Atlas O SW-8 Dallee Reverse Board issue

Those reverse units were (are) very sensitive. You need to very quickly  tap the reverse button. Being 15 years or older, it is not out of the question that the board went bad if you are doing nothing different than before.

I'll give that a try, Chuck. Thanks

Gave it a try. No dice. In fact, no matter what position the switches are set to, there will be no reverse. One position, it is permanently in neutral, but reverse seems gone.        Burnt?

Roger

I have 2 of these....one is erratic and is tough to cycle F-N-R but the other is quite smooth...

You might want to read this old review particularity the part on "performance"...

  http://www.atlaso.com/reviews/ogsw89.htm

One last thing I can suggest is, you're going to have to dive in the engine is check the solder pads on the 4 large power transistors.

Carefully re-heat the pads until the solder re-melts. That may fix your engine since you are getting forward motion.

Bob,

Very interesting article. I got this engine used a couple of years ago. I noticed that the shifting was flukey as pointed out in the article. What's happening now is worse. Nice, strong, little engine, but weird reverse board and horrible sound.

Chuck,

Not sure what you mean by shoulder pads. It's still all apart, so I can get at them if you can describe what to look for.

Roger

There are 4 of them, with 3 leads each. The largest components on the board, black.

Chuck,

I'm on it.....be back in a bit.

TAS did a lot of TMCC change overs on these older Atlas SW models.   I found one at a train show for less than $100 and it also had issue with forward/reverse and lousy sound.     I managed to find an older TAS bottle board, from a Forum member, who had upgraded an SW model to ERR control and sound.  A little luck and a lot of patience, and time, I upgraded the unit to TMCC with the speaker in the fuel tank and electro-couplers.    A slide show of the upgrade.   Click on the underlined phrase.  Atlas was very good with the additional parts I needed.  Most difficult part of the project was the modification of the fuel tank to accept the speaker.  

One of several Atlas SW9, this is the oldest. The rest are standard TMCC units.

"You the Man, Chuck".   It's shifting!  Hopefully rehabilitated.     I thought I saw a whiff of smoke in there. Hope I'm wrong

Ran it some more last night and it started smoking again and then.......pfft. And that was it. Good try, though.        What reverse unit will fit in this engine?

ROGER1 posted:

Ran it some more last night and it started smoking again and then.......pfft. And that was it. Good try, though.        What reverse unit will fit in this engine?

ERR has upgrade kits.  The SW's are a tough fit no mater what electronic is used.  Click on the underlined phrase.

Mike,

I'm liking what you did with your TMCC upgrades in your engines. But with this one, I'm looking for something simple and conventional as I don't run it very often. I may even go the diode route on it.

https://www.dallee.com/

Still amazes me how much in the tank conventional locos have gone . I paid a guy 60.00 dollars for this at the October York and he was happy to get it !

Contact Dallas at Dallee Electronics, his stuff is pretty solid, he may have some idea as to how to repair or replace. The newer 4 amp boards are very compact.

Jim

Mike CT posted:

TAS did a lot of TMCC change overs on these older Atlas SW models.   I found one at a train show for less than $100 and it also had issue with forward/reverse and lousy sound.     I managed to find an older TAS bottle board, from a Forum member, who had upgraded an SW model to ERR control and sound.  A little luck and a lot of patience, and time, I upgraded the unit to TMCC with the speaker in the fuel tank and electro-couplers.    A slide show of the upgrade.   Click on the underlined phrase.  Atlas was very good with the additional parts I needed.  Most difficult part of the project was the modification of the fuel tank to accept the speaker.  

One of several Atlas SW9, this is the oldest. The rest are standard TMCC units.

Wow, someone likes SW units!

I agree with Jim, if a Dallee unit won't fit, anything else will be more fun than you want. They have reverse units with sounds, and if you upgrade the speaker the sounds might be better. I have one, but hope it never does anything. Looking inside one of these brings back "fond" memories of Weaver chain drive RS3 locos.