano I am not, so I chickened out. I'd probably let all the smoke out of the decoder and engine motor both if I tried wiring it up, and no joy when it came to TCS website for decoder installs for he old Kato motored Atlas GP7's. It had a 9 pin wiring harness, so I decided to put it in my almost forgotten GP35. It's DCC ready, plug and play right?

WRONG!!!

This cheap, no good Chinese pile of excrement is the reason I HATE LOATHE AND DESPISE Chinese manufacturing; they GLUED THE PLUG IN TO THE RECEPTACLE!!! I couldn't believe it. I ended up breaking the damned thing trying to carefully unplug it with two pairs of tiny needle nosed pliers. Ok, whatever, I'll just remove the board, break the wires free with the soldering iron and install the TCS harness.


WRONG!!!!

The board is RIVETED TO THE MOTOR!!!! What kind of rocket scientist came up with that idea?! If it wasn't after midnight and Alicia being sound asleep, I'd have thrown the entire engine across the living room against a wall. Or better yet, go outside and place it on one of the very same rails the real WP 3005 used to roam and wait for the next stacker to come through. I was that P.O.'d

I ended up installing the new TCS harness with some real Appalachian Engineering, and with the help of small wire cutters, soldering iron (which was acting up) and some electrical tape (oh, didn't I already mention I am an electrical moron??) I *think* I have it installed. I have a Bachmann EZ-DCC on my test shelf, so not sure if it works, don't know how to program it, but I do know purple wire solders to purople wire, white to white, black to black, green to green, etc. That much *I think* i can handle, and the decoder fits, trucks swivel and all, so hopefully I did it right, but screw it, ti's going back into the cabinet to look pretty. Have any of you ever had an Athearn RTR where the idiots at the factory GLUED the board into the harness?

Sorry guys, i just had to rant. I could go on for hours about how and why I HATE Chinese manufacturing, and their blatant disregard for quality or safety, but this one really chapped my cheese, so thought I would share. It's aggravation like this though that kept me from DCC until recently and does NOT go a long way towards wencouraging others to take the DCC plunge in my opinion.

[eightyeightfan1]

I don't run DCC, but DC(Yeah...I know), but now you piqued my interest on my Athearn GP35.
II have taken the shell off a couple of times, to post difference pics here(or the old place) of the newer one compared to the BB. I really don't remember, now I'm going to have to look.
I'll let you know what I find.
But yeah..hard to believe that American CEO's are sending work to China, for the cheap, non-union pay, in exchange for cheap plastic, bad quality control and lead based paints.

[Steamtrains]

Hey....!!! A buck's a buck.....No matter how you get it....
That's the corporate attitude that's sinking this country....

[Russ Bellinis]

That plug may have been glued, but more likely something like corrosion froze it while in storage. If they got any glue between the pins and sockets on the board, the locomotive would not run on dc or dcc. Of course, it may not have run on dc before you started. Have you tried contacting Athearn about the problem? I've found them to be a responsive company with a good warranty policy. If there was a problem with your board, plug and socket, they would probably send you a new assembly to replace the damaged one.