Has MTH conceded the Advanced Steam features to Lionel with Visionline Products ( Steam Whistle, pop off valve steam, dynamo, blow down, cylinder steam ) ?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Berkshire President posted:

Hot Water posted:

Berkshire President posted:

VintageClassics posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The biggest stumbling block to the added feature is mechanical, not electronics at this point.

So, the Company JTS LTD used to upgrade the **** out of trains, they are gone.  Bruk seems to be able to get Legacy upgrades in older engines, and Gunrunnerjohn does upgrades to. Is it possible on a 3rd Rail Santa Fe 2900 class yo do some whistle steam and dynamo steam upgrades, or something similar to a PRR Q2?  

Whistle steam is somewhat complex to very complex to design.

The dynamo effect is much simpler.  It's either On or off....and is typically right in front of the cab.  You don't have to vary it's output or sync it to anything.....from a modeling perspective.  There is no corresponding sound to go with it.

There sure as heck should be "sound to go with it"! Haven't you ever heard that spool-up whining sound whenever the dynamo is first started? The dynamo then whines all the time, until the locomotive is "shut down".

So long as there is room in the loco, it's the simplest of steam effects.

 

There should be...but no one has ever attempted to add that sound feature on a model, as far as I know.  That's why I included "....from a modeling perspective".

Every model is a comprise....and I know you're not big on steam effects.  But I like good smoke units running through the stack/stacks at four chuffs and the dynamo effect.  I'm less than impressed on the other steam effects.

Sure they have, every time you start up an MTH steamer, you hear the dynamo wind up, give it a try.  That's an easy sound to do.

My 3rd rail PRR Q2 4-4-6-4 has PS2 and has the Dynamo sound you mentioned, it's very cool yes...  How can I modify my ngines to have that effect with the dynamo steam and sound. Is that something you could do John?

Thanks for the great suggestions BERKSHIRE PRESIDENT 

Thanks! 

PS/2 and PS/3 is undocumented internally, so I don't know how folks are getting in and doing stuff like whistle steam, but I don't currently have the knowledge to do it.  I am planning on doing it on Lionel stuff, and I bought a couple of bell boards to do some swinging bells.

Isn't the dynamo running continuously as long and the engine is fired? If so you would just need a small smoke unit connected to the track. Maybe even a Suethe unit would work.  

Pete

That's what the VL Challenger has, a smoke unit that runs all the time for the dynamo.  The problem with the Seuthe is the smoke wafts out, the dynamo effect should have the smoke under pressure in a thin stream.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Berkshire President posted:

There should be...but no one has ever attempted to add that sound feature on a model, as far as I know.  That's why I included "....from a modeling perspective".

Every model is a comprise....and I know you're not big on steam effects.  But I like good smoke units running through the stack/stacks at four chuffs and the dynamo effect.  I'm less than impressed on the other steam effects.

Sure they have, every time you start up an MTH steamer, you hear the dynamo wind up, give it a try.  That's an easy sound to do.

FWIW. The vision line as well as the legacy ese hudsons have the dynamo sound as well.

There are other locos, like the Legacy Reading T1 for example. Its a more subtle whine. Represents a different make of dynamo?? As opposed to the high pitch of the Mth soundset.

Like this prototype: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UeWKqsG1m_w

Lionel t1 : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LRYLup_50j0

Yep, I just happened to have an MTH sitting in front of me on the test rollers.

Good luck fitting an additional fan smoke unit in there.

Pete

Norton posted:

Good luck fitting an additional fan smoke unit in there.

Pete

There’s an old thread I remember on using small MTH smoke units, including their HO unit, and powering them in a 3rail context: https://ogrforum.com/...oke-unit-for-o-guage

GRJ posted a comparison photo of the units in question:

The larger unit is roughly similar in size and shape to the auxiliary smoke unit used by Lionel for the VL Challenger dynamo smoke feature.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's what the VL Challenger has, a smoke unit that runs all the time for the dynamo.  The problem with the Seuthe is the smoke wafts out, the dynamo effect should have the smoke under pressure in a thin stream.

Hi Jon and Norton,

Great thoughts on the Dynamo steam... What about funneling the Seuthe through a very thin tube... Would that make any difference for the Dynamo? 

BTW Gunrunnerjohn, can't wait to hear and see the progress with the swinging bells!

I think I'd definitely like to go the legacy route for this modification, as opposed to Ps2 or PS3.

Also, liking the HO scale smoke unit... interesting thoughts guys... this would be the Bee's Knees to get into our locos - GREAT find Hancock +

NYC 428 posted:

I don't think you'll see anything new from MTH until someone else buys the company.  What was the last new release from MTH?.......the 44 ton that didn't even come with smoke as originally advertised.  

No new tooling, no new products, catalogs that basically mirror whats in the latest Lionel catalog. Nothing!  

So new tooling like the ALP-46 isn’t new?! The ALP-46 locomotives came out in recent years and I believe this is the first one MTH is doing them. Not a lot of new tooling, (always have your MP15AC/DC’s and SW1500s of course) but there has been some new things! Mind sharing the last time Lionel built a locomotive that they never made previously? Maybe Bi-polars, but all of the recent announcements, SD70ACe, ALCo S2, 4-8-2’s, Pennsy J1’s, etc. Lionel is just as bad as MTH with rereleasing the same thing every catalog. At least one catalog a year has SD70ACe’s in it! Hasn’t Lionel made enough of them?

VintageClassics posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's what the VL Challenger has, a smoke unit that runs all the time for the dynamo.  The problem with the Seuthe is the smoke wafts out, the dynamo effect should have the smoke under pressure in a thin stream.

Hi Jon and Norton,

 

Great thoughts on the Dynamo steam... What about funneling the Seuthe through a very thin tube... Would that make any difference for the Dynamo? 

 

BTW Gunrunnerjohn, can't wait to hear and see the progress with the swinging bells!

I think I'd definitely like to go the legacy route for this modification, as opposed to Ps2 or PS3.

Also, liking the HO scale smoke unit... interesting thoughts guys... this would be the Bee's Knees to get into our locos - GREAT find Hancock +

 

With Legacy and DCS we are dependent on Lionel and MTH to provide the capability. So you find a smoke unit small enough to fit in your engine. How do you trigger the function? With Legacy you have to replace a board with one that has that capability. With PS2/3 you would have insert new code in the sound file to trigger the action as well as provide a softkey on the handheld or tablet.

Swinging bells have been made possible to add to TMCC/Legacy engines only because Lionel has developed the decoder as a separate board. Even if a third party could make decoder boards to provide the function in the engine how do you send that new code from the handheld?

Having achieved all that how much do you think it would cost to add that feature? 

Pete

VintageClassics posted:

Great thoughts on the Dynamo steam... What about funneling the Seuthe through a very thin tube... Would that make any difference for the Dynamo? 

I'm sure a tube or funnel on the Seuthe would block virtually all the smoke, but it wouldn't help the effect. The problem with the Seuthe is it's strictly convection, you need forced air to move the smoke, especially if you try to route it through a tube. Just hold a soda straw over the seuthe and seal around it and see what you get. Unless I'm VERY wrong (in this case, not likely), you will get little or no smoke, and you sure won't increase the velocity like we need for simulating the dynamo steam stream.

Suethe units seem to be popular in Europe. Many videos on youtube on how to modify them. I found this one which actually shows how to make a smoke unit from scratch. While its shows a fan attached to the chamber there is no reason why the fan couldn't be located a small distance from the chamber to allow greater flexibility in the use of available space. At around 35 seconds note a smaller unit. Fans are available which are even smaller than the ones shown.

Pete

I can't imagine getting enough smoke from the Seuthe unit to do the job decently.  Also, the length of the stock Seuthe would be a major PITA to install for the Dynamo smoke in most locomotives.  Adding a fan and the like would be ridiculous when you can use something like the MTH HO fan driven unit, hard to imagine you making one smaller than this.

Check out this YouTube video of the add'l smoke feature.  Technically, it's not coming out of the dynamo......but something like this is what "got me to thinking":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJ5CuoC5EQ

Berkshire President posted:

Check out this YouTube video of the add'l smoke feature.  Technically, it's not coming out of the dynamo......but something like this is what "got me to thinking":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJ5CuoC5EQ

 

Adding a smoke unit is the easy part. Its being able to trigger it thats a bit more difficult. In this case you could just do it randomly. Whistle steam or blowdown steam, not so simple.

Pete

Norton posted:

Berkshire President posted:

Check out this YouTube video of the add'l smoke feature.  Technically, it's not coming out of the dynamo......but something like this is what "got me to thinking":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJ5CuoC5EQ

 

Adding a smoke unit is the easy part. Its being able to trigger it thats a bit more difficult. In this case you could just do it randomly. Whistle steam or blowdown steam, not so simple.

Pete

That's exactly why I'm drawn to this feature - the simplicity.  IMHO, you can skip the sound and have it on when the engine is "awake" and off when the engine is off/asleep.

Each layer of complexity costs money to develop and can add to potential reliability issues.  But you can't get any "simpler" than basic on/off and not synced to speed or sound.

Now, contrast this smoke feature to the steam chest effect, injector effect, or even whistle steam when the whistle is close to the smoke stack....like on most UP steamers.  This is just much more noticeable and impressive, IMHO.  I'd like to think it's easier to design and produce as well.

Norton posted:

Berkshire President posted:

Check out this YouTube video of the add'l smoke feature.  Technically, it's not coming out of the dynamo......but something like this is what "got me to thinking":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJ5CuoC5EQ

 

Adding a smoke unit is the easy part. Its being able to trigger it thats a bit more difficult. In this case you could just do it randomly. Whistle steam or blowdown steam, not so simple.

Pete

In order to do these effects with Lionel, we'll have to have a module that intercepts the serial data and reacts to the appropriate commands.

And then drill a small hole in the boiler/shell......and maybe find/build a dynamo that would fill said hole.  

It's probably not ideal, but could you tap it into the "AUX 2" wiring so that when you turn the headlights on or off you also turn the dynamo effect on or off?

If you know/see what I'm getting at..........

Norton posted:

Isn't the dynamo running continuously as long and the engine is fired? If so you would just need a small smoke unit connected to the track. Maybe even a Suethe unit would work.  

Pete

The dynamo is always running as long a a crew member opens the steam valve for it.  Headlights, cab and class lights have their own on/off switch.

Rusty

Rusty Traque posted:

Norton posted:

Isn't the dynamo running continuously as long and the engine is fired? If so you would just need a small smoke unit connected to the track. Maybe even a Suethe unit would work.  

Pete

The dynamo is always running as long a a crew member opens the steam valve for it.  Headlights, cab and class lights have their own on/off switch.

Rusty

Remember guys, we're dealing with model train smoke, so a way to turn off the dynamo smoke would be a really good idea.  Personally, I'd probably just tie it to the main smoke control, if I don't have stack smoke running, chances are I don't really want the dynamo smoke running either.

Makes perfect sense, John.

Well dont have the fancy other than a some mth proto 2 engines on a dcs layout a bunch of pre and postwar lionel and others. Everything comes along in time as tech is always changing soon everyone  does similar.

But i do have a few engines at least from 60 to 70 years ago that smoke out the steam chest nicely with no electronic boards what so ever in it and surely will run and run a long time from now with simple minimal tunes ups such as a drop of oil or grease here and there.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Rusty Traque posted:

Norton posted:

Isn't the dynamo running continuously as long and the engine is fired? If so you would just need a small smoke unit connected to the track. Maybe even a Suethe unit would work.  

Pete

The dynamo is always running as long a a crew member opens the steam valve for it.  Headlights, cab and class lights have their own on/off switch.

Rusty

Remember guys, we're dealing with model train smoke, so a way to turn off the dynamo smoke would be a really good idea.  Personally, I'd probably just tie it to the main smoke control, if I don't have stack smoke running, chances are I don't really want the dynamo smoke running either.

Makes sense to me too... All smoke running at the same time.... Awesome progress GunrunnerJohn, Berkshire President, and Norton

Just sayin,

If you guys want all these features just switch to DCC. Smaller boards (more smoke unit space) and easier customize to your liking.

And throw away 150 locomotives with TMCC/Legacy/DCS?  I think I'll pass...

Bruk posted:

Just sayin,

If you guys want all these features just switch to DCC. Smaller boards (more smoke unit space) and easier customize to your liking.

Once you have, say 5-10 nice, expensive steam engines, you become "Pot Committed" to what you already have/own.....IMHO.

To Bruk's point, DCC was designed upfront to accomodate additional user designed features. Neither DCS nor TMCC/Legacy was. Trying to add features not already installed by the manufacturer is like beating your head against a wall. Not impossible but hardly worth the effort. Some must like the experience.

Pete

Is this the same Pete that added the swinging bell?   How's your head feel?

I didn't have to reengineer anything. Just put parts together that others developed. Credit goes to Jon Z, Laurie McLean, and the unnamed designer of the micro motors.

Pete

Norton posted:

I didn't have to reengineer anything. Just put parts together that others developed. Credit goes to Jon Z, Laurie McLean, and the unnamed designer of the micro motors.

Pete

Thanks Pete, and to all the great efforts of those aforementioned! You guys ROCK!

DCC...That's a great idea Bruk, hadn't even thought of that as a way to go about it...