i need to connect an old Railsound board to a new ERR DC Commander but I do not know where to connect the serial wire from the RS 2 board to the DC Commander. Does anyone know how to do this.
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Your RS 2 board cannot be directly connected to your ERR DC commander it is not digital. However there are ways to use RS 2 the original ERR company had a board called the "ERR Sound Converter" which would interface the old non digital RS 1 and 2. These have been out of production for a couple of years now but if you find a list of all the original ERR dealers you might come up with one. I placed an order for 6 of them in the spring of 2018 and got a refund from ERR. ERR did publish a schematic of it which I will attach and the digital source code was available for download I have a copy of that also which I will attach. I think that the original article on the ERR site gave a source for the board which you had to add your own components. I don't have the source for that board. If someone on the forum has the link to the maker of the board I'm sure RRADDICT and myself would love to order a few boards and put them toghther. On a related note I ordered several Arduino mini processor boards off eBay and If I can load the ERR sound converter source code in them I think I can build an output driver with the + - DC offset to power the RS 1 and 2 boards. Or better than making one it sure would be great if Scott would add them to the 3rd Rail ERR lineup. J
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Thanks to everyone for the help.
JohnActon posted:Your RS 2 board cannot be directly connected to your ERR DC commander it is not digital. However there are ways to use RS 2 the original ERR company had a board called the "ERR Sound Converter" which would interface the old non digital RS 1 and 2. These have been out of production for a couple of years now but if you find a list of all the original ERR dealers you might come up with one. I placed an order for 6 of them in the spring of 2018 and got a refund from ERR. ERR did publish a schematic of it which I will attach and the digital source code was available for download I have a copy of that also which I will attach. I think that the original article on the ERR site gave a source for the board which you had to add your own components. I don't have the source for that board. If someone on the forum has the link to the maker of the board I'm sure RRADDICT and myself would love to order a few boards and put them toghther. On a related note I ordered several Arduino mini processor boards off eBay and If I can load the ERR sound converter source code in them I think I can build an output driver with the + - DC offset to power the RS 1 and 2 boards. Or better than making one it sure would be great if Scott would add them to the 3rd Rail ERR lineup. J
Nope. Any TMCC capable Railsounds 2 board can be connected to the DC Commander no problem. Most Railsounds boards starting in 1995 are TMCC capable. The board should say Railsounds 2.5 somewhere on it. As long as it does it can receive serial data from a DC Commander and run under TMCC.
I currently have a Lionel 6-18122 Santa Fe F3 B unit with Railsounds 2 hooked up to a LCRX. It works under command control fine.
OP you just need this cable. Connect one end to the serial connection on the Railsounds 2 board, the other end to the serial data connection on the DC Commander board.
Lou, my response is based on a discussion that started on 2-2-17 "Lionel Railsonds history" it is worth a search and read. This is a quote from that discussion by GGG in response to a post by Mike Reagan.
"Wasn't part of this that RS up through and including RS 2.0 were conventional only? RS2.5 was the first TMCC based RS and that was in the early NYC/SP GP-9?
Also RS 3.0 board does require the early LARGE power Supply board. After RS 3.0, the powerboard became universal and smaller. Even works with modular Legacy.I have moved RS 2.0 chips into RS 2.5 platforms and they work in TMCC mode. But the 2.0Hardware is not command capable. G"
The RS2 boards were the first to use removable programmable PIC and ROM chips. The chips in the RS2 board could be transplanted into the RS2.5 board and give full TMCC capability. However the RS2 boards do not talk to TMCC. j
Not every chipset will function with TMCC, there are RS chipsets that are conventional only.
gunrunnerjohn posted:Not every chipset will function with TMCC, there are RS chipsets that are conventional only.
I forgot about that. A year or so back I bought a big box of Lionel boards on eBay. I pulled the chips out of three RS2 boards and tried them in a RS4 board and two pair worked in TMCC one set would not. As luck would have the set that would not work in TMCC was the one I wanted. I don't know if there is some relevance but the two that worked were diesel and the one which would not work was steam. John, or anyone, perhaps you have some insight. Did the first RS chips which were TMCC compatable have Diesel sounds ? j
JohnActon posted:Lou, my response is based on a discussion that started on 2-2-17 "Lionel Railsonds history" it is worth a search and read. This is a quote from that discussion by GGG in response to a post by Mike Reagan.
"Wasn't part of this that RS up through and including RS 2.0 were conventional only? RS2.5 was the first TMCC based RS and that was in the early NYC/SP GP-9?
Also RS 3.0 board does require the early LARGE power Supply board. After RS 3.0, the powerboard became universal and smaller. Even works with modular Legacy.I have moved RS 2.0 chips into RS 2.5 platforms and they work in TMCC mode. But the 2.0Hardware is not command capable. G"
The RS2 boards were the first to use removable programmable PIC and ROM chips. The chips in the RS2 board could be transplanted into the RS2.5 board and give full TMCC capability. However the RS2 boards do not talk to TMCC. j
I noted above that Railsounds 2.5 and above boards can be used with TMCC. Railsounds 2 is a conventional only system stock. Came out in 1994. In 1995 TMCC came out and Railsounds 2.5 was introduced at the same time to communicate with the LCRU/LCRX, even though the catalog still called it Railsounds 2.
We would be able to let the OP know if his Railsounds 2 board would work with the DC Commander if we had a part number for the locomotive the board came out of.
As an aside I have a Railsounds 3 GP9 board connected to an AC Commander in a GP9. It's got hours of runtime on it and works fine.
Here is the exact board that I have.
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Can you take a picture of the other side of the board? If it looks something like the photo I've posted below the board should work fine with the DC Commander. What is the product number of the locomotive your board came out of?
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Lou1985 posted:JohnActon posted:Lou, my response is based on a discussion that started on 2-2-17 "Lionel Railsonds history" it is worth a search and read. This is a quote from that discussion by GGG in response to a post by Mike Reagan.
"Wasn't part of this that RS up through and including RS 2.0 were conventional only? RS2.5 was the first TMCC based RS and that was in the early NYC/SP GP-9?
Also RS 3.0 board does require the early LARGE power Supply board. After RS 3.0, the powerboard became universal and smaller. Even works with modular Legacy.I have moved RS 2.0 chips into RS 2.5 platforms and they work in TMCC mode. But the 2.0Hardware is not command capable. G"
The RS2 boards were the first to use removable programmable PIC and ROM chips. The chips in the RS2 board could be transplanted into the RS2.5 board and give full TMCC capability. However the RS2 boards do not talk to TMCC. j
I noted above that Railsounds 2.5 and above boards can be used with TMCC. Railsounds 2 is a conventional only system stock. Came out in 1994. In 1995 TMCC came out and Railsounds 2.5 was introduced at the same time to communicate with the LCRU/LCRX, even though the catalog still called it Railsounds 2.
We would be able to let the OP know if his Railsounds 2 board would work with the DC Commander if we had a part number for the locomotive the board came out of.
As an aside I have a Railsounds 3 GP9 board connected to an AC Commander in a GP9. It's got hours of runtime on it and works fine.
Lou you might want to go back and read your original post. The original post by RRADDICT was about RS2 it made no reference to RS2.5 and my response was directly about RS2 and you write, "Nope. Any TMCC capable Railsounds2 board can be connected to the DC Commander no problem." I guess I get hung up on the word "Nope" as though my explanation about his RS2 problem was incorrect. j
JohnActon posted:Lou1985 posted:JohnActon posted:Lou, my response is based on a discussion that started on 2-2-17 "Lionel Railsonds history" it is worth a search and read. This is a quote from that discussion by GGG in response to a post by Mike Reagan.
"Wasn't part of this that RS up through and including RS 2.0 were conventional only? RS2.5 was the first TMCC based RS and that was in the early NYC/SP GP-9?
Also RS 3.0 board does require the early LARGE power Supply board. After RS 3.0, the powerboard became universal and smaller. Even works with modular Legacy.I have moved RS 2.0 chips into RS 2.5 platforms and they work in TMCC mode. But the 2.0Hardware is not command capable. G"
The RS2 boards were the first to use removable programmable PIC and ROM chips. The chips in the RS2 board could be transplanted into the RS2.5 board and give full TMCC capability. However the RS2 boards do not talk to TMCC. j
I noted above that Railsounds 2.5 and above boards can be used with TMCC. Railsounds 2 is a conventional only system stock. Came out in 1994. In 1995 TMCC came out and Railsounds 2.5 was introduced at the same time to communicate with the LCRU/LCRX, even though the catalog still called it Railsounds 2.
We would be able to let the OP know if his Railsounds 2 board would work with the DC Commander if we had a part number for the locomotive the board came out of.
As an aside I have a Railsounds 3 GP9 board connected to an AC Commander in a GP9. It's got hours of runtime on it and works fine.
Lou you might want to go back and read your original post. The original post by RRADDICT was about RS2 it made no reference to RS2.5 and my response was directly about RS2 and you write, "Nope. Any TMCC capable Railsounds2 board can be connected to the DC Commander no problem." I guess I get hung up on the word "Nope" as though my explanation about his RS2 problem was incorrect. j
I think we've both missed each others point. Railsounds 2 is digital. There is both a 2 and 2.5 version. Railsounds 2 came out in 1994 and some of the early boards from 1994 do not have serial input. By 1995 Railsounds 2 boards were TMCC serial capable, as TMCC was introduced. So in a nutshell if the Railsounds 2 board the OP wants to use is from 1994 it wouldn't be TMCC capable because it's not digital, but because the board isn't programed to accept serial data. So long of the short is all Railsounds 2 boards are digital but not all of them (the early 1994 ones) have TMCC capability.
Kevin,
I've been busy catching-up from my York trip, and just stumbled across this thread.
For the record, those are RailSounds 2.5 boards, and they're fully TMCC-compatible. I spelled-out what you need to do in an e-mail a few weeks back, but if you didn't get it, here are the instructions again:
1) Make sure the power polarity is the same between the RailSounds and your ERR boards. On the RS board you got from me, red goes to the center rail and black to the outside rails.
2) Take the serial line from the RS board (in the four-pin power connector, it's the loose wire coming from the opposite end from the center rail lead) and connect it to the serial line output from your ERR Commander. I just looked up what that would be, and I've labeled it here:
Or as Lou correctly pointed out above, you can buy a harness from Lionel (shown below) that makes the appropriate connections between the two boards.
I hope this helps.
TRW
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Guys,
Just to clean-up some of the information presented in this thread... the OP mis-labeled the board he had as RailSounds 2 versus 2.5, and things went wayward from there. To make matters worse, Lionel to this day also labels some of the RS2.5 boards as RS2, which confuses things even further.
I made a bunch of corrections to the original "RailSounds History" post found below. My comments are in orange.
https://ogrforum.com/...26#77311805264179526
TRW
Todd, I was about to send you a message and ask you to step in thanks. Attached are two PDF files of the complete "Lionel RailSounds history" discussion with your edits. The PDFs page 1 & 2 were made with an App called "Print Edit WE" that allows you to edit a web page and output as a PDF. and it also preserves the photos. j
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BTW The PDF is over 30 pages and I took out some "attaboys" to make it a couple of pages shorter. j
Thanks, I got a little confused as the writing on the bag said RS 2.1. I was out of town for a couple of weeks in the boondocks with limited internet so I couldn't add to the thread or email. I actually have one of those Lionel serial cables.
