Fixing Intermittent Sound??

Those "What are these boards" are the ERR RailSounds Commander prior to the new single board design.  The top board is a generic Railsounds 4 sound board and the bottom board is the motherboard and power supply replacement.  The new RS Commander is a single board unit that also uses the RailSounds 5 technology and offers better sound.

I'd try adding a battery, it plugs into the bottom board of that pair.  I've added the manual to this post.

You can try reseating all the connectors as well as the chips in the RailSounds board, that's a frequent issue with intermittent sound.

As far as the "avoid the wire, you can connect that wire under the bottom of the motherboard on the matching connector.  That's supplying 5 volts for an IR tether, though I didn't know 3rd Rail did those.  In any case, the yellow wire is supplying 5 volts for something.

The card with the heatsink is the Cruise Commander, the R2LC plugs into it.  I'm amazed that ERR told you that was the sound board was the Cruise Commander, and frankly I think you misunderstood what they were saying.

For better sound, I'd also replace that anemic speaker!

I have one right now with weak sounds. It has a better speaker, but still puny sounds. I also have the intermittent sound. Steady on if sitting still but goes on and off if running. If I blow the whistle/horn, the sounds come back...if I lean on the whistle/horn, the sounds don't go away. I figure it's the issue of pickup noise. And figured a battery would fix it but would rather just fix it.

Thanks, John.

One misunderstanding. There is already a battery. And I replaced it with a new one. So, lack of a battery is not the issue.

As for the "sound" board name. Yup. I misundertood. They labeled the output connector on the Cruise Com. board "Sound card," meaning TO the sound card. Way it was placed made it look to me like it was the name of the whole board.

I was not aware the speaker was sub-par. I do have a kit from ERR with a new, and I guess better speaker.

I have reset yhe connectors and the chips as you suggest. Tomorrow morning I will try it once more. Can't work up there at night.

I'd like to try just replacing the two sound boards on the right hand side of my image with the one new RS5 board from ERR. I already have it but notice the connectors are different? That brings up a question.

How do you work on these tiny connectors. What are they called so I can even find them at DigiKey? Are there tools for these things?

Also, I have a battle stripping wires this small. Any recommendation for a stripper for these really small gauge wires? Is it feasible to splice these tiny wires? That way I could use the connectors ERR supplied with attached pigtails to the wires already attached to the Cruise Commander board. Soldering the leads to the speaker I can handle. 

The new ERR RailSounds Commander came with all the cables you need to use the new sound board with the Cruise Commander.  There is a cable with the 4-pin 2.54mm connector on one end and two connectors on the other end that plug into the RS Commander single board.  Connect a speaker to the proper 3-pin connector and you should be able to test it.  The cable below came with your ERR RS Commander.  That and the speaker should be all you need to connect to get it playing.

Well, re-seating the chips and the connectors seems to have had a major effect! Sound is much more reliable now! Maybe not 100% though? Time will tell.

I'll still be putting the better speaker in.

Thanks, again, GRJ!

Hit it with contact cleaner.   G