Legacy signal problem when throttling up or turning on smoke

I would bet the lighting strike did some damage. There have been others with the same issue after a strike. If you have a friend with another base it would be worth having them come over and try theirs.  Swap out the base and power supply and see what happens. 

Adam, I also lost my system to a lighting strike. Not a whole lot you can do other than send in for a hopeful repair. I bought a new system. Like an idiot I still forget to unplug the system during the stormy months.

Rod Miller

Before you go totally down the rabbit hole, can you tell us a little more about the configuration?  What kind of transformer, what else is connected to the track, etc.?

John: Sure, I'm using a Powerhouse 180 which is wired through a TMCC lockon, and of course the standard Legacy base station. The lockon "output" goes into an MTH power distribution block, which then fans out to several drops throughout the mainline, more or less like a star configuration. That's it – no MTH control, no accessories at this time.

Rod: When you say "new system" do you mean the Legacy base station, or locomotives, or both?

Marty: Thanks, I will try to think about some options there. My local train buddy is a conventional runner, but perhaps I can take a locomotive to my LHS for a spin on their test track...

John,

Did all legacy steamers/Engines have the self check for failure? Or,did that come later at some point...?

The self-check came in the versions with the RCMC, in the 2013 timeframe.  The earlier Legacy had the modular electronics, but no monitoring of functions.

That's what I thought. So, possible bad smoke motor?

Try plugging the Legacy base directly into the wall outlet.

Powerstrips have been known to effect the signal in some instances. One side of the signal is transimitted through the ground wiring of the room.

Even if the powerstrip worked before, maybe the lightining damaged it and it now degrades the ground wiring signal.

I believe my locomotives are all older than that -- 2012? Mallet 6-11323, SD80MAC 6-38582. The third I don't have the information handy for.

I just ran a quick test of the smoke on both of them. The Mallet acted a little flaky about starting the main chuff smoke, but I managed to convince it to start and it seemed to function normally. The whistle smoke didn't work at all, however. Strangely, the smoke switches on the locomotive seemed to have no effect.

On the SD80MAC I couldn't get the smoke to run at all, although I could hear the fan running rather noisily.

The mallet uses a rcmc board..so, it has the checking feature.

The Sd also has the rcmc board. So, it also has the checking features.

So, is it flickering or a code pattern like Morse code?

Obviously, my dates are a little off, as Shawn says, those do use the RCMC and should have diagnostics.

Definitely a rapid flickering, not at all like morse code.

The rapid flickering is a signal issue as a rule.  Of course, since it only happens with smoke turned on, I'd be looking at the smoke unit and associated wiring. 

IMTZO. I bought a new Legacy system.

Rod Millet

I know it may be inconvenient, but the obvious first place to start is to run another engine on your layout and to run your engines on another layout.  Then you can start to narrow down the problem.

I wrote the RCMC code, so I can help a bit...

The signal issue you mention will cause the headlight(s) to flicker.  There is no direct "code", or blink pattern for this condition.  No diagnostic data is presented to the user, but the error is logged for Lionel Customer service tools to evaluate. 

Based on your explanation, I would first look at the signal source:  the Legacy Base, the Wall adapter pack, the outlet itself you are plugged into.  (I had an outlet 3rd prong wear out from plugging in and out my base transformer that messed with me a lot some years ago).   Check the U terminal connections at the base and track. 

I don't think all of your locos would go bad at once, unless you were running them when the lightning struck.  This seems to me to be a ground related issue; 3rd prong on the wall adapter to the outlet, to the fuse/Breaker panel, etc.  Could also be that your earth ground on your breaker box could be open.  Lighting can cause opens in any ground return path in your house.  Scary stuff.

When smoke is on, there is more likely a chance a weak TMCC signal presents itself with flickering headlights.  Also, when the drive motor is running the train, same thing.  All of these motors are PWM'd and generate "hash" noise, and can interfere with the 455khz signal recovery.  If the TMCC signal is not strong, the FM receiver on the TMCC signal gets noise pulses from motor current transitions; and the commands are not intelligible to recover, hence the flickering. 

hope this helps.

Thanks for all of the great replies, and it's especially interesting to learn more about how TMCC works, thank you Jon!

I'll find a way to test one or two of them out on another system, maybe take my base station too, see what I can figure out, and report back. (I did try another outlet in the room, no change, so there's one less variable!) Meanwhile, I am making a little progress on scenery, so there is a silver lining [to the thunder bolt].

Adam

Nothing like getting it direct from the source.  

A brief update: I took the SD80MAC and my base station to Legacy Station (my LHS) and they were kind enough to let me try it out on their test track, and compare against their base station. In short, we concluded that the base station was bad and have sent it to Lionel for repair. Two of their base stations worked fine with my locomotive.

Strangely enough my base station worked even worse there – I wasn't able to get my locomotive to respond to the ENG-#-SET reprogramming step at all. Here's hoping for a quick turn-around!

We've had a couple of bases with weak signal output, Lionel usually turns them around pretty quickly.