Early versions of Odyssey speed control-any issues?

I have 4 Odyssey engines and have not had an issue.

Regarding your problem, maybe you could install the cruise commander m into the GG1, and that will give you MUCH better speed control than odyssey. The website is here. Is the GS4 legacy? If not, then you could also install the cruise commander m in that too.

Hope this helps,

Nickstrains.

It was a good time for operators when Lionel put in the Odyssey on/off switch.  Not a fan early on.

Today is a new world.  TMCC and modular boards are a thing of the past.  Early Legacy used modular boards that were very good with the Odyssey.  Today Lionel has the RCMC board system.  It is fantastic.  Odyssey does what it should do.  The team at Lionel today is the best ever.  Mike Reagan has a lot to do with things being right.  The new President of Lionel is also the real deal.  A great team doing good things.

I have many of the new Legacy steam locomotives.  They are made very well unlike some high end TMCC locomotives from the past.  NYC Niagara comes to mind first.  Odyssey is great as is blow down, whistle smoke, cylinder blow down, and the big one to me 4 chuffs per revolution.  

I feel the newer great Legacy product has made the older TMCC worth a lot less.  Some of the great products from ERR and GRJ  greatly help those older locomotives.  I have many people asking me to convert TMCC locomotives to DCS.

Early Odyssey had what has become knows as "Odyssey  lurch" which is kind of a jackrabbit start.  How are you controlling your engines?  If you have the Legacy Cab-2, be sure you are running the Odyssey engines in TMCC mode rather than CAB-1 mode.  The Cab-2 in TMCC mode addresses the engine with absolute speed steps and this seems to eliminate or at least greatly minimize the Odyssey lurch issue.  The CAB-1 can only send relative speed commands and this seems to cause the Odyssey lurch.  Replacing the driver boards with the ERR Cruise M is also a great option and gives you much finer speed control regardless of your control system.  I have several Odyssey engines and have no issue with any of them when run with the CAB-2 in TMCC mode. 

The Odyssey lurch only happens when you first power on, subsequent starts don't have the jump.  OTOH, the ERR Cruise Commander M does offer much better speed control than the Odyssey I with TMCC.  IMO, even the early Legacy stuff with the modular boards had great speed control, and it continues to this day with Legacy.

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

.......modular boards are a thing of the past.  Early Legacy used modular boards that were very good with the Odyssey.  Today Lionel has the RCMC board system.  It is fantastic.

At about what point in time did Lionel stop using the modular boards in Legacy engines and begin using the RCMC boards?

I have found Odyssey to be satisfactory or excellent in both older and newer TMCC power. The "lurch", as stated above by G'runnerjohn is indeed a "once per session" event; I simply ignore it. Machines do things. Most don't do it at all.

It does not happen on all early Odyssey locos - I've mentioned before here that I have 2 USRA 2-6-6-2's, same vintage, one does the "initializing lurch", the other does not. Huh. 

ERR cruise is great; I upgrade with it. But most Odyssey is so good/good enough that I wouldn't replace it unless it died.

Crap. Absolute crap. Lurching, oscillations, fighting, two engines not running together, no on-off switches for the speed control, and the list goes on. I just hate it. Odyssey two is much better. 

Also my previous post was describing the earlier ones without on-off switches, they got a little better towards the end. 

The RCMC system is about 6 years out.  It is great.   When those boards started showing up, the number of Lionel board repairs went down a bit.  

Back a while ago, Lionel developed an Odyssey brushless motor.  They had it at York in the tent and it was fantastic.  Anyone who wanted to run it could.  They never went on with that and short cut things to the odyssey system.  That did not cut what the Odyssey motor did.  Lionel made many of those motors and people still throw the crap story about it being stolen at York.  Never happened.  They had many.  Those of us buying Legacy locomotives are in a good place today with the best people ever at Lionel.  

The "brushless" motor was actually an induction stepping motor with an 8-pole rotor and a 9-pole field. (I counted the number of motor leads when I saw the one at York).  The rotational speed is determined by the frequency of the power fed to the motor.  As you suggested, the speed control would have been quite precise.

It was about the size of a Pulmor motor without the commutator.  I assumed the gear arrangement would have been the same, and the starting torque about the same.  Using this information I was able to determine the frequency range used, and graph the motor response.

As it happened, the frequency was sufficiently high that the inductance of the motor windings limited the amount of current that the motor could draw, in more or less inverse proportion to the frequency applied, and thus to the speed.  This relationship graphed as being quite linear.  Thus this motor would have had the same limitation as a diesel-powered prototype.

I actually liked this concept, because long trains or high speeds would require multiple units, just as in the prototype.  Realism at its best!  Alas, Lionel apparently had intended it for some flagship model of a large UP unit with 4-axle trucks and cast frames... The discovery that two of these motors would have to be stacked vertically on each shaft to move this behemoth apparently did not sit too well with the bookkeepers, I think.  At least those were the rumors at the time.  This engine may have been involved in the patenting of a differential mounted in the truck, possibly related to the multiple motor problem.

--Frank

I have several engines with Odyssey, most were manufactured after 2003. I have done several searches trying to find out what Odyssey Speed Control really does and what the on/off switch feature offers. But have yet to understand what Odyssey does and what the difference is between it being on or off. The instruction manuals I downloaded from Lionel do not really explain this feature. 

So what am I missing?

I operate with Lionel Legacy base and remote.

RAY

Odyssey is simply Cruise Control. The engine will run at a constant speed regardless of load (to a point), grade, or curve. 

Pete

Yes. Time to invest in upgrading your loco's. Start with an ERR board. Then if you have a steam locomotive investigate GRJ's Chuff and smoke generator boards... they are huge improvements.

If your engine is taking off, the magnet ring on the motor may have come loose, or broken and come off all together.  If the magnet is loose a drop of CA will cure your troubles.  If the magnet is broken, from what I hear you can try to glue it back together and this sometimes works (I've not had this issue or tried to glue one back together). As others have said, you can drop in the ERR Cruise M board and enjoy fine motor control that far surpasses the original Odyssey control.

Trying to glue a broken magnet ring back together is a fool's errand!  I can assure you that that will virtually never work!  There's an amazing amount of centrifugal force when the motor is spinning.  Also, the magnetic properties of the ferrite will surely be negatively affected by the breaks. 

There is a rebuild kit, but that involves pulling the flywheel, something that you'll need a wheel puller for.  You can also frequently pick up the motor with the flywheel and sensor for around $25-30 from Lionel.

When I get a broken Odyssey flywheel, I recommend the ERR Cruise Commander M as a replacement.  You'll get much better and smoother cruise performance.

"The Odyssey lurch only happens when you first power on, subsequent starts don't have the jump."

Yep - and I can live with that. Some have it, some don't. Mentioned before: I have 2 TMCC USRA 2-6-6-2's, from the same production run, I would imagine; one has the lurch, one does not. Go figure. 

I have never had any complaints about early Odyssey's performance; the above TMCC 2-6-6-2's will run as smoothly and slowly as my Legacy USRA 2-6-6-2 from a couple of years ago. No difference. All are nice and creepy.