First TMCC conversion.

I took mine apart, The biggest problem I had was getting

all the $%^## side rods lined up at the same time.

You are a brave soul....

Good luck...

The K-Line Porter is an "interesting" locomotive to disassemble, getting all the parts crammed back into it was interesting.

The MotorMite drives the bulbs with the Lionel R2LC that is part of the package, so it's exactly the same as other TMCC controllers that use the R2LC.  The outputs are a half-wave rectified DC under command control and AC track voltage running conventionally.  The smoke is also controlled from the R2LC, same comment applies, it's just from a higher power triac.  The standard smoke triac is rated at 2.5 amps, but without a heatsink, I'd be reluctant to pull more than 1/2 to 2/3 of an amp through it.  The motor voltage shouldn't get much above 12 volts, as that's the rating of most of the motors used in these engines.

I believe the 4A is maximum, but you'd have to have a pretty heavy load to actually draw 4 amps to the motor.  Also, I suspect things would get pretty warm if you were at 4 amps for any length of time.

Most of the kits should have Lighting installation detailed.  LED usually require small voltage 1.5 volts or less.   I've popped a few.   I usually drop back to this diagram which shows resistor in series with the LED's to drop voltage. Some old information long ago shows 490 ohm resistors. in series with small (2) LED's

This diagram using two LED's in parallel show a 560 ohm resistor.  A TAS small kit, that was available at one time.

 Kind of depends on the LED and applied voltage.  I had done some ditch lights wired directly to track power at 18 volts and thought/ can't remember unless I tear the unit apart, I used 1 K resistors. 1/2 or 1/4 watt.

I was luck-ey when I hooked these head lights up on a small Rich Yoder 44 tonner to an ERR board using a 470 ohm resistor.   The LED's are bright which would indicate may be a bit more resistance is required. 

Most of the kits of that era don't address LED lighting.  In checking the Motor Mite documentation, they actually did a pretty good job.  They even mention the diode and the load resistor, though they say use a 1K, which I have found is too high a value to reliably trigger the triacs, hence my 470 ohm recommendation.

Hi John,

I am still a little confused.

I have attached a scan of the Digital Dynamics wiring diagram.

I have replaced the 1k  load resister with a 470 ohm one.

I can see how this will work with VAC in conventional.

How does it work with does it work with the half wave rectified DC if the red wire is positive?

I can understand how the second one works with the back to back leds. And I assume that the bottom one would also work if I added the load resister across the outputs.

The Digital Dynamics one just seems to be odd to me.

Maybe I am missing something.

Figure 8 is wrong, the polarity of the supply is incorrect.  You're right, that won't work.

For the R2LC, the frame is positive, the lighting outputs are negative in respect to frame ground.  Obviously, the anode of the diode must face the ground connection, and the positive pin of the LED's have to face the ground connection as well.

Hi John,

Figure 8 is wrong, the polarity of the supply is incorrect.  You're right, that won't

work.

Am I correct to assume that if I switch the red and black wires it should work?

For the R2LC, the frame is positive, the lighting outputs are negative in respect to frame ground.  Obviously, the anode of the diode must face the ground connection, and the positive pin of the LED's have to face the ground connection as well.

Now I am confused again. Not sure how to visualize this.

Can you sketch it correctly for me.

Digital Dynamics says that the Red wire is positive and the Black wire is negative. Is that correct?

Thanks.

I am glad I asked the question and did not just blindly follow the diagram.

Well, I don't know where the "red wire" is connected, so I can't really say.

The circuits in your PDF work with one exception, that is the plus and minus has to be reversed on the figure 8 diagram.  The other two assume AC, so there is no polarity concerns with the LED's.

It's not a big issue, if the lights don't light, swap the pins in the headlight connector and they'll work.  It's too bad that DD didn't include one total diagram for the system, that would be useful.

you'll find that one side of the J3 through J7 headers on the motor board are all common, and they will connect to the frame ground.

An interesting point, if you use the smoke output to power an LED cab light or LED strobe, it happens to be the opposite polarity from the J3-J4 light outputs.  Just something to keep in mind.

I just finished upgrading a former PS1 loco using an ERR kit.

Had problems with the LED headlamps not working.

I wound up just powering the headlamps off track power so both are on all the time. Good enough for me.

I guess I needed to add the load resistors to the light outputs which is strange because the last ERR kit I did didn't need that.

ERR is supposed to provide the loading, got that directly from Jon Z. some time back.  I've never had them not work, but a load resistor would have probably fixed them.  Since I like the lights to be directional, I insist on them working properly.

Just did my first ElectricRR TMCC conversion... well my second but I didn't take a video of the first one.  I find I hardly ever use any of the conventional locos I have.  So to make them useful I am slowly converting them.

Here is the first loco converted.  This is more of an operating session of 1990s train set rarely used since it has a convential loco.  The low speed performance is much better with the 100 speed steps.  The railsounds boxcar that comes with this set sounds pretty good considering it is 24 year old technology!

Nice job, now you can do the fleet!

I'm a big light fan, so I do the headlights, markers, strobes, and cab lights.  For diesel headlights, many of them are 3mm holes, so a 3mm LED fits perfectly.  For steamers with larger lenses, I just hot glue the 3mm LED in the headlight lens.

The hardest one I ever did was a Copper Range 040 with the TAS docksider kit, and the hard part was getting those four wire pipes back into the pilot at the same time without scratching when putting the boiler back on. Runs well, but the original horn sounds kind of not great. Electrocouplers would have been nice too...

I did the copper range Docksider as well, and I added a rear EC, what a PITA!  I didn't manage to stuff sound into it, I used the Digital Dynamics board to update it.  With a MiniCommander 2 and the new sound boards from ERR, I might have been able to fit sound if I were doing it again.

What did you connect the other end of that wire to?  Did the TAS kit have a digital output for the whistle?

Correction, it was ERR not TAS...I keep thinking it was TAS for some reason.

It's the Cruise Commander DS, which ERR graciously warranty repaired for me after I finally installed it last year. Sat on the shelf here in the original box for 6 years. It was new out of the sealed bag, and don't think I did something bad to it...just would go forward or backward but not on direction command. So ERR agreed to look at it and was able to repair it under warranty after not stocking them for years. Great guys, great service. The trigger wire came from a 4 pin connector plug that had no other wires on it for the docksider. The wire position was labeled "Sound Trigger" on the ERR board drawing. Third pin from the left looking at the outside of the board. If I wanted to fight the four pipes on the boiler again, I'd trace out where that trace came from. It has engineer seats on it just like the original board to which I glued the engineer and fireman. It supports Coil Couplers, Smoke, Strobe/Cab/Marker Lamp. R2LC. I guess I could weld some coil couplers onto the original coupler pivot ends some how, but didn't.

Very nice...kind of goes Nnnnnaaaatttt! when you blow the horn. Might even be prototypical...I never spent much time at the docks.

This is the standard they have at ERR for everything but the Cruise Commander.  They did add it back for the Cruise Commander Lite, so we have limited sound capability without a sound board again.