Electric railroad company questions advice needed MTH PRR T-1

Thanks so much GRJ!  If I run 12v LEDs to the number boards is that safe running off the green board if it's connected to the tmcc board?  I like the idea of being able to turn all the lights off in the engine when not in operation.  Also I guess leaving the existing led class lights connected to the green board would apply to that Q as well  

I have some flickering fire LEDs  I'm thinking of installing one for the firebox glow, and possibly a couple for an ashpan  glow. They are 18v compatible. Would you just run that from track power?  

Again can't thank you all enough for the help to the newbie.  

The green board has two types of outputs.  It puts out 6V for the incandescent bulbs and has an output for LED's that uses the 6V and a series resistor.  I believe the yellow plug with the red and black wires would be the LED supply, the other two supply 6VDC to the incandescent bulbs.  The TMCC lamp output should be able to handle 300ma or so, so the lamp board shouldn't be a problem.  The Super-Chuffer doesn't draw any significant power from the headlight circuit, it just monitors it to know if the headlight should be on or off.

The flickering LED's need steady DC, so unless they have a filter cap, you'll have to supply filtered DC for them to flicker.  I have no idea what you have, so I don't know the capability.  I use the bare bulbs and supply my own power.

That is a great answer John. Thank you very much again.  These are what I have. Red and Amber.  They really flicker good with no lapse between flickers 

Have you tried the flickering LED's on AC track power?  If they work properly, you're golden.   I'm guessing they may have a capacitor in that heatshrink section.

Yes!  I run these on track power all day long and never had one burn out yet.....knock on wood.  They're supplied by modeltrainsoftware.com aka Evans designs.  I believe a forum sponsor. :-)

Update!   I got the ERR craise commander and articulated railsounds boards installed!  Ignore the wires, I have not zip ties them yet and the signal wire is dragging so not to touch other wires.  Also notice there's some vibration from the speaker. I have it mounted facing down, and in thinking of either adding some double sided tape around the rim of the speaker box or standing the speaker up on its side as it is designed to do also.  I used 2 magnets on the tender wheel where the chuff sensor/reed switch is located. ERR provides one I bought extras on eBay.

Next steps will be installing LED lighting and wiring in the GRJsuper chuffer. Might take me a few days to find time to get back to work on it.  

That's one ugly locomotive and tender, I hope the finished product will have cosmetic improvements.

Looks like nice progress, it's always good to see something work.

This is Lionel's newest rocket ship train lol

Looks more like a "pile-o-parts" demo.

Little dilemma.... Put the tender shell on and now the loco wants to only run conventionally.  Full speed ahead 100% as soon as the layout is turned on! :-o

Wired the lighting for the tender and installed a strip of double faced foam tape on the inside roof of the tender for the signal wire.  I attached the signal wire to that and covered it with another piece of foam tape. Then installed a connector on the signal wire so the tender can be disconnected from the frame.   

Did I do something wrong, or is this was of the signal wire install not good enough?   I checked the radio board and it's snug on the commander board.  And like I said, if I remove the shell it runs perfectly in command mode still. Help please! Lol 

Also notice the extra small tether I had to make for the wire that will be going to the smoke unit / GJR board. 

Metal tender? If so, the shell either has to be insulated from the frame or the signal wire has to be mounted outside and be insulated from the shell.

Half of the TMCC radio signal is broadcast by the outside rail(s) of your track and the other half is broadcast using the earth ground wire in your home's wiring (the bare wire in the electrical boxes).  The antenna on the Cruise Commander must be able to receive the signal from your house wires.  With the wire where you have it inside the tender shell, the metal shell (which is connected metal-to-metal with the tender frame and then the track) is broadcasting only the "track" half of the signal.  Like Rex says above, the most usual approach is to insulate the tender shell from the tender frame, using electrical tape or Kapton tape on the frame wherever it touches the shell and then replacing the metal screws with nylon screws to hold the shell on.  With the antenna wire attached to the shell, the entire shell becomes the antenna.

On your tender, it looks like the coal pile is plastic.  I see a red plastic base for the pile in your photo.  One thing you can try is to take a wire at least a foot long (longer is better), snake it back and forth in a zig-zag pattern on the bottom of the red plastic and attach the Cruise Commander's antenna wire to it.  That may work, although insulating the tender shell would probably work better.

I'd move the antenna to the bottom of the plastic tender deck and see if that's all you need to do...

Looks like the tender shell is fully diecast with a plastic coal load on top.

I'm not home looking at it but I am almost positive that red section under the coal load is metal too.  I knew that the antenna had to be isolated before this project and I'm pretty sure I was hoping that was plastic.   In the event I'm right and it is metal...Should I explore isolating the shell from the frame as the second best option?  

Hmm yeah if that deck is metal too then there's no sense in taping that antenna under there. It may be easier to isolate that deck from the rest of the tender and use that as your antenna. Not sure how that tender is built though..

If the coal load is plastic, can you remove it? If so you can then just drill a hole in the deck under the coal load and run a wire there and replace the coal load. This is how 3rd Rail does some of its engines. Replace with real coal and it will look better too.

Before

After

Pete

It would be awfully hard because there's parts that touch closely, especially by the teather

It's all metal and a real coal load on top

If its real coal you could still drill a hole from the bottom. That should give you an idea how thick the coal load is. Then cut a trench with large cutoff wheel in the coal, lay the wire in and cover with more real coal. Just make sure you have some close to size of the coal already there. Dennis Brennen offers some in a few sizes.

Pete

I typically isolate the whole tender shell and use it as an antenna.  Kapton tape is my weapon of choice, then I use nylon screws to complete the job.

GRJ, where do you get your Kapton tape and what width/roll length do you get. I am sure you have the best configuration all figured out. I have been meaning to get some, but keep forgetting.

I mail ordered it some time back, it's from Amazon.  I keep several width around, it's handy stuff.  It's tough but thin, so it doesn't cause nearly as many issues as stuff like electrical tape when trying to insulate your tender shell, not to mention other insulating chores.

1 Mil Kapton Tape (Polyimide) - 1/4" X 36 Yds

1 Mil Kapton Tape (Polyimide), 3/4" x 36 yds

Tape info seems very useful seeing I just looked at this tender shell and I was correct.....The red part under the coal load is metal.  Seems a shame drilling though the coal load and metal to attach a wire on top and then have to install a new coal load. Another thing I'm thinking is won't the wire touch the metal going through the hole and I'll be back to square one?  

I just wanna play with it already!! Lol

Well, you'd use insulated wire if you were going to install it in the coal load.  OTOH, I can tell you first-hand that having that short a lead close to the grounded tender shell will not be nearly as effective an antenna as the entire tender shell!

I insulate the shell, then for brass I solder the antenna to an inside surface that won't damage paint, under the coal load is one place.  If there's a projection inside, I'll solder to that.  For diecast, I find a thick part of the casting and drill a small blind hole and use a short self-tapping screw to secure the antenna to the shell.

There are always mulitple solutions to any problem. Since you already have placed the electronics in the tender you have the choice of isolating the tender body or put a wire in the coal load. On some tenders you might even be able to use the grab irons. The PT tender pictured has a larger coal bunker so the antenna can run about 75% of its length. Most likely the coal bunker in your tender is shorter. I have at least 6 engines that use the wire in the coal bunker technique and none have signal problems.

For me it depends on what I have on hand and how fast I can get the antenna installed. I don't have any correct plastic metric screws so I would have to source these first. I do have real coal of the correct size. That means in five minutes I could have the antenna installed and coal load repaired. Someday I may order some kapton tape. I agree its the best for this application being thin but tough. In the meantime I find mylar packing tape works. 

Pete

If I have a real coal load, I am loath to start chopping it up to install an antenna, but that's just me.   As far as the grab irons, I've used those a couple of times, but I had to individually insulate them first, a PITA.

I have the nylon screws as I've found that's the easiest way to do this job, so I keep various sizes in stock for brass, MTH, and Lionel tenders.

That was my point John. Do it the way thats easiest for you. The first time I saw an isolated tender it was an upgrade by TAS. It looked like a klugey unprofessional solution to me. No doubt either us of can do better than that but for me its my second choice.

Pete

I try to make the actual mod invisible as much as possible.  Sometimes the tender design requires a peek at some tape, usually on the ends if there's a platform.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I mail ordered it some time back, it's from Amazon.  I keep several width around, it's handy stuff.  It's tough but thin, so it doesn't cause nearly as many issues as stuff like electrical tape when trying to insulate your tender shell, not to mention other insulating chores.

1 Mil Kapton Tape (Polyimide) - 1/4" X 36 Yds

1 Mil Kapton Tape (Polyimide), 3/4" x 36 yds

Thanks, saved the info and added to Amazon wish list for next order.

Well guys I decided to go with drilling a hole in the tender up thru the coal load for the antenna. I scrapped out some of the coal load and hot glued the antenna zig zagged.  Also, I made sure to insulate the wires passing thru the tender. I tested it and it works!  So you'll see the picture after the antenna wire was glued down and after I put in my real coal load covering up the wire.

Thanks for this tip guys!  I chose not to go with insulating the tender merely because I didn't want to hunt down nylon screws that fit right. This was a quicker fix. On to the boiler work next!

one other question:  what would be the appropriate speaker upgrade?  Not that this one is bad, but I want louder!!! Lol

The ERR Railsounds kit comes with a 40mm "Baby Fatboy". If you have the room Lionel sells the 50mm "Fatboy". It is louder and has better bass. There are other 2"/50mm 8 ohm speakers out there that might be as good or better but I don't have part numbers for them. Other options if you have a lot of room is to use two 4 ohm speakers in series. I use this speaker in MTH upgrades if there is room. Sound is at least as good as a Fatboy and the price can't be beat.

Pete

I'd go for the two 4 ohm speakers with a proper baffle, that will give you some booming sound.  One thing to consider with speakers is efficiency.  It may be that the two speakers won't have enough drive from the RailSounds board to really boost the sound, that will have to be determined experimentally.  You may actually be better off with two lower power rated speakers than the MTH speakers.

GRJ. I'm a bit confused on this super chuffer wiring in a couple aspects. 

Does the reed switch need to be directly connected to the board?  Or do I use the output for smoke on the cruise commander board.  Those things I'm confused by. Seems I may have many wires needed for a tether or I move the super chuffer to the tender?  Ugh I'm not inclined like you guys are with this.  

Also what is chuff output to cruise commander?  Hd2?  Where does that wire go on the cruise commander?

Any advice is much appreciated

This might help, here's an example of wiring the Super-Chuffer to the Cruise Commander.  For my upgrades, I normally need seven wires from the tender.  The example below doesn't show the motor and power/ground leads, those should be obvious, however all the other wiring is represented.  Here's my "standard" wiring between locomotive and tender.  If you want to get fancy, I also have an "enhanced" wiring diagram that has a two-level smoke control that reduces the smoke volume when you're not moving.

• (2) Power & Frame Ground
• (2) Motor
• (1) Chuff
• (1) Front Lamp
• (1) Smoke Power

For a Cruise Commander install, you don't normally need to use HD2, that's only if you want to input the chuff directly to the RailSounds board.

You can get away without the headlight control if you wire pin 3 of the Super-Chuffer to the track power, that leaves the headlight on all the time, but you still get the Rule-17 lighting effect.

That chart does help a lot more. Thank you!! 

Diagram shows a wire coming from the reed switch to the cruise commander board in slot 3. That is not the case with how mine Was done according the the err instructions the reed switch had a plug that connected to the railsounds board

The chuff switch in my diagram is connected to frame ground (common) and the other end is connected to the CC chuff in and the Super-Chuffer chuff in pins.

If you're talking about the RailSounds Commander instructions, that is one method of wiring the chuff switch.  However, that doesn't allow you to share the chuff switch as it's connection to the RS Commander must be exclusive!  The CC chuff in sends the chuff to the RS board via the serial data stream and allows us to use one chuff switch for both functions.

FWIW, if you really wanted to use the RS Commander chuff input, that's what the totally isolated HD2 output on the Super-Chuffer was designed for.  The reason I suggest this wiring is it's easier with less wiring, not to mention you'd need more tether connections if you did it the other way.

Trust me, this wiring is how a lot of Super-Chuffers have been installed and they work perfectly.

Thanks GRJ. That chuff in and the reed switch wiring was throwing me off. I'll give it a shot later, and all other wiring is done!  Now it's just finishing that, and tidy up everything and see how she goes.   Thanks again for all your help!

We look forward to the video.

Okay so! I have everything done!  However, The engine was tested last night and the headlight and rear backup light are not working.  They're 12v warm white pre wired LEDs. Wired them in as per instructions.  I did try to press aux2 on the legacy remote and that didn't turn them on.   Any suggestions?   Otherwise I'm getting back in there to figure it out.  

As an added note: the same 12v led was used for the cab light and that is operating as it should.  And I skipped wiring the headlight from the CC to the Super chuffer as John mentioned previously I could do, but it would just stay on constantly.

For the number boards I used different 18v compatible LEDs, and those are wired directly to track power. 

Thanks for any help....again!