The only reason I ask is because I can possibly see the chuffed sensor under the engine. With the "tmcc upgrade project out of the question, if this is a simple upgrade, I will do it. It seams to be a magnetic chuff sensor l.
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It is actually a TRAINSOUND ENGINE.
If it has a mechanical smoke unit, the chuff switch is likely tied to the action of the smoke unit.
If you give us an actual model number it would be easier to answer.
You can often put a magnet on a tender wheel and with a reed switch, get closer to two chuffs per rev, since the tender wheel is generally about half the circumference of the driver. Two magnets yield ~ four chuffs.
These chuffs will not be synchronized with the smoke puffer, and that causes a lot of people to gnash their teeth and rend their garments.
Like Gunrunner John said the item number would help a great deal in this situation.
We pretty much know that its a mechanical puff and chuff unit. So it gets its chuff either from a cam located between the drive wheels activating a cherry switch , or it's being activated by an arm on one of the side rods. If it's activated from a cam you might be able to add lobes to the cam and create more chuffs, if it's activated from an arm on the side rod that gets quite involved
If you use a reed switch with magnets, the chuff won't match the puff.
Alex
The engine # is 6-28671 out of set # 6-31985.
You all are right about the puffer smoke being out of sync with the chuff. I never thought of that before, another thing to think about before I might do this. Chuff, prototypical, smoke not as much.
Truthfully, my course of action with this locomotive would be to sell it and buy one equipped as you'd like it to be. I have the feeling that any "simple" upgrade of the chuff sound will not be sufficient to satisfy the urge to have it operate more prototypically.
You might look at some of the new LionChief + locomotives, some have fan driven smoke and synchronized chuffs.
