Hogwarts Dementors Coach TMCC Upgrade

I hadn't heard of the sound equipped model.  Any possibility of you posting a short video showing off the lighting and sound effects? 

Thanks for sharing,

Fred

Heres one I posted  a few months ago...

Do I need this

Macaroni posted:

Do I need this

Gee, I don't know.  If you aren't interested, what was the purpose of your reply?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I have the Hogwarts set, and I upgraded it to TMCC.  However, I was always very disappointed in the original Dementors coach, it was pretty lame.  The new version is much cooler, great sounds and lighting effects.  One little problem.  It gets annoying if it runs all the time, so I decided to add TMCC switching so I could enable the sounds on demand.  That worked out great, a simple conversion.  One little problem!  When you turn off the power to kill the sounds, the lights are turned off as well!  Since the lighting effects are a big part of the show, I didn't want to separate them from the sound module.  What to do... what to do...

I got it, I'll just add my own lights!  Now it has two sets of lights.  The overhead set comes on when you first power up the car, that's the default for the ERR MiniCommander ACC board.  That's perfect, works like a normal car until it's enabled.  In order to enable it, I just turn on the sound module and turn off the overhead lighting, all by remote control from the TMCC remote.  When it's time to turn off the sound, I can just turn on the overhead lights and turn off the sound module the same way.

Cool beans, so this is what I ended up with.  The only outward change is the RUN/PGM switch for the MiniCommander.

In order to have flicker-free lighting, I used one of my lighting modules to drive the lights.

This is a nice easy conversion and solves the problem of turning off the sound but still having lights.

As always, John, you've come up with another great idea, a great fix, and shared it with us forumites. Could you post a video clip or still photo of the car with its newly installed overhead lights lit? Are they identical in color temp to the coach's o.e.m. special effects lighting? What color LED's did you use, how many are installed and what was your source for them?

On behalf of everyone on this forum, thank you for sharing you expertise and knowledge to help make us better 3 rail model railroads. It's very appreciated!!!

Nice work GRJ (as always) !  I wasn't impressed with the original either.  I added sounds to the original on myself and more lighting to be more movie accurate.

I believe the warm white strips I used are a bit whiter than the three LED's for the special effects.  I didn't see that as an issue as I doubt anyone will take notice when the light show with sound kicks in.  Also, the rest of the set uses the same LED upgrade with the same LED strips, so when they're running without the sound/light effects enabled, they're all consistently lit.  You can see the strips in the pictures in the first post, there are a total of 12 LED's that light the coach with the auxiliary lighting.  There are three LED's in the posts facing up that are used for the special effects that accompany the sounds.

jrmertz posted:

Nice work GRJ (as always) !  I wasn't impressed with the original either.  I added sounds to the original on myself and more lighting to be more movie accurate.

I was planning the same thing, but now with this upgrade, I think I'll just retire the original model.

Here's another video of the sounds and lights in the dark:

Looks cool in the dark.

John;

Great idea.  I am going to try the same with my Lone Ranger sound car.  Having to manually turn the sound on and off is a real pain.  The mini commander sounds like the perfect solution!

Rolland

I like to be able to run them for some time and then sneak in the sound effects.  The Hotbox Reefer is another favorite I've automated, it runs along and suddenly it starts talking and smoking.

I think some spooky smoke wafting out of it would be neat ...

Hmm...  Smoke is a cool idea, and there's plenty of room in the coach.

Maybe a quick mock up before committing. I have it as emerging from around the car somehow vs a roof stack...maybe it wouldn't look right though. Anyway next stop platform 9 3/4.... 

Maybe start with no outlet at all and see where the smoke emerges. 

I was thinking that too but wondered if the smoke woukd deposit on the electronics and eventually cause an issue. 

I was thinking of having a few pipes to the bottom of the car to let the smoke come out from under the car, that would look very cool.   The neat part is that could be separately controlled using the HC2 output of the Mini Commander.  I would have to figure a way to fill the smoke unit without taking the car apart...

a smoke manifold with electronic injector system obviously... (joke)

How about a removable vent stack for the "Loo", your coach does have a head or privy doesn't it?

John, What did you do to make hotbox work on demand? I have 2 of them, and would like to be able to control them.

Dave Garman posted:

How about a removable vent stack for the "Loo", your coach does have a head or privy doesn't it?

Dementors don't have bodily functions.

Ron_S posted:

John, What did you do to make hotbox work on demand? I have 2 of them, and would like to be able to control them.

Same thing, I used the ERR Mini Commander ACC to control them.

John;

It doesn't matter if I want something like this or not.  Your imagination and ingenuity are a blast.  Keep it up.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I have the Hogwarts set, and I upgraded it to TMCC.  However, I was always very disappointed in the original Dementors coach, it was pretty lame.  The new version is much cooler, great sounds and lighting effects.  One little problem.  It gets annoying if it runs all the time, so I decided to add TMCC switching so I could enable the sounds on demand.  That worked out great, a simple conversion.  One little problem!  When you turn off the power to kill the sounds, the lights are turned off as well!  Since the lighting effects are a big part of the show, I didn't want to separate them from the sound module.  What to do... what to do...

I got it, I'll just add my own lights!  Now it has two sets of lights.  The overhead set comes on when you first power up the car, that's the default for the ERR MiniCommander ACC board.  That's perfect, works like a normal car until it's enabled.  In order to enable it, I just turn on the sound module and turn off the overhead lighting, all by remote control from the TMCC remote.  When it's time to turn off the sound, I can just turn on the overhead lights and turn off the sound module the same way.

Cool beans, so this is what I ended up with.  The only outward change is the RUN/PGM switch for the MiniCommander.

In order to have flicker-free lighting, I used one of my lighting modules to drive the lights.

This is a nice easy conversion and solves the problem of turning off the sound but still having lights.

yes, we bought the newer version of the potter horwarts set, added a 2nd dementors sound car, and one additional passenger car to make it a 5 car set. really like the light and sound show which seems to run the animation about every 3 to 4 minutes on our 18 ft and 24 ft trainboard. Our trainboard has some longer runs wich suited this potter set nicely, run with the lionel phone ap. Was our first time using the phone app, ran better in comparison to the mth phone app.