Chuff Generator question

If I were faced with this, I think I'd try to come up with something like a thick traction tire and fill that groove to give myself a large enough flat space.  I did one similar to that, but I think it had a bit more flat space to put the tape.  Note that the tape doesn't need to be very wide, the actual sensing area is very small, so even that little surface should be sufficient if you get everything aligned correctly.

  Fill this space with the traction tire.

Not to get off subject, Could you please post a picture or two of how you mounted the smoke unit?

Thanks

gunrunnerjohn posted:

If I were faced with this, I think I'd try to come up with something like a thick traction tire and fill that groove to give myself a large enough flat space.  I did one similar to that, but I think it had a bit more flat space to put the tape.  Note that the tape doesn't need to be very wide, the actual sensing area is very small, so even that little surface should be sufficient if you get everything aligned correctly.

  Fill this space with the traction tire.

That may be a little tight but I sure could give it a try. The flywheel seems to be cut in there to make room for the power contacts. Gunrunnerjohn, how big is the reader overall? I know it has to be close to the tape to read it. There is about 4mm from the top of the motor to the upper shoulder. I may be able to put the tape on the lower inner shoulder to have a wider surface to work with if that would be a better idea and I could get the reader in between the motor housing and the upper shoulder on the flywheel. 

Jayhawk500 posted:

Not to get off subject, Could you please post a picture or two of how you mounted the smoke unit?

Thanks

Jayhawk500, This one was pretty easy because of the smoke unit I bought. It came with a pedestal mount, my guess was for a steam locomotive because it had a light on the front. I cut the tab off that held the light assembly, spun it 180 degrees and elongated the openings for the screws on foot and used the screws that hold on the steam chest to mount down. It was super close on this Berk Jr, but I had to bend a little z into it to line the outlet on the smoke unit to the smoke stack. I have a small copper tube that fits in that goes from the smoke unit to the inside of the stack. I was expecting a lot more fab work to make a mount but this was super simple in comparison to some of the ones I've seen done. 

Norm Odsather posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

If I were faced with this, I think I'd try to come up with something like a thick traction tire and fill that groove to give myself a large enough flat space.  I did one similar to that, but I think it had a bit more flat space to put the tape.  Note that the tape doesn't need to be very wide, the actual sensing area is very small, so even that little surface should be sufficient if you get everything aligned correctly.

  Fill this space with the traction tire.

That may be a little tight but I sure could give it a try. The flywheel seems to be cut in there to make room for the power contacts. Gunrunnerjohn, how big is the reader overall? I know it has to be close to the tape to read it. There is about 4mm from the top of the motor to the upper shoulder. I may be able to put the tape on the lower inner shoulder to have a wider surface to work with if that would be a better idea and I could get the reader in between the motor housing and the upper shoulder on the flywheel. 

The rim looks thick enough. Wrap the tape around it. Start the edge of the tape at the bottom of the rim. Cut off the overhang at the top of the rim. This way it will be easier to align the reader. I think you’ll be fine. 

I'm with Rod, I'd first test that idea.  Here's the C-G, it's 1 5/16 long, and the sensor on the back side is about 3/32 from the top.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm with Rod, I'd first test that idea.  Here's the C-G, it's 1 5/16 long, and the sensor on the back side is about 3/32 from the top.

Thanks to both of you guys, I'll order one this week and give it a shot. One more question, more towards the Super Chuffer wiring. Looking at the wiring diagram for the whole show with the Super Chuffer and the Chuff Generator, all the lighting for it says LED except the cab light which looks like the diagram says to use a 12v incandescent light. Does it have to be an incandescent or can it be a LED with a resistor to knock the voltage down to 3v? I'm not too sharp on electronics, wish I was. But before I go letting the magic smoke out of something because I did something I shouldn't have I thought I had better ask. 

You can use an LED, add a 470 ohm resistor and all is well.  The reason I specify incandescent is you get more even distributed light from a single bulb, the LED is more focused at a point.  It also takes one less part, you don't need the resistor.   The Super-Chuffer includes a diode to protect against reverse voltage, so just a resistor is all you need for the LED.

For the ground light option of the Chuff-Generator, I use surface mount LED's on tiny PCBs.  This is the board I use, I cut each individual LED and then glue them in place and wire them with #30 wire.  Ground lights off the Chuff-Generator work just like the Super-Chuffer cab light for wiring, they just pull the lead to frame ground through a diode.  Again, I just tie these to track power and string all on one side in series with a resistor for current limiting.

Here's a diagram of the "full banana" with Ground lights.  Click on the schematic to expand to full size.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

You can use an LED, add a 470 ohm resistor and all is well.  The reason I specify incandescent is you get more even distributed light from a single bulb, the LED is more focused at a point.  It also takes one less part, you don't need the resistor.   The Super-Chuffer includes a diode to protect against reverse voltage, so just a resistor is all you need for the LED.

For the ground light option of the Chuff-Generator, I use surface mount LED's on tiny PCBs.  This is the board I use, I cut each individual LED and then glue them in place and wire them with #30 wire.  Ground lights off the Chuff-Generator work just like the Super-Chuffer cab light for wiring, they just pull the lead to frame ground through a diode.  Again, I just tie these to track power and string all on one side in series with a resistor for current limiting.

Here's a diagram of the "full banana" with Ground lights.  Click on the schematic to expand to full size.

Thanks so much for all the info and advise, I really appreciate it. I have to figure out where I'm going to mount the ground lights, the Berk Jr is pretty small but I'll figure it! 

Thanks again Gunrunnerjohn!

Have fun!

John,

Are the surface mount LEDs on the tiny PCBs your own invention or can you buy those pre-assembled?

Thanks! 

I created the PCB and I solder the surface mount LED's on them.  I wanted an easier way to mount them, this fills the bill.  I also wanted the back to have no contacts so it could be glued down and still insulated from the shell.

Here's the Gerber file for upload to OSHPark for PCB blanks if you would like to make some.  Ignore the error about the missing solder mask on the bottom, that's intentional, there's nothing there!

Ground Lights Gerber.zip

Hey GunrunnerJohn, man I need some help!

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong that just cost me 2 Super Chuffer cards or if I got 2 bad cards when I ordered them. I wired in the first one, went over my wiring against the diagram multiple times because this is my first go at something like this. I put power to the test track. The Cruise Commander and RailSounds came up like they were supposed to. I saw the Chuff Generator LED lit up. Put a little throttle to it and nothing from the Super Chuffer and I noticed the headlight LED was not lit. I powered down, checked my wiring again. Powered it up again and no LED on the Chuff Generator and nothing from the Super Chuffer. Just a heated smoke element. After checking I found no power from the 5v circuit and the headlight LED was blown by a 10v output from the headlight out circuit. Checked the diagram and that was the only LED not shown with a resistor. I assumed because of the rule 17 that the board handled that. So I installed a resistor on the headlight LED and tried the second card I had. Again the LED worked on the Chuff Generator but nothing from the Super Chuffer then the 5v circuit went away on that card too. But at least the headlight LED didn't blow as the resistor saved it. It did light up, but at full intensity. I powered it all down and did a walk away and do something else before I blew a gasket... Later I went to check the voltage going to the headlight but when I put power to the test track something popped on the Super Chuffer. I've been through my wiring over and over checking against the diagram and I'm at a loss. All the Cruise Commander and RailSounds are still working fine. What ever popped on the Super Chuffer and let its magic smoke out didn't spike the TMCC and sound. Any ideas? I'm about ready to scrap the Super Chuffer and Chuff Generator idea and just run the smoke unit off a constant voltage power source and use the reed switch for the sound. 

Unlikely you received bad boards, more than likely poor soldering job and you got a glob of solder across some of the pads where you soldered the wires to the super chuffer or you wired it wrong.  The headlight output should be no more than 3 volts, no resistor required.  Are you reading 10 volts is that the cab light circuit?  If so you  definitely  wired it incorrectly .  Pack it up and send it to John with all the bad boards.

superwarp1 posted:

Unlikely you received bad boards, more than likely poor soldering job and you got a glob of solder across some of the pads where you soldered the wires to the super chuffer or you wired it wrong.  The headlight output should be no more than 3 volts, no resistor required.  Are you reading 10 volts is that the cab light circuit?  If so you  definitely  wired it incorrectly .  Pack it up and send it to John with all the bad boards.

That was the headlight out circuit. And I sure don't see any terminals bridged with solder. The same thing happened with 2 different cards. 

Norm Odsather posted:

Jayhawk500 posted:

Not to get off subject, Could you please post a picture or two of how you mounted the smoke unit?

Thanks

Jayhawk500, This one was pretty easy because of the smoke unit I bought. It came with a pedestal mount, my guess was for a steam locomotive because it had a light on the front. I cut the tab off that held the light assembly, spun it 180 degrees and elongated the openings for the screws on foot and used the screws that hold on the steam chest to mount down. It was super close on this Berk Jr, but I had to bend a little z into it to line the outlet on the smoke unit to the smoke stack. I have a small copper tube that fits in that goes from the smoke unit to the inside of the stack. I was expecting a lot more fab work to make a mount but this was super simple in comparison to some of the ones I've seen done. 

Thank you! This will do nicely for my PE.

Chris

Norm Odsather posted:

Hey GunrunnerJohn, man I need some help!

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong that just cost me 2 Super Chuffer cards or if I got 2 bad cards when I ordered them. I wired in the first one, went over my wiring against the diagram multiple times because this is my first go at something like this. I put power to the test track. The Cruise Commander and RailSounds came up like they were supposed to. I saw the Chuff Generator LED lit up. Put a little throttle to it and nothing from the Super Chuffer and I noticed the headlight LED was not lit. I powered down, checked my wiring again. Powered it up again and no LED on the Chuff Generator and nothing from the Super Chuffer. Just a heated smoke element. After checking I found no power from the 5v circuit and the headlight LED was blown by a 10v output from the headlight out circuit. Checked the diagram and that was the only LED not shown with a resistor. I assumed because of the rule 17 that the board handled that. So I installed a resistor on the headlight LED and tried the second card I had. Again the LED worked on the Chuff Generator but nothing from the Super Chuffer then the 5v circuit went away on that card too. But at least the headlight LED didn't blow as the resistor saved it. It did light up, but at full intensity. I powered it all down and did a walk away and do something else before I blew a gasket... Later I went to check the voltage going to the headlight but when I put power to the test track something popped on the Super Chuffer. I've been through my wiring over and over checking against the diagram and I'm at a loss. All the Cruise Commander and RailSounds are still working fine. What ever popped on the Super Chuffer and let its magic smoke out didn't spike the TMCC and sound. Any ideas? I'm about ready to scrap the Super Chuffer and Chuff Generator idea and just run the smoke unit off a constant voltage power source and use the reed switch for the sound. 

Every board is visually inspected and then 100% function tested on a test set before it's packaged. The headlight circuit specifically goes directly to a single white LED on the test set, if it were cooking them, I'd be the first to know.

There really is absolutely no way that you get 10V on the LED headlight output without some bad wiring.  Here's the circuit on the Super-Chuffer that drives that LED.  It goes from the microprocessor port through a 100 ohm resistor, an opto-switch, and to the headlight out circuit.  Nowhere is there a possibility of getting in excess of 5V on the line as that's the voltage from the microprocessor.  There is no resistor required, it really is handled internally.  The headlight has been working this way for the life of the product, and I've never gotten any reports of problems with the LED.  I've personally wired at least 50-60 Super-Chuffers in installations without any of these issues.

I never say never.  That being the case, anything can happen, and I could conceive of some failure on a single board, but a failure of two in a row is a bridge too far, at least IMO. 

In your case Norm, I can't begin to know how things are wired or what is going wrong without seeing it.  I'm really sorry you're experiencing issues, but without a lot more information, I can't really suggest what might be going on.  In the isolated cases that folks have cooked a Super-Chuffer (yes it's happened a couple of times), the suspect wiring was fairly quickly isolated.  If you want to send those back, I can examine them and possibly tell you where the excess voltage is coming in.  Sadly, if the headlight circuit is getting sufficient voltage to blow LED's, it's likely that the excess voltage is getting to the microprocessor and blowing things.  OTOH, it is a socketed part, so it's "possible" to revive them.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Norm Odsather posted:

Hey GunrunnerJohn, man I need some help!

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong that just cost me 2 Super Chuffer cards or if I got 2 bad cards when I ordered them. I wired in the first one, went over my wiring against the diagram multiple times because this is my first go at something like this. I put power to the test track. The Cruise Commander and RailSounds came up like they were supposed to. I saw the Chuff Generator LED lit up. Put a little throttle to it and nothing from the Super Chuffer and I noticed the headlight LED was not lit. I powered down, checked my wiring again. Powered it up again and no LED on the Chuff Generator and nothing from the Super Chuffer. Just a heated smoke element. After checking I found no power from the 5v circuit and the headlight LED was blown by a 10v output from the headlight out circuit. Checked the diagram and that was the only LED not shown with a resistor. I assumed because of the rule 17 that the board handled that. So I installed a resistor on the headlight LED and tried the second card I had. Again the LED worked on the Chuff Generator but nothing from the Super Chuffer then the 5v circuit went away on that card too. But at least the headlight LED didn't blow as the resistor saved it. It did light up, but at full intensity. I powered it all down and did a walk away and do something else before I blew a gasket... Later I went to check the voltage going to the headlight but when I put power to the test track something popped on the Super Chuffer. I've been through my wiring over and over checking against the diagram and I'm at a loss. All the Cruise Commander and RailSounds are still working fine. What ever popped on the Super Chuffer and let its magic smoke out didn't spike the TMCC and sound. Any ideas? I'm about ready to scrap the Super Chuffer and Chuff Generator idea and just run the smoke unit off a constant voltage power source and use the reed switch for the sound. 

Every board is visually inspected and then 100% function tested on a test set before it's packaged. The headlight circuit specifically goes directly to a single white LED on the test set, if it were cooking them, I'd be the first to know.

There really is absolutely no way that you get 10V on the LED headlight output without some bad wiring.  Here's the circuit on the Super-Chuffer that drives that LED.  It goes from the microprocessor port through a 100 ohm resistor, an opto-switch, and to the headlight out circuit.  Nowhere is there a possibility of getting in excess of 5V on the line as that's the voltage from the microprocessor.  There is no resistor required, it really is handled internally.  The headlight has been working this way for the life of the product, and I've never gotten any reports of problems with the LED.  I've personally wired at least 50-60 Super-Chuffers in installations without any of these issues.

I never say never.  That being the case, anything can happen, and I could conceive of some failure on a single board, but a failure of two in a row is a bridge too far, at least IMO. 

In your case Norm, I can't begin to know how things are wired or what is going wrong without seeing it.  I'm really sorry you're experiencing issues, but without a lot more information, I can't really suggest what might be going on.  In the isolated cases that folks have cooked a Super-Chuffer (yes it's happened a couple of times), the suspect wiring was fairly quickly isolated.  If you want to send those back, I can examine them and possibly tell you where the excess voltage is coming in.  Sadly, if the headlight circuit is getting sufficient voltage to blow LED's, it's likely that the excess voltage is getting to the microprocessor and blowing things.  OTOH, it is a socketed part, so it's "possible" to revive them.

Good morning John. (It's still morning in Alaska)

Thanks for getting back to me!

If you don't mind, I'd really like to send the cards in for you to have a look at. For the life if me, I can't find a miswired lead or a short anywhere. I ran the diagrams sent several times before putting power and after troubles began. If its the card, if its me, I'm at a loss. If they can be fixed, that would be great but I don't know how someone does those tiny little pieces without going crosseyed and insane. I know without having what I'm building in front of you its a bit of a hard one to guess from the other side of North America. It was worth a stab in the dark to see if you have crossed this bridge before. Maybe you will like you said be able to figure where the stray power is coming from when you see them. It's worth a shot. 

Where would you like me to send them? 

Please send an email to my user profile address and we'll arrange a shipping address.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Please send an email to my user profile address and we'll arrange a shipping address.

Got it, sending to the gmail address it shows on your profile. 

Norm, if I may suggest, it might help if you can get a few closeup shots that show exactly where you are making your connections. I am sure this will help grj to isolate the problem, since it is almost certainly a hookup issue. Not to be critical, god knows, we have all been there!

Rod

Perhaps detailing where each lead connected to the Super-Chuffer II board actually connects would help as well. I'm certain there's something amiss there, but without seeing it, awful hard to pin down.

One mistake I'm surprised I haven't seen yet with the Super-Chuffer II is connecting the smoke power to the wrong pin.  Long time users will remember that the older generation Super-Chuffer had 5VDC on pins 9, 10, however the new board used pin 9 for the smoke power (to indicate when smoke is turned on), and only pin 10 has 5VDC.  The effect of connecting the smoke power to pin 10 instead of pin 9 would be fairly disastrous, that's the internal power for the microprocessor!  I'm sure the poor little PIC would go up in smoke, not to mention the power supply module if that were done.

So lets try this to get eyes on the project. Please excuse the shake and wandering as working one handed trying to trace wires is less than optimal but I think I got enough for you to see. 

Where my wires have been run

Nothing jumps out at me from that video, obviously I'd want to actually ring out all the wires, especially in the tether, as that's a very likely place for things to go wrong.

John, I'm not sure but isn't pin 1 the one with the square? Watching the video Norm's calling it pin 10.

Doug

It looks to me that you counted from the wrong end of board. Pin 1 has a square marking on the board. 

trnluvr posted:

John, I'm not sure but isn't pin 1 the one with the square? Watching the video Norm's calling it pin 10.

Doug

So, me not being an electronics guy. Lets pretend there are a few of us out there. With nothing I could find in the instructions, and check me if I'm wrong, I look at this diagram like in the attached picture. Solder side down, component side up. Nothing says top, bottom or is labeled 1 or 10 that I can find. Am I doing this completely backwards? Did I just smoke 2 cards because my understanding was 180° off? 

I'am quite sure pin 1 has the square pad. I thought it was mentioned in the instructions , maybe on the front page.

I just checked the instructions for the Super Chuffer 2 ,and it doesn't say anything about wich pin is number 1 !  

So this is what I downloaded and read. I don't see anything to tell me which pin is #1. Not being an electronics guy, a square pad doesn't tell me anything. To me its just the way something was made. So it looks like I just had an expensive lesson in electronics... 

Well, I guess we know what happened.   It is in the instructions, but obviously not clear enough I suspect.  I'll make SURE it's more prominent in any future versions that are shipped!

Here's the table from the SC-II instruction sheet.

Not that it will help you, but I emphasized this in the documentation in additional places for future production.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, I guess we know what happened.   It is in the instructions, but obviously not clear enough I suspect.  I'll make SURE it's more prominent in any future versions that are shipped!

Here's the table from the SC-II instruction sheet.

Unfortunately the instructions online from Henning's which I downloaded and used for reading didn't show the same. I used the diagram out of the Chuff Generator and worked from the .PDF file I had on my tablet. Because I'm not an electronics guy, the square pad didn't mean anything to me, just a design choice or possibly for other use. So I used the logic that the diagram showed the Cruise Commander as solder side down, Component side up oriented the way it was which matched the Cruise Commanders instructions so  with that, the Super Chuffer would be the same, solder side down, component side up and oriented with the pins to the right, 1 at the top and 10 at the bottom. I wish I would have seen that bit of information in the instructions I had and assumed were the most current. The instructions were easier to read with the lit up screen and larger text size I could get on my tablet versus the paper due to a great astigmatism... Plus I had those before the cards were delivered... SO... I guess I just had an expensive lesson in electronics. Square pad is #1... 

For your future instructions, I'd recommend a photo of the pads with numbers pointing out the square one. Do what I tell my people, cater to the lowest common denominator so that anyone will get it. In this case, that would be me...  2 cards smoked... ****... 

Did you look at the instructions that were packed with the product?  I know it's a bit late to ask.  I will be making SURE that Henning's has the current instructions for all the products posted, that's unfortunate that didn't get updated.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Did you look at the instructions that were packed with the product?  I know it's a bit late to ask.  I will be making SURE that Henning's has the current instructions for all the products posted, that's unfortunate that didn't get updated.

I have now... Hindsight is 20/20... ****... 

FWIW, someone that spotted this omission in the instructions pointed this out to me last year and I added that comment.  With your comment, I've also changed this in the detailed header signal descriptions.

I know this doesn't help you this time, but this is like aircraft crashes, we investigate and make changes to prevent future crashes.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

FWIW, someone that spotted this omission in the instructions pointed this out to me last year and I added that comment.  With your comment, I've also changed this in the detailed header signal descriptions.

I know this doesn't help you this time, but this is like aircraft crashes, we investigate and make changes to prevent future crashes.

Thanks John. Coincidentally, I work in the airline industry. We are going through that last part right now... 

I did one in January, the instructions only say H1 pin 1 track power (roller). no mention of square pad.

Judd posted:

I did one in January, the instructions only say H1 pin 1 track power (roller). no mention of square pad.

The documentation is periodically revised, but the packages already in the distribution pipeline don't get returned and updated.  Last year the first change was done, current shipments have the first change.  Any future shipments will have the second update I mentioned.

Norm Odsather posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I know this doesn't help you this time, but this is like aircraft crashes, we investigate and make changes to prevent future crashes.

Thanks John. Coincidentally, I work in the airline industry. We are going through that last part right now... 

Funny thing Norm, I spent about 20 years developing avionics, mostly cockpit and engine instrumentation, air data computers, and fuel systems. 

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Judd posted:

I did one in January, the instructions only say H1 pin 1 track power (roller). no mention of square pad.

The documentation is periodically revised, but the packages already in the distribution pipeline don't get returned and updated.  Last year the first change was done, current shipments have the first change.  Any future shipments will have the second update I mentioned.

Norm Odsather posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I know this doesn't help you this time, but this is like aircraft crashes, we investigate and make changes to prevent future crashes.

Thanks John. Coincidentally, I work in the airline industry. We are going through that last part right now... 

Funny thing Norm, I spent about 20 years developing avionics, mostly cockpit and engine instrumentation, air data computers, and fuel systems. 

Dad was an electronics guy with the FAA and I grew up around planes so the last 25 years have been working these beasts. My Polar Express! 

But now i know you have a big background with some cool stuff!