CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO OF SEMI SCALE HUDSON CHANGED FROM 1 CHUFF TO 4 CHUFFS WITH SPEED CONTROL

Electric Railroad Cruise M should work for the upgrade to cruise.  Very easy to install.

 

Chuff rate would most likely have to be done with reed sensor using magnets to generate 4 chuffs.

Hi Marty I knew you would come to the rescue,  thanks so much

Who sells this items and can I do the whole job myself I have a little background

in carpentry and electrical. Also what's the ballpark price of these items.

 

Thanks again, Alex

Good choice on the engine. These are very nice. You will want to verify what version of TMCC you have. If it uses modular boards, then  Cruise M will work. If it is pre modular you might have to get the Cruise Commander. Open the tender and take a picture if you are not sure yourself.

Forum member Boxcar Bill is the go to guy for ERR stuff.

http://www.mttponline.com/

 

Pete

Thanks Pete here's a photo of the boards.

Thanks, ALex

Those are the RailSounds boards in that picture, the Cruise Commander M directly replaces your DCDR and requires one wire to the socket of the R2LC.  The magnets can be had from K&G Magnetics, they're cheap.  The CCM is available from BoxCar Bill's Website, he offers a discount over the ERR pricing.

Alex, my mistake. I have the conventional version of this engine and all the electronics are in the tender. What is in the picture is the Railsounds cards so the R2LC and motor driver must be in the engine. Most likely your driver board is the modular type so a Cruise M should work and be the easiest to install. Before ordering anything you will want to make sure you have some extra room for the Cruise M as its about 1/4" longer than the DCDR board that you will likely find in the engine. (The one attached to the heat sink).

 

BTW I see in your first picture the engine is posed similar to mine.

 

 

Pete

It's actually only about 1/8" longer, but that's a problem in some locomotives!   I've had to enlarge the heatsink holes in a couple of them to reposition the CCM so it would fit.

Thanks to all of you guys for all this great info, so you guys are saying that I would have to open the engine and replace a board inside and also put magnets around the

motor, I'm a liittle nervous about this because I never in all the years with trains did

anything like this. So do you guys think I should chance it or should I have someone do it for me.

Thanks, Alex

The magnets go on one of the drivers if you want 4 chuffs per rev, and you mount a reed switch to sense them.

 

Believe me, installing the CCM is child's play, it's very easy!  I'd go over to the ERR website and download the installation manual for the Cruise Commander M.  You'll see that it's not a big deal to bolt this in.

 

The magnets are pretty easy too, but that's more mechanical than electrical.

Thanks John that sound great, but I'm still a little confused about what I have to buy

I guess because I'm a little nervous. So can you just list the items I have to purchase

this way I can't go wrong. Sorry this is very new to me.

 

Thanks again, ALEX

You'll need the Cruise Commander M from ERR, that's a kit that contains all the parts you'll need to install it.  You'll also need some heat sink compound to mount the CCM to the existing heatsink, that's just four screws and the thermal compound.  You use the old screws, and the only extra thing is the thermal compound, you can get that at Radio Shack and lots of other places.

 

For the chuff, you'll need some of the small magnets from the previous source I pointed out, these would probably be a good choice.  You'll also need a reed switch to replace the chuff switch that is currently installed, Boxcar Bill has those as well as the CCM kits.

 

The magnets and the reed switch are only necessary to do the 4-chuff conversion, the CCM is all you need for cruise control.  FWIW, I put cruise control on any of my locomotives I can stuff it into!

Thanks very much John and to everyone else, you have all been a GREAT help

to me. That's what make's OGR FORUM GREAT.

 

THANKS, AGAIN, ALEX

Alex,

 

Looks good. Good luck.

 

How about a video so we can hear how it sounds.

 

Mike R

Alex, John pretty much spelled it out but I would suggest using two magnets on one of the tender wheels along with a reed switch. The reason being the Railsounds boards are in the tender and the connection for the chuff switch is on those boards. If you mount the switch in the engine you would have to run an additional pair of wires back to the tender to get chuff. This will give you close to 4 chuffs per driver rev as the tender wheels are close to half the driver diameter.

If you go to electricrr.com you can download the manual for both the Cruise M and Railsounds. The Railsounds manual will show different boards from what you have but there are clear photos on how to install the reed switch and magnets on the tender wheels. The Cruise M manual is also well illustrated so you can see what is involved with changing out the motor driver board.

 

Pete

Thanks Mike I can put up a quick video, I'll try in a bit

 

Thanks, Alex

Hi Pete that's a nice engine I can't wait until I put 4 chuffs and cruise in mine

Thanks,Alex

Alex, let me know how this goes.  I have a couple of engines that I would like to do the same thing to (or have someone else do for me).

 

Doug

   There is the other option of converting to PS-2 DCS by MTH.  It has many other features, selectable massive smoke output, any chuff rate you want plus many other features.  Many LHS will install And if you are an electronic coward like me JDS Ltd will do the whole job for about $200.  They have many other fancy steam options such as whistle smoke, pop-off valve smoke etc at extra cost.  They hace a website that shows many engines and what the features look like.

I'll bet it's $200 plus the cost of the MTH PS-2 kit, which is $180, right?   And I suspect that's not with all the extra goodies you mention either, right?

Hi Doug I emailed boxcar bill and I'm waiting for him to get back to me and I will order the parts and let you and everyone else know how it goes. Here's a quick video of it

with 1 or 2 chuffs per rev and no cruise.

THANKS TO ALL AGAIN FOR THE HELP

ALEX

 

Hi Alex,

 

Maybe I'm loosing my hearing (along with my mind), but it looked and sounded to me that it has 4 distinct chuffs of sound and smoke per wheel revolution in your video.   

 

Oh!  The video has vanished.  

Alex

 

  I haven't received any email, please try again.

 

Bill

Thanks Alex. I really thought that I was loosing it for a minute there. I should have realised that that wasn't a hudson too. But I was too busy watching wheels and counting chuffs. 

Hi Bill emailing you now

thanks, Alex

HERE'S THE FIRST VIDEO

Thanks, Alex

The sound is really nice, but the chuff rate and jerky motor ruin the appeal of that locomotive. Conversion is a good idea. Speed control and 4-chuffs per rev are must haves. It would be nice to have better control of the locomotives acceleration rate too.

 

I have a PS 2.0 / 3.0 addiction because they are so feature rich, so the higher cost is well worth features to me.

Hi Bobby your right I just ordered the parts from box car bill and as soon as I receive them I will install and show a video of the after.

 

Thanks, Alex

I have the K-Line GS-4 with TMCC but no cruise control.

The engine did not run very well so I added the ElectricRR

cruise M The engine now runs very well but the Mars light does

not flash like it did before the change.

I don't think the CCM offers a built-in strobe capability.  You could replace the strobe with a flashing LED...

The GS4 came with a flashing LED for the Mars light but

it was connected directly to the motor terminals. The Lionel

motor board powers the motor with a variable amplitude DC.

The ERR cruise M board powers the motor with 20 KHz that

varies in amplitude to control speed. The 20KHz was reseting

flashing circuit so it never timed out to flash. Connecting the

Mars light to the ditch light terminals on the ccM board allowed

correct operation of the Mars light except there was a small change

in flashing frequency when operating the whistle.

 

Hi good morning everyone, Here's my updated video of my semi scale k-line by Lionel

Hudson.It started out with no speed control and 1 chuff per rev, It now has speed control and 4 chuffs per rev. The difference is awesome, I now can get it to a crawl.

This was my first attempt at installing the cruise and the 4-chuffs, and I would never have been able to do this without the help of this forum and two forum members who really took the time to help me out. So I want to thank OGR FORUM AND GUNRUNNERJOHN  BOXCARBILL AND MARTY.E  FOR HELPING ME SO MUCH.

 

TAKE A LOOK AT THE FIRST VIDEO I POSTED A WHILE BACK IN THE BEGINNING OF THIS THREAD AND THEN TAKE A LOOK AT THIS NEW VIDEO TODAY. AN AMAZING DIFFERENCE.

 

THANKS TO ALL AGAIN, ALEX

 

Looks great Alex, glad we could be of some help.  Where did you end up putting the magnets, on the locomotive drivers?

Alex

 

  Looks and sounds nice, glad we could give you a hand.

 

Bill

Hi Guys sorry I had to step out for a little,

Sam  thanks, its a nice little engine and it still does smoke like the first video I just had the smoke on low.

 

Bill, thanks again.

 

John, I mounted the magnets on the trailing truck of the engine and I only used two magnets and placed them 180 degrees from each other and then ran the reed switch up into the engine and made my connections.  (SEE PHOTO)

 

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL, ALEX

Nice job, looks very professional.

Nice job, looks great.  I have a Williams scale B&O Hudson that's a good candidate for the same upgrade.

Thanks John and Charles,

 

Charles (wild Mary), it's not to hard to do and you can get the parts from Boxcar Bill.

He has everything needed. In fact I'm going to do this to another engine of mine.

 

Thanks, Alex

Alex,

WOW! What a difference!! That looks and runs great. I like the way you mounted the magnets and the pickup. Very professional. Are you sure you never did that before? Lol!! Good luck, can't wait to see your next project.

Mike R

Pretty soon you'll be making this a business and doing conversions on the side.   You're an ol' pro now.