Help with lionel railsounds issue.

I'm not an operator of Lionel Railsounds items in Conventional mode, but I do

know that all of my Lionel TMCC/RS locos have a battery harness in the tender, etc. -

because RS will not operate at less than 8 volts or so in Conventional mode.

The board requires all the voltage to operate the motor at that level, and can spare

none for the sound system. This "8 volts" comes from the manual, I believe.

I operate in Command and have no need for the battery, so my Lionel, Atlas, etc.

locos do not have them installed. Check for a battery harness attached to the

boards(?). Of course the tech would know this. So...

This might not help, but have you tried this with the smoke unit turned on? That might just add enough load to the locomotive to give the tender time to power-up. 

D500 i have spoken to the tech about it but since it was under warranty i did not crack open the tender and look for a battery connector.  The tech stated that his model did not have this option.  Made me kinda wonder if it could be installed since that seems to be a possible catch all for this issue.  My Mth running in conventional mode has one and works beautifully.

N.Q.D.Y.  i have tried it with smoke on and off and doesn't really get different results either way.  thanks

Sounds like it might be a good subject for a ps 2 upgrade.

From page 15 of the owners manual:

quote:

Your RailSounds RTR-equipped locomotive was designed to operate at approximately 6 to 18 volts (AC). When you power up the locomotive on the track, you will hear the sounds of the idling steam locomotive. The chuffing intensity will increase proportionally with the locomotive’s speed.

yea i read that as well.  Unfortunately the verbage in the manual just give lionel a cop out because it states the same thing in my NYC Flyer rtr set and it energizes at less that 3.75 volts and operates perfectly.

Another thought. If you aren't using the one that came with the starter set, what type of transformer are you using? A chopped-wave type may give better results than a pure wave type. (I've now put my flak-jacket on and am keeping my head down.)

quote:

yea i read that as well.  Unfortunately the verbage in the manual just give lionel a cop out because it states the same thing in my NYC Flyer rtr set and it energizes at less that 3.75 volts and operates perfectly.

From page 12 of the Flyer manual:

The 9-volt alkaline battery you installed ensures continuous sounds, even during  short track-power interrupts.    

here is the link to the nyc flyer manual i have.  no such mention that i could find. Am i looking in the wrong place.

http://www.lionel.com/media/se...30156250NYCFlyer.pdf

i wonder if there is a way to modify the system to accept a 9 volt rechargable to supply the voltage until the track voltage can take over?  anybody?

My apologies for not clarifing.  I am using a cw-80 that came with the rtr set.

This set has TrainSounds, which is a bit different from RailSounds. There is no battery option for this locomotive.

I have this set too, and mine starts up at just below the voltage that the train will start to move. To keep the sounds going all the time, I've fond that it's best to not turn the power right off, but use the direction button to go from stopped to forward and vice-versa. 

You might wish to check that the wheels and pickup roller on the tender are clean and in good condition, as if they are otherwise, this can reduce power reaching the sound circuitry.

It appears from that manual that your set is equipped with Trainsounds not Railsounds. Trainsound systems are a more primitive form of Railsounds and do not accept a 9v battery. That said, they are made for conventional operation and normally should not have too much problem with temporary power interruptions. I would check that both rollers on the tender are connected and functioning. Then clean your track and rollers. That should minimize any breaks in power to the system.

Neil

Oh boy im really getting everyone confused.  the issues are with my lionel set 6-30180 horsehoe curve set which has railsounds.  here is that manual. 

http://www.lionel.com/media/se...shoeCurveSetRev1.pdf

Yes my apologies for the confusion.  i was just using the nyc flyer i have as an example since it is more primitive but yet seems to funtion with little to no problems at start up or slow speeds.  I will post a video of the issues when i get the train back.

Don't worry. It's quite easy to get confused these days.   After reading the manual, it sounds as though RailSounds RTR needs a bit more voltage than the old TrainSounds did. But the same suggestions regarding starting/stopping and wheels/rollers still apply.

Good luck in resolving this, and please let us know how it turns out. 

I recently purchased the Lionel Polar Express conventional Berkshire with whistle steam and Railsounds, and have the exact same problem.  Lionel said that the battery harness was not available for that particular sound unit, even though it is a Railsounds unit.  Upon inspection of the soundboard, there are spare sockets, and I wonder if I could make something custom to fit.  Overall the locomotive is great, but the sound dropout when switching directions and the soft start seems primitive given the technology.

i will be doing some diggin on this over the weekend.  i am trying to find a wiring diagram for the tender but it wont be easy to come by.

Neil, you might want to post the 9v battery addition on the electrical board. Those guys are real good at coming up with suggestions.

So if I understand properly this is a JR Berkshire with Railsound RTR....in case I have a Railsound equiped JR Berk (from 2004) this has the 9 volts battery harness...can post pic of the inside tender/ wiring if you like and if it can help.

Wonder if Railsound RTR is just a name change from Trainsound, then the board will be probably different.

lafondue that would be a great if its not too much trouble.  i will take a pic of the board in the tender i have to compare notes.

are you referring to the electrical forum under layouts?

That's correct, mine is a Berkshire Jr with Railsounds RTR, 6-18754.  I'll post a picture of the board to see how it compares.

I'd be interested to see what those extra pots on the whistle steam polar express are for. I have the same engine and was wondering if they might be for TMCC? It will be interesting to see what they are for. 

Here are 2 pics, but a quick look on the Lionel parts list show that yours is fitted with a different board..

Here is the Polar Express with Railsounds RTR.



As you can see J2, J3, J7 and J8 are currently unused. I can probe around to see if any carry a dc vcc voltage under operation.

TrainSounds and RailSounds use different processors.  Railsounds can handle more than one effect at a time.  Trainsounds uses a serial processor and can only handle one sound effect at a time.  I am guessing they dropped the battery to cut production costs (tender/loco doesn't need a hatch/access panel and the "system" will take up less space if a 9 volt battery isn't needed).  Original sound board design was for trains open framed motors that couldn't move below eight volts.

Yes, there's a wealth of knowledge over there. If they can't solve it, they will come up with a work around solution.

Need to remember there was TMCC RailSounds, then Conventional RS that used the same Power SUpply board and a different RS processor.  No command capability.  That is what is shown in Liam tender picture.  Then there was Signal Sounds, and Trainsounds.  I think Conventional RS and TrainSound boards have evolved also, and they are now one piece boards.  The lack of battery is definitely a problem.  Starter set diesel is horrible restarting sounds every direction change.  You may be stuck.  G

Thanks, this is very helpful.  Where could I find a schematic of one of the Railsounds boards?  From that, I should be alble to introduce the battery capability into the RTR circuit.

i have been poking around but can't seem to find a wiring diagram for either tenders.  The supplement downloads all contain older product.  anybody?

You will not find a schematic of the board.  You need to reverse engineer it.  You can find the tender or mother board wiring diagrams on lionels website.  The problem is that you need a shutdown process also.  If the board, chips, software isn't designed for it, I don't think you can just add it.  You maybe able to figure out how to use a capacitor to hold up the DC voltage on the power Supply chip when the AC input goes away.  G

Yea the capacitor might be the way to go.  I have not done alot of homework on it yet but i only assumed that the shutdown sequence was initiated by lack of signal or movement picked up by the hall sensor on the truck.  I only say that because if you pull track voltage then there is no power to allow board to go through shutdown sequence unless there was a battery or capaciter in place already.  To further explain shutdown sequence if i remember correctly there is a shutdown sound sequence of the steam engine letting out steam from what sounds like a bypass valve and then the sounds turn off.  Although now saying that i clearly remember the train doing this sequence when moving really slow with the voltage below 4.75 volts.  Hmm ill have to think about that some.

I'm thinking about patching in a detector circuit to look for the initial track voltage, which would switch the battery into the vcc circuit allowing the sound to begin before the locomotive moves.  The detector circuit would need a timer, which could be realized through caps, to keep the battery connected for a few seconds during directional transitions and shutdown.  Also, proper charging & protection should be introduced to utilize recharge on the battery during regular operation.

All of this could be made on a very small board which connects into the main board.

I am in the process of also adding LEDs for the headlight, classification lights, cab light and firebox, so having an upgraded power system across the range of operations is of great interest.

If this is purely for fitting into a tender which has no electrical connections to the locomotive, then you could just build this circuit and fit it into the main power pickup leads. That way you don't need to worry about connecting to the wrong point on the circuit board.   

i like where this going.  i am getting all giddy with anticipation. 

That's a good idea to consider.  I am going to think about this a bit more and sketch some things out after experimenting on the bench.

Hi again.  I thought a bit further, and this might not be quite so easy, as I had forgotten that the power is AC at that point.  So you'd need to output AC too. This would be somewhat more complex as you'd need an inverter in the circuitry. It would be cool if you could build one though, as it would have many uses.