Atlas SSW GP60 Conversion to Loksound 5 L and LED lights

Looks great!  Do you have a finished under the hood picture?  I am not the neatest DCC installer and always looking for tips and tricks to make it look nicer after install.  Also, did you wire the 2 motors in series or parallel? 

I have the same loco but in a different paint scheme. I Love the paint scheme you have. I definitely want to pick one up some day.

Just curious, do you dislike the Atlas dog bone for a performance reason or is it just a personal preference? Or does it get in the way of the Loksound decoder?

@roll_the_dice posted:

Looks great!  Do you have a finished under the hood picture?  I am not the neatest DCC installer and always looking for tips and tricks to make it look nicer after install.  Also, did you wire the 2 motors in series or parallel?

Andy, Will absolutely post more photos and a video or two.  I know what you mean.  I'm to the point now in HO where I can do a super clean install, etc.  Not there in O scale or even 1/29th.  It takes practice and while you can apply what you already know until you do at least a couple of the same installs for me I always pick up new ideas the more I do.

@Hudson J1e posted:

I have the same loco but in a different paint scheme. I Love the paint scheme you have. I definitely want to pick one up some day.

Just curious, do you dislike the Atlas dog bone for a performance reason or is it just a personal preference? Or does it get in the way of the Loksound decoder?

Phil,  That's funny the GP60 has always been a favorite loco of mine.  I have one in 1/8 scale too!  I too like the SP/SSW paint schemes on this loco.   While I prefer the speed lettering on the later SP units, the roman lettering SP and SSW versions are cool too!   I prefer the speed lettering as I model more present day and most UP patch jobs are based on speed lettered units, at least that I've seen.   If not, they've likely been repainted.

Well really a couple reasons on the Atlas dogbone MB, but it just gets down to removing possible points of failure and my preference to have the least amount of electronics in a loco as possible.  Removing potential influences on the operation.

Right now the motors are wired in parallel and able to run down to a scale 1 MPH with no jerkiness. I've done both and wired motors in series with lower capacity decoders but didn't see the need based on the current draw of the motors, the stall current and smooth operation.

Just as a heads up, you can fit a tang band module in the dynamic brakes. Since LS5L supports stereo sound, you can really make these locos make some noise.

Good stuff Mike! 

Looks great Mike!
John

What is the Atlas dogbone?

@harley rider posted:

What is the Atlas dogbone?

It's the motherbaord that comes in atlas locomotives that supports all the connections for rail pickup, motor, lights, smoke generatror, etc... It also includes some plugs to connect DCC decoders directly to that Atlas motherboard to utilize the existing connections to all those outputs to map over to DCC aux outputs without having to rewire, etc.

Many says it's a dogbone because of its shape.   Narrower in the center and widens at both ends.

@jgtrh62 posted:

Looks great Mike!
John

Thanks John.  Haven't done a 2R O scale loco in years!  LOL! Almost like riding a bike.

@Mike DeBerg posted:

Phil,  That's funny the GP60 has always been a favorite loco of mine.  I have one in 1/8 scale too!  I too like the SP/SSW paint schemes on this loco.   While I prefer the speed lettering on the later SP units, the roman lettering SP and SSW versions are cool too!   I prefer the speed lettering as I model more present day and most UP patch jobs are based on speed lettered units, at least that I've seen.   If not, they've likely been repainted.

Well really a couple reasons on the Atlas dogbone MB, but it just gets down to removing possible points of failure and my preference to have the least amount of electronics in a loco as possible.  Removing potential influences on the operation.

Right now the motors are wired in parallel and able to run down to a scale 1 MPH with no jerkiness. I've done both and wired motors in series with lower capacity decoders but didn't see the need based on the current draw of the motors, the stall current and smooth operation.

Hi Mike, absolutely agree with your comments re GP60's and SP/SSW and nice work BTW.

I put this one on the back burner for a bit to finish up a 1/29th version of it first... Just a few more details and items to knock off the punch list, but it's got loksound 5 XL and airwire.   Still waiting on the wabtec PTC array part

@Mike DeBerg posted:

I put this one on the back burner for a bit to finish up a 1/29th version of it first... Just a few more details and items to knock off the punch list, but it's got loksound 5 XL and airwire.   Still waiting on the wabtec PTC array part

Whoa! Nice.

Thanks Joe!

I thought it would be easier to use as many of the existing Atlas connections as possible, and utilize the dog bone with the LokSound board. But I could never get them to work together completely.

Jay, I've had similar experiences and thus drove me to always try and implement products in the most native way possible.   Basically use the products as designed with the least amount of other paths, logic, components, etc.. in between.

In theory it would make sense to try and utilize connections that manufacturers provide, especially now that they are implementing LED's on small circuit boards that connect back into a main board, etc... We'll like you stated, due to the erratic behavior, it's the exact opposite.