Add on Speed control to a TMCC engine...?

First thing we need to know is the product number of the engine. Each engine is different and will require different parts, if possible.

If it's a pullmor motored loc, then no. You cannot add speed control unless you change the motor to a dc can motor. If it's a lionel tmcc can motor loc, its possible to just swap the motor driver board with an err cruise m board.

If you have the l2rc board, you may have to replace that with a full err setup as long as it has a can motor.

There are so many variations which is why we need the product number to help you.

Did you mean to write R2LC (radio board) or LCRU (early radio-motor driver)?

Pete

R2LC, my bad.

Also, the engine in question is an Atlas O Amtrak Dash 8 without speed control. Product #6861-1. Interestingly enough, it's already got Railsounds 4 but the box says that it's only got Railsounds. And I remember clearly on their website that it doesn't say anything about it having Railsounds 4.

For the Dash 8 run that has speed control out of the box that is, I could not find the original website for the first run of Dash 8's Atlas O did (which didn't have speed control).

If the loco has the modular TMCC setup, then the ERR Cruise "M" is what it needs. The "M" stands for Modular.

Where did you find that on the Atlas site?  A search there on 6861-1 comes up empty.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Where did you find that on the Atlas site?  A search there on 6861-1 comes up empty.

It was there about 3 years ago, but now the page for the non-speed control TMCC engines doesn't exist.

RoyBoy posted:

If the loco has the modular TMCC setup, then the ERR Cruise "M" is what it needs. The "M" stands for Modular.

Here's the insides of the engine. I took out all the board and ran all their part number on Lionels replacement parts website, and this is what I found. (Going from right to left of picture) The first board is the R2LC with C08 code, the second board is the Rail sounds 4.0 board, the third board is the Railsounds power supply board.

So I assume I would need to swap out the R2LC board with something that is compatible with the C08 code and also has Speed control built in...? Of course I would also need a "thatch" reader on one of the motors to have it work correctly, and also a switch to turn speed control on or off in conventional mode.

That's the TAS board, it looks like the EOB with cruise, but hard to say without seeing the actual motherboard a bit better.  If the second motor not in the picture has a striped tach strip on it with an encoder, it already has speed control.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's the TAS board, it looks like the EOB with cruise, but hard to say without seeing the actual motherboard a bit better.  If the second motor not in the picture has a striped tach strip on it with an encoder, it already has speed control.

There is no speed reader on any of the motors, it would be pretty obvious if one of the motors had a speed reader. I can get the engine apart later today and get pictures with all the boards removed, so the motherboard can be seen a lot easier.

No need to go further. If no tach strip then its a SAW board. You have two choices. Replace all of the boards with ERR Cruise Commander and Railsounds board or try and reuse the R2LC, audio, and audio power board along with an ERR Cruise M. You can get a diesel motherboard from Lionel that will accomodate those boards but will have to fabricate new wiring harnesses. 

Pete

This is 6861-1. Cab no. 505. Can't find the exact date it came out, but the later 6861-3 and -4 versions were cataloged in June 2006, so the earlier 6861-1 and -2 would have been cataloged prior to that. The next earlier run of Dash 8s was cataloged in 2004; however, I couldn't find it listed in the 2004 catalog numbers, so it had to be cataloged prior to that, 2002 perhaps. The -1 and -2 models would not have had any cruise control. These were made well before Atlas O started adding any cruise.

For the OP, note that Atlas O always showed if the engine had TMCC and Railsounds, but never showed the version of RS on the box, that I've ever seen. The versions were changing all the time, and they used what Lionel gave them at the time, so I'm sure it wasn't practicable to attempt to put RS versions on the boxes. In their product descriptions in the catalogs, for later issues of their engines, they might say "improved version of RailSounds," or something like that, but not on the box.

I may be wrong, but given its age, it's extremely doubtful the 6861-1 would have had RailSounds 4, but rather an earlier version. I have an Atlas O Santa Fe Dash 8 from that era, and it does not have RS 4.

Norton posted:

No need to go further. If no tach strip then its a SAW board. You have two choices. Replace all of the boards with ERR Cruise Commander and Railsounds board or try and reuse the R2LC, audio, and audio power board along with an ERR Cruise M. You can get a diesel motherboard from Lionel that will accomodate those boards but will have to fabricate new wiring harnesses. 

Pete

Is it a difficult task to rewire the whole engine to allow it to work with all that? Also will I be able to have an auto dimming headlight; flashing ditch lights when I blow the horn; and bi color marker lights? Because I would hate to loose those features that my engine already has.

breezinup posted:

 

I may be wrong, but given its age, it's extremely doubtful the 6861-1 would have had RailSounds 4, but rather an earlier version. I have an Atlas O Santa Fe Dash 8 from that era, and it does not have RS 4.

I ran the board number for the sound board on Lionels parts website, and it came back as one option. That being a Railsounds 4.0 board with no chips. On the bottom of my Dash 8 it has the year 2001 stamped onto the fuel tank.

I think its safe to say its RS4. RS4 came out around 1998. I don't think TAS or Atlas ever got RS5 boards. When Atlas switched to ERR they were also using ERR Railsounds.

Pete

It may have RS 4, although the 2003 TM guide refers to RS4 as Lionel's recently announced upgrade, having sounds virtually identical to RS2.5, but with smaller circuit boards and and more efficient sound amplifier board. They also said Lionel has been inconsistent, and in some cases contradictory, on RS designations, and in some cases it was impossible to determine the version of RS. This applies to items with RS 3 and RS 4. In these cases, they said they have stated these items have RS 2.5, which is the sound standard for RS 3 and 4.  Gets confusing. 

Anyway, it may not matter a great deal what version of RS it has, with respect to options available to retrofit the engine with an ERR cruise. I'm following this with interest, because I was considering adding cruise to my Dash 8 of the same vintage. I know others have done it without any remarkable problems.

Incidentally, I came across your post from 6 1/2 years ago about this same engine. Same notation at the end. You haven't found a job yet in the last 6 1/2 years?  

MICHAELBMEMBER

11/13/11 1:36 AM

I have an Atlas O Amtrak Dash 8-32BWH #505 and I love it. I want to see what you think about your Atlas O Dash 8(s). 


Left Side

Right Side

Front

Front With Door Open

Back

Starting to get back into the hobby after a really long break! And hopefully I can expand upon the collection I currently have. When I finally get a job that is...

 

That's not a "notation." it's a "signature" and I set it as that like 2 days ago. XD

I was considering doing an upgrade to a speed control on the unit since it's broken and the broken part is a Mosfet on the motherboard. But after looking more at the damaged part, it looks like I can repair it on my own. All I would really need to do is fix 2 traces and solder in a new component.

The problem with the TAS boards is it's difficult to impossible to get to a single driver for replacement.  Also, it's common for several to be bad.  The way I fix them is to unbolt all four from the heatsink, replace them all, (cost around $5), and then bolt them to the HS first and align them all with the board holes and solder them on as a unit.

John, do you happen to know what triacs they use on the 15A version of the TAS boards.  Are you aware of any other mods the 15A version has relative to the 8A version. In short are the triacs the only change needed to have a 15A board ?  My next project is a MTH PS1 AA centipede and it would be nice if all I had to do was change the drivers out on one board in order to drive all four motors in the AA pair.  J

Don't know that I've ever had a 15A version.  I never bought these things, just got them in for repair and also when people traded up from TAS I ended up with boards.  With most of these types of boards, I just replace what's cooked with the same part.