Just bought a K-Line TMCC RS-3 engine on eBay listed as brand new in the box.
Works, but does not respond to TMCC. Only two random times it started up and made sounds, but would not cycle into either direction - the headlight flickering (as if to say - where is the TMCC signal), ever since it just runs in conventional and completely ignores the fact that it's in a TMCC environment...
What part of which board went bad, and what am I looking at for the replacement part?
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I have an E33 that stops running every couple year, and does the blinking headlight trick too...but only when the battery gets low. (I run in conventional though).
The second time it needed a battery, it did it a.few times in a week or so. The very last time, it did not work promptly though. The issue continued even with a new battery.
I've seen very common chips in coin op games "forget" their job for a bit before; removing power for a period was often all that was needed.
So, I just let the E-33 sit unpowered, no battery in it, for 48hrs; then replaced the battery. It ran again and has had no issues since.
Worth a look.
Test 9v's with a load. I forgot and wasted two hours a while back; the battery read 9v on a meter no load. Tested my leds; no problems. Tried to run the whole led array to no avail; so checked each led again. They were fine. Tried the array no dice.
Then I rechecked the voltage. It was now at under 3v.
Just the capacitor charging itself was enough load to drain it from 9v to near nothing, in mere seconds, lol.)
Before doing any replacements I would first try a reprogramming of the engines R2LC... it is in the owners manual for the correct number you'll need.
No battery required to make the engine work in TMCC. Its there only to let sounds continue for a few seconds after shutting down. Flickering headlight usually indicates the TMCC signal is not good. It could be blocked by something on the layout or an antenna wire loose or broken. The board is the last thing to suspect. It could also be the run/program switch shorted out so its always in program mode.
Pete
Like Pete says, the flickering headlight usually indicates poor TMCC signal. Check the antenna wiring closely. If all is right with that wiring, it's quite possible that the R2LC is bad, but I'd suspect the antenna first.
The engine only did the flickering a coupler of times on start up. Now it just runs like a conventional locos. It's as if there's no TMCC guts in her at all...
So frustrating! I've seen this happen before on my Dad's 1995-1996 Rio Grande SD-50 and Wabash P-1 Hudson by Lionel - sat unused for 10 years then just boom, one day - they forgot what TMCC was... but those were very early boards.
Any way to do a hard reset??
This is why I prefer PS1.... you don't get nasty surprises like this. This boards are solid, even 20 years later. 98% of the time.
R2LCs do fail. I have replaced quite a number of them but it just not the first thing to do. Try the simple stuff first then bite the bullet. If you have another TMCC engine you could maybe swap boards before ordering a new one to make sure.
I was running my K-Line RS3 at a show yesterday for about 4 hours straight without a hiccup.
Stuff happens.
Pete
I have healed 2 Hudsons for a friend lately - one Lionel and one MTH - by re-seating the boards. Magical.
Remove and re-seat your boards that are plug-ins. It's probably the radio board (R2LC), of course, as mentioned above. They are available from ERR, Lionel, eBay. Mostly they are reliable, but I have had to replace, I think, 3 in the last 20 years.
Batteries have nothing to do with Lionel Command Control.
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