My new Atlas Monon C420


malletman

malletman

Alcohaulic
Got my new Atlas Monon C420 today from Caboose Hobbies. They have a smoking hot sale right now, $148 and some change plus shipping for a full DCC/Sound equipted C420. I love the engine, mars light effect looks great for an LED behind a pair of plastic lenses. The shell casting is more of a standard headlight, so I will probably upgrade it to a proper Mars style casting, while using the factory lense. I will probably blank off the one side and put a red MV lense as the Monon only ran one side in clear. A clear MV lense infront of the atlas lense might enhance the flash effect as well. I added the prominant nose top bell, a brass firecracker as I gave up getting the plastic Atlas one in the hole. I only wish Atlas had factory installed the working drop steps. What a total PITA to install, chassed the parts to the floor several times. Takes a good pair of tweezers and a steady hand, and more importantly a lot of patience to get them on. On my short test track it runs awsome, needs the sound turned down, but that will have to wait for a few days till I can get to a DCC layout to turn it down a bit. I plan to add one of MRC's little black boxes to my analog layout to access the decoder soon. Both of my Monon Genesis F3's are getting MRC Brilliance decoders, they sound good for me and I have access to a few that have been replaced with Sountraxx units. So the price is very right. I hope to get some pics of the units tonight at our club meeting. Cheers Mike
 
No pics, forgot to take the camara darn it, but I can report it runs very well, Mars light looks awsome. Defintaly need to turn down the sound and turn off the momentum delay and go to standard control for DC running. To hard to switch the local trying to judge the coast and throttle up delay. Very smooth running, engine is a bit light so it wont pull huge loads up a grade as a single unit. Good engine for the short local interchange freight I run from my future home layout to the club layout. Cheers Mike
 
Sounds like a nice engine and a good deal. Doesn't Atlas give you a way to adjust the sound on DC? My P2K engines have a magnet that, when placed on the right spot on the top of the engine, will raise or lower the volume.
 
Nope, I have to go into programing mode, I can do it with a standard transformer. The magnetic wand just resets the system to factory defaults. Sound is set at level 11 out of 16. I am thinking arouind 8 should be good, 11 is just a bit to much. That and turn off the regulated throttle control and go back to standard throttle control will make yard work much easier. I have gotten used to creating my own momentium when running. I think I will work on upgrading the mars light casting tomorrow. Its a darn bright mars to, I was pushing a flat car with a tarped load on it and could see the mars flash on the load as I pushed it up to the industry. Hopefully I can get the MRC cheater box to wire inline with the standard throttle so I can access the other sounds with ease. Cheers Mike
 
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