curious if many people out there added lights/smoke/sound/cab interiors to their non powered units? If so can we see some pictues?
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I've added smoke, lights, and sound to a number of unpowered units. I get pretty regular requests for added features to dummies.
I have added ERR sound to most my dummy engines.
The Blue MP15 is a dummy with sound, light and couplers controlled by a ERR dummy unit.
The Santa Fe dummy engine has sound, lights and coulpers using a ERR dummy unit also.
BNSF #7791 is a MTH dummy engine with sound, lights from ERR.
I have three other dummy engines with sound and lights with ERR dummy boards.
Also a slug unit with a ERR dummy board operating the front coupler and headlight.
The bad news is ERR stopped making the small $25.00 dummy board. But they have a dummy
board that cost more and I don't think it works with the ERR sound board BUT I maybe wrong.
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You can use a TMCC RCDR from Lionel to handle dummies, they do lights, serial data, and couplers. You can also just sky-wire the R2LC of most any vintage to do the job. Just search for RCDR in the parts and pick one of the TMCC versions. You could use the Legacy models as well, they work fine with TMCC control.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:You can use a TMCC RCDR from Lionel to handle dummies, they do lights, serial data, and couplers. You can also just sky-wire the R2LC of most any vintage to do the job. Just search for RCDR in the parts and pick one of the TMCC versions. You could use the Legacy models as well, they work fine with TMCC control.
I've added TMCC sound to a Williams dummy B unit E7 diesel with a combination of an ERR dummy engine board and Railsounds Commander. ERR does not stock the dummy boards any more and (sorry to reveal my ignorance) I'm not sure if that is the same RCDR component GRJ is referring to.
The ERR dummy boards were easy to set up and would drive the newer Railsounds Commanders whereas the Mini Commander would not - for some reason I never understood.
The RCDR that ERR used to sell is the same board that Lionel has. It was not that well known, but it was an inexpensive alternative to other solutions for dummy locomotives.
One difference with the Lionel option is there are a number of versions of the board with different software. I in general most of them should have similar capabilities. Here's the very sketchy documentation that ERR had for their RCDR.
