Converting upgradeable loco to TMCC

You won't get whistle, bell, or tower/crew talk. Just background sounds. If the chuff switch is in the engine you won't get chuff either. The reason is the track will now have full voltage all the time. Transformer buttons will no longer work. The sound board you have now will not respond to serial data. BTDT. These "upgradable" engines were a bit of hyperbole. You keep the motor driver and audio power board but have to replace the radio board and audio board.

Pete

Well, it's not really hyperbole, they were a lot easier than converting a standard conventional locomotive to command!  Nowadays, you can probably pick up the boards in question for a reasonable price on the used market.  I recently picked up nine boards, a couple of R2LC-C08 boards, three generic power supplies, and four RailSounds 4 boards with various sound sets.  Total spent was $45 on eBay.

You'll need three boards, the R2LC-C08, the RailSounds generic power supply, and the RailSounds 4 audio board.  Of course, if I were doing this, I'd also drop in the ERR Cruise Commander M so you have cruise control, but that's optional.

 John, the manual says the power supply is usable with the TMCC boards I have several R2LC-C08 boards so I only need the sound board. I do have one more question, Can the sound chips in the conventional board be swapped into a TMCC board ?   I always questioned the point in making the convertible locos in the first place, on a manufacturers level the difference in cost between the conventional boards and the replacement TMCC boards was negligible.  Marketing and stocking the upgrade kits was probably no better than a break even proposition. May have created some work for Service Stations.  J

If this is a stock 6-28749 unit, it has a Signal Sounds board, not the two board set.  If it has the full conventional RailSounds with the power supply, then the power supply is usable.

The conventional sound chips won't work for TMCC, that's where the difference is.  The board is the same board for conventional or command, it's the sound chip that determines the type.

John, Some early engines had conventional RS with 2 board set, and you just swapped the RailSounds board and added a R2LC.  That period of time had so many variations in engine and such, most undocumented.  Lionel flooded the market at that time with 28000 Series, Hudsons/Pacifics and others. G

George, I have seen them with RS and the P/S, didn't know if that was "stock" or added.  With the lousy documentation of the period, anything's possible.

Lots of bad information in this thread. A little history on the upgradeable systems...

Lionel switched to the modular system of boards in 1998. In 1999, several locomotives (both steam and diesel) were offered in two versions: TMCC/RailSounds, and Conventional/SignalSounds.

As these locomotives hit the market and dealer feedback was received, the general feeling was that people really didn't embrace the lower-cost Conventional/SignalSounds versions, and many of those options were subsequently dropped in 2000 (RS11, SD-90, etc.).

Then came more input that people were willing to pay for RailSounds but not TMCC, therefore some mid-range locomotives in the early 2000's were offered with what was called Conventional RailSounds. These were RailSounds 4 systems, but the TMCC code in the RS chips was removed to make room for more conventional functionality -- now in conventional, you could have CrewTalk, brake squeal, etc.

The OP's 6-28749 Camelback is one of these locomotives -- it does NOT have SignalSounds. To upgrade it for full TMCC/RailSounds, you need to remove the 104 reverse board and add the R2LC to the loco. And in the tender, you either need to change out the audio board for one with chips that support TMCC, or just change the two chips themselves if  you can locate replacements. The power board and the audio board itself are standard RS4 -- the only oddities are PIC and ROM chips themselves. For this conversion, you might also need to move some jumpers on the respective motherboards, but those might have been eliminated by then.

Unfortunately, the Conventional RailSounds system in the tender won't work properly if you only upgrade the R2LC in the loco -- you'll need to upgrade both systems for full functionality.

I hope this helps.

TRW

Guys thanks, I have about  9   R2LC-08 but do need the sound chips.  Anyone out there have small loco chip sets ?    J

JohnActon posted:

Guys thanks, I have about  9   R2LC-08 but do need the sound chips.  Anyone out there have small loco chip sets ?    J

Lionel has them. Just order the RS4E Generic Steam or Generic Berk audio board.

Pete

PaperTRW posted:

Lots of bad information in this thread. A little history on the upgradeable systems...

That "bad information" comes directly from the Lionel parts page.

6928749T01 Jersey Central Camelback Cmd Ready #773 Tender Only

We can only deal with the information that is available.

Norton posted:

Lionel has them. Just order the RS4E Generic Steam or Generic Berk audio board.

Pete

Pete, someone on the forum once said they had some chip sets out of the RS4 boards I would rather change the chip set than toss the board in the parts bin .  J

Unless you get them used, you pay the same price for the chip as the whole board.  So get the new board and have a spare board when a future RS 4 board dies.  They do.

GGG posted:

Unless you get them used, you pay the same price for the chip as the whole board.  So get the new board and have a spare board when a future RS 4 board dies.  They do.

 

  I  just bought a dozen or so RS4 boards that are supposedly in unknown untested condition I am a bit afraid to do any mixing and matching of chip sets  into known good boards. If I put a bad chip / chips into a good board will it damage the board ?  Is there a simple way to tell if a chip set is conventional or TMCC ?  If I put a TMCC board into a RailSounds boxcar which is conventional will it harm the motherboard in the boxcar or the TMCC RS4 board ? Seem that the RS boxcar would be a quick easy way to test the boards with less risk than testing in a loco. I also have some TAS SAW boards that would be convenient to test unknown boards.   J

I've never damaged an RS4 board with chips, good or bad.  A bad board can take out the chips, but that's fairly rare, but it has happened to me once.

My method of testing is this somewhat crude but still effective test board.  It's just an assembly of the parts of a basic TMCC locomotive.  The extra connectors allow me to get the Cruise Commander M and the new single board RailSounds boards.  I also have another harness for the Odyssey I motor driver, but I have to dig out a motor and lay it on the bench.  I always meant to swap out the motor for the Odyssey motor, just never got around to it.

JohnActon posted:

Pete, someone on the forum once said they had some chip sets out of the RS4 boards I would rather change the chip set than toss the board in the parts bin .  J

That might have been me.

But all I have are loose diesel, electric and some miscellaneous chipsets.

All my steam chipsets are with boards.

TRW

gunrunnerjohn posted:

PaperTRW posted:

Lots of bad information in this thread. A little history on the upgradeable systems...

That "bad information" comes directly from the Lionel parts page.

6928749T01 Jersey Central Camelback Cmd Ready #773 Tender Only

We can only deal with the information that is available.

Unfortunately, bad info is still bad info regardless of the source.

For obvious reasons, Lionel's service pages are good, but aren't 100%.

What's interesting in the case of the OP's upgradeable Camelback is that the exploded diagram looks accurate for the boards, but the parts list is wrong.

TRW

Well, we only have your word for it that it's bad info.   I'd like the OP to simply post a picture of the boards in the tender, that would tell us a lot.

Sorry for leaving those out at first question, would have saved a lot of discussion. Making photos did answer one of my questions about how to tell a conventional RS4 board from a TMCC board.  CONV  is on the chip.  I'm still puzzled why Lionel went to the trouble of making the conventional boards at all, since the TMCC board goes both ways.  Keeping up with two overlapping function boards in the corp structure had to cost more than it earned.

Ever wonder how many of those round-toit's their going to bury with you ?  I worry about that all the time. Seems there are several hundred on my bucket list down in the basement

Your photo matches what is shown in the Lionel Parts page for this engine. 

The correct response to your question was posted in the second post. 

What followed was mostly conjecture which could have been replaced by fact by reading the manual and looking at the parts page.

Pete

Norton posted:

Your photo matches what is shown in the Lionel Parts page for this engine. 

The correct response to your question was posted in the second post. 

What followed was mostly conjecture which could have been replaced by fact by reading the manual and looking at the parts page.

Pete

Thank you Pete you have been most helpful  !

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I've never damaged an RS4 board with chips, good or bad.  A bad board can take out the chips, but that's fairly rare, but it has happened to me once.

John, just what I needed to know.  Next chance, I can spend the evening swapping chip sets and see if I can find a small steam set of sounds.  Think I will put together a test board similar to yours using a TAS SAW mother board.  Thanks,  J

JohnActon posted:

Making photos did answer one of my questions about how to tell a conventional RS4 board from a TMCC board.  CONV  is on the chip. 

Correct. The other clue is the RS28 number on the PIC. Standard RS4 boards start with RS27.

JohnActon posted:

I'm still puzzled why Lionel went to the trouble of making the conventional boards at all, since the TMCC board goes both ways.  Keeping up with two overlapping function boards in the corp structure had to cost more than it earned.

 Again, the goal was to offer additional functionality in conventional mode. There are features with that RS28 chipset that you don't get in conventional mode with the TMCC boards. Code space was limited back in those days, so to fit everything in, the TMCC coding needed to be removed. Other than the initial development time needed to create the conventional variation (which was also used in starter sets and other mid-range locomotives), a change like that really isn't difficult to track, and the cost is no greater than the basic RS4.

Norton posted:

Your photo matches what is shown in the Lionel Parts page for this engine. 

The photos match the diagram on the Lionel Parts page, but not the actual parts listing.

TRW

JohnActon posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I've never damaged an RS4 board with chips, good or bad.  A bad board can take out the chips, but that's fairly rare, but it has happened to me once.

John, just what I needed to know.  Next chance, I can spend the evening swapping chip sets and see if I can find a small steam set of sounds.  Think I will put together a test board similar to yours using a TAS SAW mother board.  Thanks,  J

If you do a lot of this work, having a test stand is handy for quickly testing the boards, saves taking a locomotive apart.

S is Steam and D is Diesel on the chips. G