Improving Lionel Railsounds Volume

TMCC audio and audio power boards can provide plenty of volume, actually louder that the current Railsounds lite IMO. The problem is the small speaker. Not sure there are many that will fit there but I would start at place like Parts Express searching on their mini speakers and look for the ones with highest sensitivity. That is a measure of power in vs volume out measured in db. The higher number the louder for 1 watt in.

Pete

You can use an amplifier, but there's a very important DON'T!  Both speaker leads MUST be isolated from frame ground, so many of the mini-amplifiers will not be suitable.  You will probably have to find a totally isolated power supply for the amplifier for this to work.  Finding an isolated P/S with sufficient power that runs off track power will be a bit of a challenge.

My recommendation is to consider changing speakers.  The RailSounds boards are capable of good volume with the correct speakers.  It would be useful to know exactly what models were dealing with as well.

Did you try swapping the sound boards?  Maybe the particular sound set you're using isn't as loud as others.  Do the sound boards in the problem locomotives have the proper volume in one of the other locomotives?  If so, I'd be looking at the speakers.

Sorry it took so long to get back, thanks for the help, I got it worked out. Mike

Hello, I am presently troubleshooting the non-powered A-Unit electro coupler not working on my Lionel 6-18166 FT-AA Diesel Locomotive.

About a year ago I did a Cruise Commander M install that included the compliant 8ohms electro coupler in the Non-Powered A-Unit. The coupler worked for months without any issues before I shelved the locomotive. The locomotive's motherboard (691-PCB1-075 Rev B) included provisions for a front and rear coupler. The locomotive when purchased, has an active 8.9ohms electro coupler installed on the front of the powered a-unit.

Recently, I placed the locomotive on the track and powered up, all systems worked except the 8ohms coupler in the non-powered a-unit. I swapped out the radio board with two known good radio boards (R2LC-C08 & R4LC-C08) to no avail. I then tested the output voltage of the front and rear coupler on the mother board with my multimeter. The momentary test results read approximately 5.8 volts when the front coupler was fired and 1.6 volts when the non-powered unit coupler was fired.

I also replaced the troubled non-powered unit coupler with two known good couplers and the results were negative.

Any thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Disregard, I just noticed the two radio Boards that I was using for testing came from the repair parts bin. I replaced with a third board and the A-Unit  coupler is fine. Thanks again, Mike

Hello, I'm looking at Digikey's  website to purchase the Triac's for Lionel R2LC-C08 radio board, including the one for the smoke unit. Two of the triac's were listed as obsolete on Digikey's website, I don't know where to go from there. Also, there's one near the two can capacitors with markings LM78L05, what is the purpose of this particular triac? Thanks, Mike

The LM78L05 is the 5V regulator, it's not a triac.

Plenty of the lighting and coupler triacs at Digikey: MAC97A8 at Digikey

Still a few of these for the smoke as well: T2232BG at Digikey

Mouser has quite a few of the smoke triacs: T2232BG at Mouser

There are obviously other places that have them, Aliexpress comes to mind.