3rd Rail T&P #610 Custom Upgrade too Legacy

Bruk, isn't the "standard" resistor an 8 ohm nowadays for Legacy?  The Vision Line Big Boy uses them all around.  Does the BEMC have different smoke logic?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Bruk, isn't the "standard" resistor an 8 ohm nowadays for Legacy?  The Vision Line Big Boy uses them all around.  Does the BEMC have different smoke logic?

Yes typically the standard is 8ohms, but when I was looking up the part number for the BEMC, the smoke unit attached to the engine was calling out a 16 ohm. I put an 8 ohm in there orginally and it was burning way to hot. As far as I know the smoke unit logic is the same. Just doesn’t support a temperature sensor.  

Interesting, I wonder why the difference.  I don't have any BEMC boards, so I can't actually look at this anyway.  If it really wants a 16 ohm, an 8 ohm would be dissipating twice the power, small wonder it got really hot!  

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Interesting, I wonder why the difference.  I don't have any BEMC boards, so I can't actually look at this anyway.  If it really wants a 16 ohm, an 8 ohm would be dissipating twice the power, small wonder it got really hot!  

You would think! This is what happened to the orginal fan for the smoke unit with the 8 ohm resistor. Completely melted! Luckily I have boxes of parts laying around and I found a new impeller, also swapped out the old 16 ohm with a new one and seems to have improved smoke output. 

Yikes!   The only time I've melted those is when the smoke motor stops and the heater melts them.  I do keep several sizes of Lionel impellers in stock as I've had to replace them a few times.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yikes!   The only time I've melted those is when the smoke motor stops and the heater melts them.  I do keep several sizes of Lionel impellers in stock as I've had to replace them a few times.

Me too, it was going good at a good chuff speed then suddently it got louder and louder, then the fan was rubbing against the smoke unit. 

-After Smoke Unit Rework

I didn’t know we could upgrade to all the legacy features.  When did that happen?

Nothing wrong with that smoke.

davidbross posted:

I didn’t know we could upgrade to all the legacy features.  When did that happen?

You can buy all the boards and the like, but you have to build all your cables, so it's not a simple job.

davidbross posted:

I didn’t know we could upgrade to all the legacy features.  When did that happen?

As John said, it was a custom made harness, with a lot of trial and error involved. This took me about a month to do. On and Off and average of 4 hours every other day. 

Very nice! I have an old Sunset N&W J class that I've been wanting to see if I could put Legacy in.

Congratulations on figuring it out.  That is a lot of work.  It came out beautifully. 

Will Ebbert posted:

Very nice! I have an old Sunset N&W J class that I've been wanting to see if I could put Legacy in.

Its possible! Just takes a lot of patience and time.

That's a cool test stand...did you make it yourself?

Mark in Oregon

they look like ordinary pencils holding the engine!

Looks and sounds awesome!  Nice job 👍!!

Nice Bruk. Which engine is the BEMC board from? There seems to be a few variations. Also what are you using to generate chuff?

I used a Legacy R4LC and Legacy DCDE (NLA) in my Commodore Vanderbilt. Runs great but won't drive Railsounds 6 or Lite.

Pete

Norton posted:

Nice Bruk. Which engine is the BEMC board from? There seems to be a few variations. Also what are you using to generate chuff?

Pete

This board came out of a tethered 0-8-0, I have wired it as if Lionel would have, the BEMC uses a hall sensor to generate chuff and puffs. The BEMC is connected directly to the RS-Lite Board recieving direct serial data (which drives the chuff).  

I could have done IR between the loco and tender but I wanted to keep the RCDR out of the loco to conserve space for a possible future “whistle steam effect” 

You could have used the Chuff-Generator to generate the chuff.

Bruk posted:

Norton posted:

Nice Bruk. Which engine is the BEMC board from? There seems to be a few variations. Also what are you using to generate chuff?

Pete

This board came out of a tethered 0-8-0, I have wired it as if Lionel would have, the BEMC uses a hall sensor to generate chuff and puffs. The BEMC is connected directly to the RS-Lite Board recieving direct serial data (which drives the chuff).  

I could have done IR between the loco and tender but I wanted to keep the RCDR out of the loco to conserve space for a possible future “whistle steam effect” 

Ok, Good to know. I have the same two boards I was going to try in my CV. Will either RCDR or BEMC drive a dumb smoke unit directly? It sounds like you are using the smoke unit that came with your engine. Right now the R4LC drives the smoke resistor just like early TMCC.

Pete

The RCDR has no smoke capability.  You should pick up Bruk's excellent RCDR & BEMC document, it has a lot of data on many of the modern Lionel boards.

I have the docs but was curious how the 3rd Rail smoke unit was driven. Maybe some work around?

Pete

The Lionel voltage regulator drives the smoke units directly and also controls the smoke volume and on/off function.  This is typically used in Legacy units that use the RCDR.

Norton posted:

I have the docs but was curious how the 3rd Rail smoke unit was driven. Maybe some work around?

Pete

The 3rd rail smoke unit was driven off track power or could be switched to be controlled off the ERR board. Its a close version of the TAS smoke unit. The BEMC now powers/runs that some unit, no extra boards needed. 

Bruk posted:

Norton posted:

I have the docs but was curious how the 3rd Rail smoke unit was driven. Maybe some work around?

Pete

The 3rd rail smoke unit was driven off track power or could be switched to be controlled off the ERR board. Its a close version of the TAS smoke unit. The BEMC now powers/runs that some unit, no extra boards needed. 

Thanks Bruk. Thats what I was hoping to hear. Now I just have start making harnesses.

Pete