ERR Cuise Commander M in JLC Allegheny 6-38081

FWIW, you may look into a lessor evil and opt out for a Cruise M motor driver swap,….you may have to alter some class light wiring, and possibly buffer the serial data, but it’d be a far less intrusive swap then a full blown Cruise Commander…….with either though, you really can’t go wrong,….

Pat

@Catonsville Central Railway posted:

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone has attempted a cruise commander M install into a Lionel JLC Allegheny (6-38081).  I have one and am contemplating performing the install to improve the speed control especially at slow speeds.

Fwiw, I have done ERR cruise installs before - just looking for tips/suggestions specific to this locomotive.

The CC-M is a very easy install, go for it.

Has anyone ever done a similar CC-M install video? That sure would help.

Perhaps I'll just do an install video, myself!

Woody,

that would be awesome! If you do, I’d like to give it a try & follow along. I have the same engine & love everything except the low speed range.

I think a lot of members would appreciate a step by step video.

Joe

Alright, got the Cruise commander M in the mail today.  Looking over everything, it looks like a very straight forward install for this late-model TMCC engine.  One question has arisen though…

Circled in red is the DC voltage regulator (giving about 5.2vdc output by my reader)

Circled in blue is the black DC negative (-) currently plugged into the existing pin #10 of the existing 10-pin harness

Circled in yellow is the yellow DC positive (+) currently plugged into the existing pin #1 of the existing 4-pin harness

Question: Both the 10-pin and 4-pin connectors appear to be plug and play except for pin #10 of the 10-pin harness which the ERRC manual calls for ditch light output, not DC negative input.  Pins #1 and #3 of the 4-pin harness call for DC input (it’s not distinguished which is (+) and which is (-)).  Pins #2 and #4 call for motor phase control from the R2LC and are already correctly positioned.

So…should I swap the black DC negative (-) wire from the existing 10-pin to the pin #3 of the 4-pin harness and call it a day?

What is the purpose of the 5 volt DC regulator on this engine?  What does it power?

This engine also has a separate voltage regulator for the smoke unit (which is different form this one).

Woody,

Looking forward to the video, if that’s still your intention, I hope!

Joe

@DaveGG posted:

What is the purpose of the 5 volt DC regulator on this engine?  What does it power?

This engine also has a separate voltage regulator for the smoke unit (which is different form this one).

As far as I can tell, it feeds the LEDs in the markers and flickering firebox.

That is correct about the smoke unit voltage regulator.  It’s located behind the motor in the cab area (oddly enough).

@ironman1 posted:

Woody,

Looking forward to the video, if that’s still your intention, I hope!

Joe

Still planning to!  Just want to make sure it’s a video about a successful install, and not about frying a $150 board and $1000 engine!

The 5V regulator can be powered directly from track power.  You will have to move it from it's existing input power connection as pin-10 of J4 on the CC-M is NOT frame ground!  The common connection for all of those is an internal DC ground and NOT frame ground.  Power for the markers on the CC-M comes from it's internal power supply, not from the J1 connection from the R2LC.

My sense would be to lose the 5V regulator and simply wire the four wires from the motherboard to the CC-M, that uses the R2LC 5V to supply the opto-isolators on the CC-M.  That's how a vast majority of locomotives are wired.

Note that any ground on pin-10 of J4 MUST be removed for the ERR CC-M or you'll destroy the CC-M!

Hi Woody,

I hope the video doesn't turn out to be a what not to do video. Good luck!

Joe

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The 5V regulator can be powered directly from track power.  You will have to move it from it's existing input power connection as pin-10 of J4 on the CC-M is NOT frame ground!  The common connection for all of those is an internal DC ground and NOT frame ground.  Power for the markers on the CC-M comes from it's internal power supply, not from the J1 connection from the R2LC.

My sense would be to lose the 5V regulator and simply wire the four wires from the motherboard to the CC-M, that uses the R2LC 5V to supply the opto-isolators on the CC-M.  That's how a vast majority of locomotives are wired.

Note that any ground on pin-10 of J4 MUST be removed for the ERR CC-M or you'll destroy the CC-M!

Thanks!  Yes I figured the outcome would be "less than ideal" if I ran a DC input into a marker output...they may want to put a warning about this in the CC-M manual since I'm seeing a few late-model TMCC engines of mine are done this way.

A little confused though.  The 5V regulator currently has four wires leading out of it.  Two run to track power - AC common and ground, respectively - and the others run to the existing pin-1 of the J1 (yellow, DC+) and pin-10 of the J4 (black, DC-).  So it seems to already be powered by track power, and supplying the existing motor driver with 5v DC for the markers, unless I'm missing something.

If the CC-M has its own internal power supply for the markers, then you're saying I could eliminate the 5V regulator, which makes sense.  But then why would I need to run the additional wires (pin-1 and pin-3) on the J1 to the motherboard?  FWIW, pins 1 and 3 on the J1 on the motherboard are not giving me any voltage readout.

I installed a Cruise M on my JLC Allegheny a few years ago for the same reason you are, to improve low speed operation. The Cruise M accomplishes this very well and I am very pleased with how it can crawl along now. Install it as per the ERR instructions and it should work.

However there are a few things you need to be aware of:

• If the engine takes off at full speed on the first speed step then the Cruise M is overloading the serial data line and you will need to install a buffer. Gun Runner can explain how to fix this far better than I can. Fortunately my Allegheny did not have this problem, but others I have installed a CCM in do.
• The markers and the firebox LED's are powered from the 10 pin connector on the CCM. The markers lose a lot of brightness to the point they are barely visible.
• The flickering of the firebox LED's is apparently programed into the Lionel motor board. The CCM has these outputs programmed as ditch lights. With the CCM the center LED on the firebox board stays on and does not flicker. The other LED's alternately flash like ditch lights when you press the whistle button.

I'm guessing that the reason for the additional 5 V power supply is that as Lionel was adding additional features to their late TMCC engines they were concerned that the 5 V supply from the R2LC board did not have sufficient power for these features, so they added a separate power supply.

Ken

@kanawha posted:

I installed a Cruise M on my JLC Allegheny a few years ago for the same reason you are, to improve low speed operation. The Cruise M accomplishes this very well and I am very pleased with how it can crawl along now. Install it as per the ERR instructions and it should work.

However there are a few things you need to be aware of:

• If the engine takes off at full speed on the first speed step then the Cruise M is overloading the serial data line and you will need to install a buffer. Gun Runner can explain how to fix this far better than I can. Fortunately my Allegheny did not have this problem, but others I have installed a CCM in do.
• The markers and the firebox LED's are powered from the 10 pin connector on the CCM. The markers lose a lot of brightness to the point they are barely visible.
• The flickering of the firebox LED's is apparently programed into the Lionel motor board. The CCM has these outputs programmed as ditch lights. With the CCM the center LED on the firebox board stays on and does not flicker. The other LED's alternately flash like ditch lights when you press the whistle button.

I'm guessing that the reason for the additional 5 V power supply is that as Lionel was adding additional features to their late TMCC engines they were concerned that the 5 V supply from the R2LC board did not have sufficient power for these features, so they added a separate power supply.

Ken

Ken, Given this would you now wire it up differently than you did?

@Catonsville Central Railway posted:

If the CC-M has its own internal power supply for the markers, then you're saying I could eliminate the 5V regulator, which makes sense.  But then why would I need to run the additional wires (pin-1 and pin-3) on the J1 to the motherboard?  FWIW, pins 1 and 3 on the J1 on the motherboard are not giving me any voltage readout.

That's odd, usually pin 1 & 3 on the PWM connector come right from the regulated 5V on pin-20 of the R2LC.   That's the power for the opto-isolators on the DCDS (or CC-M).

You're saying the two pins indicated by the red arrows don't connect to the pin indicated by the green arrow?

If so, you can retain the power supply, it just can't have it's ground reference connected to pin-10 of J4 on the CC-M.

Check the continuity from frame ground to the black wire going to J4, pin-10.  My guess is that comes from frame ground inside the 5V power module.  In which case, you can just clip that lead and use the 5V the way it is, the DCDS and CC-M already have frame ground reference on the input side of the PWM signals, that's why they go into an opto-coupler.

John,
Would this address the issues that Ken had with his lights?

@DaveGG posted:

Ken, Given this would you now wire it up differently than you did?

I don't understand what you're asking. Except for what I mentioned above, the CCM works fine wired up as per the instructions. The markers can be removed from the 10 pin connector and wired to the add on 5 V supply with an appropriately sized resistor in series with them. There way to fix the flickering firebox is to redesign it. I haven't done this as the firebox is mostly hidden and the flicker isn't really that visible. I imagine you could purchase some flickering LED's and wire them to the add on 5 V supply also.

Now if you have the runaway problem as I had on two other engines then that requires a different approach. Adding the serial buffer or doing what I did here:

https://ogrforum.com/...9#149239177320232519

Ken

Ok...I think I understand the confusion and it's on my end (unsurprisingly!).  So I was under the impression that for pins 1 and 3 on the J1 on the motherboard, one should be regulated 5v DC and the other should be ground, such that you'll get a 5V DC readout when measuring against each other.  You're saying (if I'm correct in understanding) that they should both be 5V regulated and thus should have continuity with each other and pin-20 on the R2LC.  They probably do, then - I'll verify when I get home from work.

So I can run a wire from pin 1 or 3 on the J1 on the motherboard to the CC-M J1 pin 1 or 3 (respectively) and eliminate the DC regulator, or I can simply leave the yellow 5V wire from the DC regulator where it is on pin-1 of the J1.  Either way, DEFINITELY eliminate the black ground wire from pin-10 of the J4.

@kanawha posted:

I don't understand what you're asking. Except for what I mentioned above, the CCM works fine wired up as per the instructions. The markers can be removed from the 10 pin connector and wired to the add on 5 V supply with an appropriately sized resistor in series with them. There way to fix the flickering firebox is to redesign it. I haven't done this as the firebox is mostly hidden and the flicker isn't really that visible. I imagine you could purchase some flickering LED's and wire them to the add on 5 V supply also.

Now if you have the runaway problem as I had on two other engines then that requires a different approach. Adding the serial buffer or doing what I did here:

https://ogrforum.com/...9#149239177320232519

Ken

Ken,

Thanks for your warning/info about the firebox, markers, and serial data issues.  I'll report back if I run into any issues.  I read through some of your informative post.  It seems Lionel added the separate 5V regulator to most of their late-model RS5.0 TMCC engines.  My Southern 4-6-2 Pacific (from 2006) and Acela (2005) also have the regulators.  Side note is that these models are next up to bat for exploring CC-M upgrades as I hate the Odyssey 1 low speed operation of them both.

Yes, the markers (class lights) can be run from the CC-M.  But if you leave the regulator, you most CERTAINLY remove the ground from pin-10!

@kanawha posted:

I don't understand what you're asking. Except for what I mentioned above, the CCM works fine wired up as per the instructions. The markers can be removed from the 10 pin connector and wired to the add on 5 V supply with an appropriately sized resistor in series with them. There way to fix the flickering firebox is to redesign it. I haven't done this as the firebox is mostly hidden and the flicker isn't really that visible. I imagine you could purchase some flickering LED's and wire them to the add on 5 V supply also.

Now if you have the runaway problem as I had on two other engines then that requires a different approach. Adding the serial buffer or doing what I did here:

https://ogrforum.com/...9#149239177320232519

Ken

Thanks Ken.  Yes, this addresses my question.  I did not know if one needed to rewire differently or if there was a slightly different approach/solution as you mentioned.

Will update progress once I have the chance to sit down and work on the engine tonight.

Question on the 10-pin that I'm not quite clear on from the documentation: so connections are provided for marker #1, marker #2, ditch light #1, and ditch light #2.  What are the functions of these? 

For the markers, are they on all the time, or do they turn on/off or alternate with the direction of the locomotive?  For the ditch lights, are they off when the engine is stopped, on when moving, and flashing when moving and hitting the horn?  Does changing the feature code alter these functions?

The markers simply come on with the lights, and I believe they toggle with the AUX2 when you turn the lights on/off.  The ditch lights come on in forward when you're moving and oscillate with the horn.

Woody,

Did you ever do the ERR upgrade video?

Joe

@ironman1 posted:

Woody,

Did you ever do the ERR upgrade video?

Joe

I have it on my list!  Have been very busy here lately, but I'll get to it as soon as I can.  The upgrade was successful so I can work back and explain how it was done.  Very simple, really.

I'm in no hurry, with plenty of projects on my bench. Glad to hear it was a success & looking forward to see what's involved. I'm sure there will be others just as interested.

Joe