3rd rail Z-6 Great Northern Challenger Chuff issue

Boy it’s been awhile, let’s see.  There’s no Hall effect sensor on one of the tender axles?  Newer 3rdrail engines use a micro switches in the engine with a selectable 2 or 4 chuff.  You have that?  if I recall correctly there is a jumper on the EOB for selecting external chuff or internal chuff.  Don’t ask me where it is.  how does the 3rdrail manual tell you how to set up chuff rate?

I would swap the firmware chip from your old board to the new EOB, see if that fixes it.   Bob Krivacic Would be the one to contact, he was the one along with Mike Reagan who developed EOB.

Hello! No, there is no switches on the locomotives axles any where. This engine is from Jan. 2005

I really don't want to upgrade to ERR. It runs great just can't get it to chuff. My newer 3rd rail engine has the switches. I tried to swap out the chip from my old board, it wouldn't even do anything then. So I put the chip back in that this board came with.

So, maybe a firmware chip????

Thank you very much for your response!!

There are EOB boards that internally generated the chuff.  If you replaced one of those with one that didn't have that option, that would account for no chuff.  I second the recommendation to contact Bob Krivacic, if anyone knows the in's and out's of the TAS boards, it would be him.

Thank you very much. Does Bob work at Hennings???

This forum is great!! You guy's sure know your stuff!!!

@crescentlimited posted:

Thank you very much. Does Bob work at Hennings???

Nope, not entirely sure where he works.

Thank you gunrunner John! I really do appreciate your response, as I have a lot of work into my Z-6 challenger. So, if I can't get it to chuff, do you think I could put a magnet with a reed switch on the front tender trucks and run a wire to pin 17 on the R2LC and get it to chuff that way??? I keep reading grounding that pin will get a chuff sound!

If you are getting no chuffs, a reed switch and magnet will generate chuffs.  You are correct, just ground pin-17 of the R2LC and it generates a chuff signal that the sound card will react to.

Thank you very much. I will try that. It just might not be in sync with the drivers, that's all.

AAMOF, it most certainly won't be in sync with the drivers!

Yeah, I will just have to deal with that, I guess. I have had the engine apart about 4 times, and every time something breaks off and I have to solder it back on, so I really don't want to upgrade to ERR.

Thank you for helping me out with this!!

Can't wait to ride behind the Western Maryland 1309 in May!!!

Hello and happy Easter!! 

Well, last evening I burned up my 3rd rail Z-6 challenger. After I was done running it, I hit the shut down on my CAB-1 remote, BUT, I forgot to turn off the transformer. So, the track still had power. When I unpluged the tether from the tender to the engine, it really started to smoke badly, and smelled like I fried something. The smoke was coming from the motor area. I think the cab apron plate touched the tender, therefore frying something in the engine. I remember reading the owners manual, and something about do not let the engine touch the tender.

Would anyone know what I burned up??? Anyone else ever had this happen???

Kind of a bummer!!! I have a lot of work in this engine, but things happen!!!

I nuked the EOB setup in my beloved 3rd Rail M1b not too long ago and destroyed the tach sensor and the m/b in the tender. I have been meaning to do a post-mortem on it but I converted it to ERR since. I have a few EOB engines and I try to keep them alive as long as I can. There was an issue on some OEM installs where the power leads needed to be added directly to the bridge rectifier as the original power input had thin traces. I am not sure but suspect that some sort of alternate ground path can occur in the case of a failed trace and can cause the chaos you describe.

The tender to engine contact warning might be in relation to maintaining the integrity of the tender antenna arrangement. You may see a clear plastic sheet of insulation under the deckplate.

Nice engine, definitely worth an ERR upgrade!

Yes. There is a insulator sheet under the cap apron deckplate. I just can't seem to figure out why unplugging the tender from the engine with track power on, would cause the smoke and carnage that it did. Quite a bit of smoke followed by that electronic smell burning.  I would think that my tach sensor is smoked at this point.  Not sure of any damage to the tender boards, probably is I'm sure.

Thank you!!! 

Well, something got connected where it shouldn't, hard to say what without seeing it.

Yes, I'm sure that's what happened. 

Looks like I will probably have to upgrade to ERR. I didn't want to, but hopefully it won't be to difficult to install.

I bought a good railsounds 5.0 board from lionel, for a northern pacific lionmaster challenger I was using in it. I really liked the whistle, but I'm not sure if I can use this board on the ERR or if they even use railsounds boards. I'm not sure which ERR kit to even buy for it.

Kinda of stinks, I had it running real good to!!! Just needed chuff sound to work and it would have been perfect for me!!

Thanks to you all. Your very helpful!!! 

Lionel used to have a "powered motherboard" for RailSounds card, it works for RS5, RS5, and RS 5.5 boards.  It's the old Railsounds Commander board before ERR went to the RS-Lite board.  I still have a few of them.  They can be connected like the ERR RailSounds Commander to the Cruise Commander to use the RS5 board.

Would you be interested in selling me one?? And which ERR kit do you think I would need?? Do I still need the R2LC and the railsounds power board that is on my EOB motherboard?? And I also seen that you have a super chuffer available.  Maybe I could take off my old EOB tach sensor board that is now fried, and mount your super chuffer right there?? I already have the flywheel stripe tape on it.

Sorry for all the questions, I just don't really know a whole lot about these systems.

Thank you gun runnerjohn!!!

I have to be honest, if you're looking to do a complete TMCC upgrade, including all the extras like the Super-Chuffer and Chuff-Generator, on a brass locomotive, it's not really the place for a beginner to start.  If you've never done a full upgrade before, the place to start is something simple like a diesel upgrade.

Hello! Well, some good news! Turns out, I thought my tender boards got fried too, and they are fine!! All that got fried was the tach reader board, so now I will have to find one. I know I can take the engine back apart and replace it, if I can find one. Probably will be difficult to find, I will just have to keep searching for one.

Thanks again gun runnerjohn!!

The tach board might be repairable, or perhaps you can contact Mike Reagan @Mikado and ask if he still has some TAS tach readers still around.

Ok, I'm sure you are very busy right now. So, your super chuffer would not replace my burned up tach reader board, correct???

If you could repair mine, please let me know. I just have to look very carefully on the engine to make sure no wires are rubbed through and that it doesn't happen again!!!

Thanks gun runnerjohn!!