I'm not all that familiar with the different ERR products, but hope to use them some day to upgrade some of my conventional control engines.
In a recent thread Converting conventional loco to command , someone mentioned that you usually lose the horn and bell when you upgrade a locomotive to TMCC.
I was wondering, what about locomotives with Trainsounds? Can the Trainsounds work after upgrading to TMCC with a Cruise Commander or Mini Commander 2?
Thanks.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Nope, you need a RailSounds Commander to get sound back. You might have the prime mover or chuff, but the whistle & bell won't be there.
For the Cruise Commander or the AC/DC Commander, there is a 5V logic signal when the TMCC whistle is sounded. You can Roll your Own interface to sound a horn when that signal is present.
I've also heard of people actually using the DC offsets on the tracks to trigger a whistle or bell, but IMO that's a kludge.
One of the things that I'd love to have is an inexpensive way to at least add back a whistle & bell with the TMCC upgrade.
Thanks for the info.
I was curious as it is a much less expensive consideration just to upgrade to TMCC versus also adding a Railsounds board.
I like your idea of an inexpensive device to add the horn and bell.
I've toyed with the idea of creating a small board that reads the serial data bus that normally goes to the RailSounds card and having discrete outputs for horn and bell. I just don't know if I'd run into issues with Lionel if I tried to sell a few of them. 
No more idea on the legal side of things than the electronic side for me. I don't know if ERR (pre-Lionel), Digital Dynamics and TAS had licenses or how it worked for those companies.
If your board could work with the existing horn and bell on the conventional locomotives, it would retain the different sounds for a little variety.
Well, the legal side is what prevents me from seriously considering it. Given the economics of the situation, I can ill afford to spend money trying to license the technology.
Gunrunnerjohn.
If you write to Jon Z and explain to him what you are trying to do, he will tell you if he has a problem with that. It won't upset him just to have you ask.
Actually, that's the way he started. While designing his Electric Railroad products, he kept in touch with Lionel to make sure he was not entering any sensitive areas and they gave him the OK. Then one day they called him in and hired him!
You mean, maybe I can go to work for Lionel? 
If you do can we use your employee discount? 
Unless i'm missing something here, the old TAS TMCC Whistle Controller Board provided the DC offset in both a command and conventional environment needed to operate an existing whistle or horn. It was p/n TAS 1308.
Here is a reprint of the intro on their instruction sheet,
"The TMCC Whistle Controller Board is designed as an add-on upgrade to any of TAStudios’ command control upgrade boards without sounds. The Whistle Controller is designed to receive and decode the serial data stream from the R2LC command receiver and generates a positive DC offset to activate a conventional whistle or horn soundboard. This board only activates the whistle or horn, not the bell. Once the TMCC Whistle Controller is installed it will operate in both a command and conventional environment."
I used them with both the Digital Dynamics DC Deluxe and the ERR DC Commander. Never tried it with the old Lionel LCRU. They have been out of production for as long as TAS has been gone; seems they used to retail for about $25 and they still can be found in some hobby shops. In fact i may still have dead one in my junk box.
As far as a station bell, i simply recorded one on a chip, powered it with a battery, mounted it and a speaker under my station platforms, and wired it to a push button for realistic sounds when trains are entering the station.
jackson, CEO of the Not-So-Great-Eastern R.R.
aka The Never Done Lines
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
