Legacy cable

Churu, Please let me know how to contact you concerning my visit to Florida at the end of May.

Note that there are issues with connecting the Legacy base to some serial devices, the drive capability of the serial port on the Legacy base is much less than the old TMCC base.  You may need the serial booster that Dale Manquen recently developed to correct this issue.

Pin # 2 is the dat output and pin # 5 is the com. Lionel makes a cable, part # 6-14191 which has the two wires from a db9 plug. So you could make your own with a two wire cable and a male db9 plug. They also have a 3 wire, part # 6-14192, one that has the receive pin #3 which you don't need for this application.

As John says, the drive capability of the Legacy base is limited. It will drive about 3 TPCs or maybe one Z driver and a TPC, but a friend of mine had trouble with even that. Dennis from Z stuff has made comment on what you can do with early drivers to modify the current draw on these driver boards. I made a booster amp for my friend, Shane on the forum, and all works fine now.

Dale M on the forum here is now offering/producing a nice high output booster amp(s), one with a pass thru of the db9 pins, for a very nominal amount of money. Several have bought them and are well pleased.

There has been a great deal of discussion on this topic on the TMCC/Legacy board.

 

I'm not sure what the exact problems are but here is what I had connected to my Legacy base:

2-TPC 300's, 1Action Recorder,1 Accessory Motor Controller, 1 Accessory Switch Controller, 1 Block Power Controller and 1 DZ-2001 Data Wire Driver (original issue).

 

That is a total of seven devices and I never had any issues at all operating my layout with Legacy.

 

I used the cable that came with the Legacy outfit.

Then I guess you don't need the booster amp... yet.

And I doubt if I ever will. My layout is completed as far as track, switches etc. I just need to do some detail work and finish connecting up the lighting in my buildings. Sometimes I think people just make things too complicated.

Certainly, there can be a variation in the samples of TPCs, etc. The setup I spoke of had some success with an older TPC but not a new one. I measured the output of the Legacy base and found that the output pulse height fell to less than half of it's unloaded output when connected to the Z driver and the new TPC. This caused the operation of the TPC to become intermittant. A booster amp fixed this. It's as simple as that. Two layouts, an intermittant problem that has existed ever since my friend has had Legacy, a seemingly variation between the old and new TPCs, the documented difference between the TMCC base and the Legacy base as to drive capability, and the fact that that the Z driver has been modified in response to this issue. Lionel also stated when asked that the Legacy base is capable of driving only three TPCs.

So it's not complicated, but just a simple response to a marginal situation. And, the fact that your mileage may differ, doesn't fix it for these folks.

Trainman9: Will you please be so kind to tell me with what kind of cable (or part #) do you connected seven devices? All I want is connect my Legacy base with my TPC400 and the DZ-2001 Data wire driver What is my problem or I missing something.

The data wire driver is a pass through device that hooks to the cable supplied with the legacy base. To hook up the TPC you will need a command base cable (6-14191). This will daisy chain off the data wire driver and connect to the tpc. Some have had problems with signal output and some have not. Usually the problem is intermittent in the TPC. It will miss some commands. If this happens the fix is Dale Manquen's amplifier.

Ron

First you connect the "Y" cable that came with the Legacy set to the Legacy base. The connector is marked "Legacy Base". Next connect the Data Wire Driver to the Legacy base using the connector marked serial. Then connect the Lionel # 6-14191 Command cable to the Data Wire Driver. Then take the two wires from the Command cable and connect them to the correct terminals on the TPC. From there you can connect additional devices simply using plain two wire cords like telephone wire.

 

Note: If you intend to connect the Action Recorder Controller you will need the three wire Command Cable from Lionel #6-12911 and the ARC needs to be first in line. Everything else daisy chains off of it.

Just thought of something. I think you can just connect the DZ 2001 data wire driver directly to the Legacy base DB9 connector. Then connect the command cable. No need for the Legacy "Y" cable.

 

Am I right??

 

Right

Trainman9: Thank you for the Lionel cable information, I will post the results as soon as I get the cable.