Ah! That's it. Mine ran fine on DC as well, Mark.
As soon as we went to DCC, it ran less well. 
We're still working on it, but apparently the Pittmans are at the bottom of the specs table and could be the root of the problem.
I'm going to runs some more tests, but it's Christmas Eve here and the extra test decoder hasn't arrived from the US; so it looks like it will be some more days before I can play with it again.
I'll just have to content myself with the egg nog. 
Happy Holidays to you Max, and everyone here at this Forum...
Mark in Oregon
Thanks, Mark.
Same to you.
Are you gonna get to play some over the break?
Hi... your locos look excellent. Those of us who were long-time HO-scalers before we switched to (or back to) O scale have a somewhat different approach to modeling in O scale. Not better or worse, just different. But hang in... after awhile you’ll get the bugs worked out and then enjoy the heft and sounds of O scale on the rails. I have several Pitman-driven Diesels... the motors per se never have given me any problems. Often it’s the drives or electronics which need help. In my HO days, all of my Diesels were powered with Pitman DC motors from open-frame permag DC60 to DC90s, and all were hooked up with the old Hobbytown Centri-clutch drives with multi-flywheels. Real clutch-drives were fantastic, could crawl like an ant, and at high speed would coast for several feet if the power was shut down. A real kick. I have never found anything that good in O scale. Probably because of the much heavier weights involved... plus electronics and simple flywheels took over for the coasting effect. I just posted a video on this forum showing my on-board battery power for O scale locos. I think you will find it in the recent postings column.
Best wishes, and Merry Christmas!
~Andy R!
Thanks, Andy.
I've lived (just), through the transition from DC to DCC in HO. It's all very familiar.
Just to beat myself up further, I run my layouts by computer control. I'm not sure how I would do it using RC.
It's a very enticing concept, though. Give me time.
One thing about banging one's head on a wall. It feels great every time I stop for a break. 
Merry Christmas. 
I finally got my first Finescale 360 tower into the P&D F Unit. This included dropping the top sprocket from 10T to 8T. It has the brass trucks, the full "Bob Sobol inspired" upgrade package as well with 20T lower sprocket. I was able to get the top shaft almost up to the motor drive shaft C/L by adding 2 chain links. The chain tension is very easy to adjust with the cap screw and sliding upper tower.Way better than before and at least it's parallel to the lower shaft!
Also the UJ pivot can easily be aligned directly above the truck pivot, and the top and bottom sprockets can be adjusted to perfect alignment. I used one P&D brass washer to align the top sprocket.
The decoder is a D408SR which doesn't have back EMF. I would say the noise is down by around 75% at speed, and the starting off and slow running is 50% better.
Link to after video:
Max, I can't hear any motor hum with this setup, so hopefully your Loksound with back EMF turned off will deliver at least as good results, bearing in mind the D408SR is a "previous generation" decoder. I am now looking at coreless motors e.g. Faulhaber, Maxon, Portescap. I used Portescap in British 7mm modelling back in the early 90s before DCC. But the early Digitrax decoders were too low a drive frequency for coreless so I used the provided Pittmans up to now.
There's a lot of good info out there so I'll let you know what I end up with.
Learning all the time! 
Thanks, Pete.
I'm still hammering away at ESU. They released the L series decoder specifically for O scale and it's come up short. They close ranks when there is a design problem and attack anyone who dares to question them.
Their HO decoders are tops - as are the XL for G scale; they've just plain got the L series wrong.
If you find a good quality can motor with the right size shaft, please let me know and I'll have a crack at it. I still think my GP38-2 can be made into a good loco. I'm with Mark on this. The basic model lends itself to super detailing.
BTW, I can't see your video.
Cheers
I agree the GP38 can be a good loco. I did one in CP with grab irons, winterization hatch etc. and it looks decent. It's not 100% accurate but plenty good for me. If only I could make it run smoothly... 
For some reason I can't get the video to embed after the forum upgrade, but I put the link above. Hope it works for you now!
I am talking to "the Motorman" via ebay who seems to have lot of options for Faulhaber motors that many others have already used to replace the Pittmans so I'll keep you posted.
It's a shame about Loksound's attitude. Matt Herman gets up here quite often to visit Rapido and George's Trains. He seems like a great guy so maybe I can engage him next time.
Yes. Matt is a good bloke. In understand that they are protective, but some of us older blokes have been with ESU since before Matt, so we've seen ESU for a long while. It might be a German thing. It will pass, as always.
I got the link to open. The boss on the flywheel looks a bit eccentric, but it's all running nicely. 
Oh well, like you say, it'll pass. By the way, I have been highly impressed with the HO TCSWOW Diesel decoder in my Atlas O SW9 and they have an "O Scale" offering now, with built in keep alive, that I want to try. But they don't have the right sound set for the GP38-2 yet. Can't win 'em all I guess...
Yeah, that UJ boss inside the flywheel is a pain. It uses a single grub screw to tighten it as it doesn't push onto the motor shaft quite enough. So when I tighten the grub screw it pushes slightly off centre. I spent ages trying to hold it off-centre the other way, so that it would be dead-centre when tight, but this is a close as I got.
Model Railroading is still considered fun in some quarters, right?
It's a sport, not a hobby.
LOL Max, now I get it!
OK... Game on:
Next in play are 3 x Red Caboose GP9s to get the full Finescale 360 chassis and tower treatment plus Bob Sobol-style pickups. One, a high-hood has the same D408SR/DSX setup so I'll go with that first. The other 2 are CP chop-nose conversions on P&D trucks. I'll get them running then decide about decoders once I figure out the coreless motor thing.
At least I feel like I know what I'm getting into this time around and I have all the drive parts in hand. I think the Finescale 360 tower kit plus the right coreless motor and decoder with keep-alive will solve this drive for modern DCC/sound.
Silver lining...
I'm keeping an eye out for a Red Caboose loco, Pete. Probably a GP-7 or 9. Going through this exercise is a quick way to get the true facts. I reckon that I've got a pretty good handle on Atlas and Weaver, so RC should be my next logical choice.
The Red Caboose GP9 has excellent detailing. The original kit was a GP9 high-hood out of the box. The ones I have are from the kits which have amazing but very fragile details. Grab irons, lift eyes hoses etc. are all plastic so they easily get knocked off. But everything you need to swap out for metal wire and cast parts are readily available from P&D, Des Plaines etc., all the usual suspects!
The original kit used the old Atlas F Unit double-ended drive with a twin-flywheel motor (you guessed it - a Pittman)! Very nice slow running on DC light engine. But those old Atlas "top-pivot" trucks were not good for keeping wheels on the track under load. So I eventually figured out that the P&D upgrade kit was the way to go. Then I found the Des Plaines brass chassis plate, and now the Finescale 360 version. The Des Plaines brass one is hard to get now. It had the advantage of weight over Kelly's kit. But I like Kelly's better as it comes with chassis rails machined in and milled pathways for ditch light wires that I need. Plus he supplies weights so it's all good.
That said, the way I understand it is that Atlas bought the tooling for the excellent body shell and maybe some of the frame too. Then they tweaked it to work with the dual motor China drive. I think they modded it to make a GP7 also (anyone please correct me). I have never seen one so I may be way off base here. Not sure if they had to compromise handrails or much of the body to work in 3-rail and the dual motors.
So if you find an original kit, I would recommend the P&D brass trucks, Finescale 360 chassis, Weaver/P&D drive with Kelly's tower upgrade and coreless motor TBD as soon as we figure out the best one. I think P&D or Des Plaines bought up all the remaining body kits which were left over without the driveline. So if you can find one and add the above items you'd have a "state of the art" Red Caboose GP9. 2 of mine were chop-nosed back in the UK 20 years ago by a mate with way more styrene-wrangling skills than I. Soon after that, (of course!) Des Plaines made a window surround for the chop-nose version which afaik they still offer.
Hey, it's a sport, right...
Interesting that the Red Caboose Geep 9 has come up. I spent a good part of yesterday working on mine.
I got it off eBay a few years back; AT&SF freight colors. It came assembled, but the original builder was less than awesome as far as glueing and "color matching": blue hand grabs on the yellow ends, yellow lift rings (most were broken off) on the blue roof... you get the idea. Anyway, I ordered some brass detail parts from P&D, removed and replaced the "offending" pieces, and it now looks so much better! I am having a hard time matching the Santa Fe blue: any suggestions?
It has always been a great running engine: interesting how well the decades-old Atlas/Roco design has held up; other than replacing the axles due to split gears, my 2 Atlas F-9s are actually the smoothest engines of all of my little fleet. They take very little "juice" to get started, run very quietly, and I think are terrific models all 'round.
I have been running my recently acquired (and 2 -railed) Weaver Geep 38 a lot, and it seems the longer it runs, the better it runs. I am very pleased with it.
Mark in Oregon
PS: There is a very good thread over at "The Railwire" Forum on a P:48 build that someone did with the Red Caboose Geep; well worth checking out...
Thanks for the updates Mark. I forgot to mention the splitting axle gears. I used NWSL wheelsets with gears until I got the P&D brass truck upgrades. Worked great.
Here's a link to that P:48 build. It uses the Des Plaines brass chassis. It's above and beyond what I could do detailing-wise, especially the grille work and details behind the grilles. Outstanding craftsmanship!
...that's the one.
Thanks, Pete for sending the link. I'm sure it will be of great interest here...
Mark in Oregon
Thanks, Guys.
Interesting to see the double Weaver drive with a Pittman. Shows that it can be done.
I'll keep a look out on ebay and O Scale Yard Sale.
Well, it's been so long that I had to re-read some of this thread to catch myself up.
The replacement decoder from SBS4DCC.com finally arrived today. It's been sitting on a shelf at the post office.
I've loaded up a sound project and away it went.
The moaning sound with this new decoder is the same low level as in the Atlas SDP-35 - that is that it's still there, but easily overcome by the sounds from the decoder. I ran the fine tuning procedure (CV54 =0 > F1), and the loco has BEMF, excellent slow running performance and nice sounds.
All this has convinced me that the Weaver/P&D motor and trucks/Kelly's adjustable tower; can combine to make an excellent runner with a Loksound decoder. Sure it still moans a bit, but you can't hear it with the sound off.
I'm happy with that. Now to add some wipers to the rear windows of the cab and then weather it.
Cheers
Can't wait to see it!
Mark in Oregon
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