Lion Chief Plus 2.0 - Hidden features

Yup, it's a TMCC engine for the most part. You also get both crew talk and radio chatter as well. Function 2 and 7 I believe on a CAB 1 or 2 / Legacy remote.

However, these features are not available in the Bluetooth App or universal remote, which is probably why they aren't presented as a top feature.

@Joe Fermani posted:

I was running my new 0-6-0T engine and found some features not documented.  This engine has water loading sounds and coal filling sounds.  Activation of the sounds is the same as legacy engines.  Pressing the R on the remote and holding it triggers the coal loading.  Pressing the 3 button/top right and holding it on the cab1 triggers the water loading sounds.  The engine also supports 3 smoke levels.  This is also listed in the manual.  Pressing the + once gets low smoke, pressing it again, medium smoke, third time and get high smoke.  To turn off the smoke, you have to press - to work your way back down the levels to off.  These little engines are really feature packed at a great price point.

Page 13 of the manual shows the function of the keypad buttons for CAB2 and describes the water filling and coal loading sounds.  Since the unit is to be setup as a "TMCC" engine in the Legacy remote I would suspect a Cab1 would function the same using the same buttons as the instructions show of the CAB2 positions.  Nice catch though.  Not many folks would have tried that!

You are right though Lionel is jamming a lot of functionality in these locomotives.  While a Legacy guy myself, I could see me buying a LC+2.0 engine if it appealed to me where as before I probably would of passed.

Yes, the coal and water sounds are available using the TMCC remote.

The engine doesn't actually support three smoke levels, though the basic control steps through them.  All the three levels output exactly the same power to the smoke resistor.  This does make you wonder if some of the LC+ 2.0 stuff might have smoke volume control.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yes, the coal and water sounds are available using the TMCC remote.

The engine doesn't actually support three smoke levels, though the basic control steps through them.  All the three levels output exactly the same power to the smoke resistor.  This does make you wonder if some of the LC+ 2.0 stuff might have smoke volume control.

An interesting bug I found with the smoke level.  I was bench testing the loc after I replaced the tie rods to fix the badly cut holes in the originals.  I only have a transformer on my bench, so the loc started up in conventional mode.  When I was finished, I put the loc on the layout and started it in command mode.  The smoke was on, I assume because conventional mode turned it on.  In order to turn the smoke off in command, I had to press the minus button (-) button 3 times.  It appears that conventional mode turns the smoke on at the high setting (regardless if the smoke levels actually do anything).  At first I thought there was an issue but then I remembered the smoke levels.  Turning the smoke back on and then off, confirmed it worked with just one press.  I bet that little nugget will confuse some people.

If Lionel took the time to add 3 levels of smoke to the commands and list it in the manual, one would assume they are going to add this feature to LC+2.0 engines at some point.  That would be another very nice feature to have.

@MartyE posted:

You are right though Lionel is jamming a lot of functionality in these locomotives.  While a Legacy guy myself, I could see me buying a LC+2.0 engine if it appealed to me where as before I probably would of passed.

I am a Legacy guy as well.  When I saw the 0-6-0Ts supported TMCC I decided to try one.  I was very impressed with its features and performance.  If Lionel makes any other unique locs with LC+2.0 I won't hesitate to buy one.  Their price point makes them really good bargains.  Its also nice, its just one board inside the loc.  There is no guessing what failed if there is a problem.

I was initially confused when I couldn't turn off smoke with one press, that's when I discovered they had the three-step logic in there.  I had one open, so I measured the power level to the smoke resistor for each step and it didn't change.  I'm guessing they could have put in variable smoke, or they simply screwed it up and meant to put it in there, not sure which.