@Mad_Liver posted:I was just going off what Blunami sent me.
I am surprised they even have that on their website. They should know better. FWIW you can buy that circuit on a PC board with a pot for less than what it would cost you to build that circuit.
Pete
@Mad_Liver posted:I was just going off what Blunami sent me.
Bluerail is not the same as Blunami.
I also have a 4400 Blunami that I hope to fit into an Atlas SW9. Original control was with a Dallee board which I’ve removed. I was hoping to deadrail the loco but I don’t believe I could fit a battery in it. Too tight. So powering off the tracks was the option. In consulting Soundtrax, they felt that an input via a smoothed rectified bridge would be adequate to power the board off of AC. The board has a wide input range. The board’s sound file matches the proto’s. It’s a work in progress now.
DCC is a superior, IMHO, alternative to what’s available in the 3rail world. I have used the ESU controller with an Airwire DCC receiver. Control and sound is surprisingly good. Synchronized smoke is no problem.
The Blunami may be a breakthrough for diesels since smoke sync is not as good as we know with other options. I hope this thread continues.
Larry
Larry, FWIW the Back EMF seems to work fairly well but speed will change if input voltage changes. I found that out when I increased the voltage on my DC-DC convertor from 16 to 18 volts while the engine was running and it sped up. I think the speed is a ratio of the input voltage.
Point is if you go with a rectifier and cap the speed will change if track voltage changes for any reason.
Pete
@Norton posted:Larry, FWIW the Back EMF seems to work fairly well but speed will change if input voltage changes. I found that out when I increased the voltage on my DC-DC convertor from 16 to 18 volts while the engine was running and it sped up. I think the speed is a ratio of the input voltage.
Point is if you go with a rectifier and cap the speed will change if track voltage changes for any reason.
That's great info Pete. Last year I exchanged emails with the folks at CVP Products (Airwire), and they were adamant to power their decoder from a battery. I had a feeling we would need some kind of voltage regulator after the cap to achieve the intended performance.
Switching regulator power supplies are dirt cheap, I'd find a buck/boost model that can maintain a constant output regardless of input voltage, that will solve the varying voltage issue.
A bridge rectifier followed by a voltage regulator will provide a proper AC to DC track based power source for the Blunamis. Battery power is also good and somewhat simpler.
Intersting thread here that might be helpful in this thread...maybe not?
Conventioal vs. Legacy vs. DCC ??????? | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum
https://ogrforum.com/...oal-vs-legacy-vs-dcc
Just finished moving the electronics from the engine to the tender for better range. In the engine it would loose the connection after about 20 feet or moving to the next room. In the tender under its plastic coal load is at least two orders of magnitude better. Two floors up and back at least 30 feet it still connects and I have control. Conclusion, don’t install it in a diecast steam engine. Plastic diesels should be fine.
I didn’t see any way to add an antenna to this. Maybe if that was possible then engine install might work.
As for the chuff sounds I discovered it has at least nine options. Light, medium, and heavy with three choices for each. Then you can add reverb to each one. Main volume and individual volumes available. I am set at about 50% and its every bit as loud as any Lionel engine with just its single driver.
Someone wanting to build their own Vision engine could do it with this board. I am only using two of the six programable function outputs for coupler and smoke plus have three unused wires in the MTH ten wire tether. Whistle steam, swinging bell, blowdown steam, fireman shoveling coal could all be added by adding the required hardware. And for a fraction of the cost of using Legacy components.
Pete
Pete, interested in your project.
Question: Does the Blunami have any provision for track interruptions, dirty wheels, etc., affecting the sound or lighting outputs?
Dave
@Dtrainmaster posted:Pete, interested in your project.
Question: Does the Blunami have any provision for track interruptions, dirty wheels, etc., affecting the sound or lighting outputs?
Dave
It has a connection for a keep-alive battery, they call it a "CurrentKeeper".
@Dtrainmaster posted:Pete, interested in your project.
Question: Does the Blunami have any provision for track interruptions, dirty wheels, etc., affecting the sound or lighting outputs?
Dave
What John says. Not sure but I think its just a big capacitor. You could likely add a big cap to the DC-DC convertor as well. I won’t be able to do any long term testing until I can get this on the club layout as I only have a test track. I know I have turned track power off with the app still running and then turned power on after a few minutes and comes to life without its 15 second connecting routine.
If you want to test the waters I would suggest getting the two amp version if you have some smaller single motor engine like a Williams or Docksider and play with it. If, like me, you are new to DCC there is a learning curve with the CVs and other options but the app itself has many of the configuration menus in place. No third party programs required. Only thing is you can’t access those menus unless you are communicating with a Blunami.
Pete
As previously mentioned, one of the very useful features of the Blunami app is the shortcut approach to CV adjustments. The large number of CV's can be intimidating to a new DCC user. The app shortcuts provide a more defined basis for operating condition adjustments.
If you don't want to go through the process of converting AC to DC, run a BlueRail 5 amp board and Tsunami 4400 sound card (not the Blunami 4408) using the Blunami app. Only down side is you do not get the menus @BOB WALKER mentions above. You have to know your CVs. But the BlueRail 5 amp board supports AC track power.
Ron
I am running now a Blunami 4408 in an Atlas SW9. The engine is very compact. All it took was a bridge rectifier (5 amp) and smoothing capacitor. Set the transformer to provide 15v. So far amazed at the performance.,
Larry
The "current keeper" appears to be a stack of capacitors.
@Mainliner posted:I am running now a Blunami 4408 in an Atlas SW9. The engine is very compact. All it took was a bridge rectifier (5 amp) and smoothing capacitor. Set the transformer to provide 15v. So far amazed at the performance.,
Larry
I'm planning an Atlas SW9 also. Did you replace all of the lights or use what was there? LED or incandescent?
Hi, has anybody tried using the Blunami 4408 with a Williams dual motor loco? I have two that are slated to have Bluetooth/dcc added, but they both show a preak stall current of 5.5 amps running on ac. When cruising normally they show a peak of 2.5 amps. If I have to purchase a Blueraildcc card for each I will. Just hate to spend the extra $$$ if I can avoid it.
Thanks!
Bobby
What if you wire the motors in series? Will that lower your stall current?
Worth a try! One of them is an F3 that originally came with just one motor. The shop I purchased it from added the second powered truck. Thinking maybe I remove the second motor. It's only going to be pulling 3-4 traditional sized passenger cars anyway. I'll try both methods and see what happens. Thanks for the idea.
Assuming identical motors, wiring them in series will drop the stall current to approximately a quarter of that for parallel-wired motors. But that comes at the cost of reducing the locomotive's maximum speed and pulling power, due to the voltage across each motor being halved. That restriction may not matter for a switcher, but it will for an E8. The lower the drive gear ratio of the locomotive, the greater the likelihood that reasonable speed can be obtained, though pulling power may not be great.
Here are some measured numbers from my Weaver Sharknose model, using a lab bench DC power supply:
Stall current, each motor, 12VDC: 5.0A & 5.2A, Wired in parallel, 10.2A.
Stall current,, each motor, 6VDC: 2.6A & 2.5A. Wired in parallel, 5.1A.
Stall current, motors wired in series, 12VDC: 2.5A.
The maximum voltage that may be applied to the series-wired motors is determined by (a) track power open-circuit AC voltage, (b) effective series impedance of track power source transformer, (c) full-wave bridge rectifier forward voltage drop, (d) rectifier filter 120 Hz ripple voltage under load, and (e) motor drive transistor voltage drop in the Blunami board. I'm only about halfway through my lab-bench investigation of the subject, but it's looking like getting more than 9V across each motor, under load, is a daunting task, when wired in series. For a typical O gauge twin-motored diesel, it may not be possible to achieve stall current within the Blunami specification while obtaining reasonable speed and pulling power. Then it's a matter of deciding what the risks are and whether they're worth taking.
@BobbyDing posted:Hi, has anybody tried using the Blunami 4408 with a Williams dual motor loco? I have two that are slated to have Bluetooth/dcc added, but they both show a preak stall current of 5.5 amps running on ac. When cruising normally they show a peak of 2.5 amps. If I have to purchase a Blueraildcc card for each I will. Just hate to spend the extra $$$ if I can avoid it.
A much more sensible solution might be to put a PTC of the correct rating in series with the motors and leave them in parallel. You'll get the full pulling power, but won't have a major risk of over current in a stall. I'd figure on about a 2.0 to 2.5 trip rating for the PTC. I've used this technique for protecting the ERR Cruise Commander Lite, it was subject to damage if you used it in full sized locomotives with a load.
That 2.5A figure looks excessive to me, I suspect this is an older Williams that had the current sucking motors. I'm working on a fairly recent Williams scale GG-1 with dual motors. It's cruising current draw pulling six passenger cars is around 0.7 to 0.9 amps as it goes around the layout. The stall current if I stall both motors is 2.9 amps. The motors are the typical Mabuchi 3xx series motors that are used in many diesels of all the major manufacturers.
Ron, on that Atlas SW9 I switched to leds.
Larry
No doubt it pays to be cautious given these are new and few have experience with them yet but they do have circuitry that will shut down if overloaded. Some here are already using them in two motor diesels. I would first run the engines before installing a new board to see what they actually draw. Total stall can happen but its pretty rare. Usually the wheels will slip if the engine can’t move but do whatever you are comfortable with.
As for lighting I have one incandescent and two LEDS driven by the headlight circuit. The grain of rice bulb only draws 25ma and even with the LEDs current draw is a fraction of the 100ma output rating.
Pete
After a considerable number of control system upgrades, I found that the series motor connection is an effective solution to the stall current issue with lower rated (2A) systems. With higher rated modules like the Blunami4408 (4A), the parallel arrangement is generally workable.
@BobbyDing without rubber tires, the loco would spin its wheels before it got anywhere near 5.5 amps. Remove the tires, fill the grooves with JB Weld (?) and level it out carefully to achieve a smooth, concentric tread. Perhaps never worry about overcurrent OR tire replacement ever again...?
Ted, I’m curious as o how level the wheels out. Any particular technique you use?
If I were inclined to do what Ted suggests, which I'm not, I'd just use the JB-Kwik type and rotate the wheels under power upside down to smooth out the grooves. I personally don't have all the problems I see here with traction tires, so I don't spend a lot of time trying to "improve" on them. 
Odds of a dual motor stall are pretty slim and the boards have an overload protection on them. I would say the risk of letting the smoke out of it over a motor stall are so small it doesn't warrant concern. Atlas says the stall current of their dual motor diesels is 6 amps in their documentation, yet they are supplying them from the factory with Loksound 5L decoders, which, according to ESU, can only put 3 Amps to the motors. They also dont seem to blow up. So there's that.
I have overamped a Tsunami decoder on dirty track. Its pretty obvious when it gets unhappy and shuts down. The train stops, the headlight flashes, it does a pretty good job of letting you know you should cut the power off. Resolve the issue, and it starts right back up.
Progress report on the Weaver Shark conversion: With the can motors wired in series and 18V pure DC on the track, around 31 scale mph was achieved pulling 15 cars on level track. Speed loss up a 3% grade was minimal. However, the one functional pickup arm/roller has some issues that prevent full track voltage from reaching the Blunami board and the other arm just doesn't conduct. Lots of data collected on AC rectification and DC regulation developed, though I haven't set up the loco for AC track power yet. Once I get the ancillary annoyances resolved, this will probably work nicely.
Will eagerly await your results, having tried all three (AC track, DC track and battery power).
Bob, project is on hiatus 'til next week. Pickup roller assemblies are faulty, so no meaningful on-track testing can be done until they're replaced. One had no conductivity between the roller and its pins that mate with the arm forks, the other had a voltage loss of around 2½V. So the Blunami board wasn't getting full supply voltage when the Shark was on the track. Others have reported pickup problems with the Weaver Sharks.
Understandable. From time to time I have experienced pickup issues. Once I resorted to a third pickup in a trailing car hard wired to the board. Why I got so happy with battery power.
Excellent intro thread guys! My ancient understanding of Bluetooth is that while one can run multiple BT devices independently from a single source you cannot control (sync) two or more devices as one... as in, Multi-Unit operation. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken... and, Thanks!
@Dennis-LaRock posted:Excellent intro thread guys! My ancient understanding of Bluetooth is that while one can run multiple BT devices independently from a single source you cannot control (sync) two or more devices as one... as in, Multi-Unit operation. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken... and, Thanks!
Dennis, i believe that's true in the sense that you can't run the Blunami on both your iPhone and iPad to control the same loco, at the same time. But the app has a multi-engine screen option that permits simultaneous control of multiple locos. I won't try that until I'm happy with single engine performance and then pursue a second conversion. Whether the iPhone can control one loco and the iPad another is unknown.
@Dennis-LaRock posted:Excellent intro thread guys! My ancient understanding of Bluetooth is that while one can run multiple BT devices independently from a single source you cannot control (sync) two or more devices as one... as in, Multi-Unit operation. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken... and, Thanks!
Actually you can build a consist according to the manual. Just not as simply as with TMCC or DCS.
If you download the Blunami Steam Users Guide it details the procedure. I suspect the diesel manual does that as well.
Pete
Wow! Timely responses! Documentation downloaded. I have to figure out which old diesel/electric I want to test it with and order up the parts. Thanks!
The Blunami app multiple engine control and the consist arrangement work quite well. I do not believe that both an iPhone and an iPad can work simultaneously as control elements.
Setting up consists in Blunami is the same process as BlueRail. The setup is extremely easy.
The challenging part may be the speed matching, but once it's done you do not have to ever do it again.
Since the app pairs with the loco's, I believe you can pair different loco's to different devices so you can have 3 different loco's controlled by 3 different throttles (devices). You can not have 1 loco controlled by multiple devices.
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