Loksound select micro in Atlas GP35

[Steveruger45]

Hi Guys,
Well I finally got around to this one.  Space is too small for one of the new narrow boards and the shell is just wide enough to fit the select micro in with just a very little sanding of the shell inside, done with an abrasive finger nail card just in way of the decoder.
Speaker is an 8x12mm in a roll your own enclosure. Frame pick up is by a bit of copper clad pcb at the front claws.  Four 100uF poly tantalum capacitors as a keep alive fitted in the light shield area. Lights and resistors soldered onto pcb board and glued on top of caps at front and behind speaker at rear.  The frame needed a little removing over the last half of the part above the motor cradle.  It all just fits in nicely.
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[RBrodzinsky]

Nice. These smaller locos are a challenge to fit everything.

[Steveruger45]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, in the photo you may be wondering what the white stuff is next to the motor contacts.
It is a little piece of dense foam rubber, similar in consistency to that shipped to protect the handrails on a new loco.
I saved this stuff which is from the insert for a USB thumb drive case.  Soft but firm and assists keeping the motor contacts away from the frame, even though I still kapton taped those frame areas. I have taken to doing this now on all my locos.

[RBrodzinsky]

Just curious, any reason you didn’t take all the frame down above the motor and center the decoder, leaving more room in back over the flywheel for the speaker and enclosure?

[Steveruger45]

Hi Rick,
Yes, the decoder is thicker at the rear and clearance is extremely tight. I was going to mount the decoder the other way up at the beginning of this job and have the decoder a little further back so the onboard caps cleared in the space below. But I found that then there was not quite enough room to put the rear led and resistor in behind the speaker without fouling on the rear light insert.  I toyed with the idea of cropping the light insert for a while ( 3 beers) and decided against that.  So I turned the decoder the other way up as you can see in the photos, and shifted it about 3 mm forward and just angled it down at the back end a little so it just fit. ( lots of vernier measuring and more beers, it was Sunday afterall). That’s why there is a loop of kapton tape over the decoder to keep the slight angle.  I didn’t want to remove any more off the frame, at least in the vertical direction, as this would remove the frame area on each side that snugs up against the motor cradles upper longitudinal center plastic strip.  Also I don’t like to remove the holes in the frame for the motor cradle sideways clips.   i have concerns with keeping the motor properly supported as designed by Atlas to avoid the chance of creating drive line misalignment and noise.  This loco is really quiet.

[tehachapifan]

Nice install! I recently took a look at one of my GP35's to preplan a sound install, also determining that the new slide-in board looks like it might be a no-go....at least not a simple install, but hadn't considered using the standard Select Micro. Nice to know it will work without a ton of shell sanding.

[RBrodzinsky]

I agree with never cutting into the motor mounting holes. Did it once. Will never do again.

I am certainly glad we are getting a larger variety of installs documented.

[Steveruger45]

Nice install! I recently took a look at one of my GP35's to preplan a sound install, also determining that the new slide-in board looks like it might be a no-go....at least not a simple install, but hadn't considered using the standard Select Micro. Nice to know it will work without a ton of shell sanding.

Hi Russ,
You could actually get away with no shell sanding. It will just squeeze in but is a really tight interference fit.  So I just sanded a little to make getting the shell off easier and without dragging the decoder up with it.
You could also take off the factory decoder wrap to gain a little clearance too.  I didn’t remove it on this install.
Here is the sanding tool I use.
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[tehachapifan]

Thanks for the info, Steve!

[Steveruger45]

Your welcome.  I too was considering and actually trying very hard to find a way to use the 73100 or the 73199.  I came to the conclusion that it was just as much work and that since the shell is just wide enough and easily wide enough with just a very little 5 mins worth of hand sanding, and that I would not have to compromise on speaker enclosure depth that the good old select micro was the way to go.
BTW
I just got my second brand new ( yes, really brand new) FVM GP60 for $61. What a steal.
Now I am going to just have to use the 73100 on that one as I copped out on my other one and fitted the plug in lokpilot to that.   I see lots of measuring and note taking in my future together with some studying beers, I think.