Lionel 6-18135 NYC Century Club diesel

Secarider,

       You did not include the Lionel Part number in you post but I am guessing you have a AA set of F units or FA units or Sharks. I have the Century Club AA set of PRR Sharks where both units are powered and have full TMCC sounds. If you are running them as a train where each A unit has a different ID number in command control only the leading A unit will have sounds (horn and bell). If you want the horn and bell to be present in both units then give them the same ID number. One unit should always start in forward so that is the lead A unit, the one that always starts in reverse is the trailing unit. When you blow the horn or ring the bell both units will have the full sound package.

      Give it a try only takes one unit to be reprogrammed (the trailing unit)

JohnB

Do the other TMCC functions in your dummy unit work, namely the front coupler and headlight?

If they do, then try reseating the sound boards. If you still don't have any luck, reseat the two chips on the RailSounds 3 board, but only with the correct PLCC chip extractor.

If the other TMCC functions don't work, then the problem is likely with the R2LC radio board inside. Double-check by trying in conventional mode -- if you can get the horn and bell to work with your transformer, chances are the problem is the R2LC.

TRW

I have tried to pull the 3 boards of the mother board, along with all the plugs. Just incase the connections got oxidized through the years, that did not help.  Where can you purchase the PLCC chip extractor ?  And does anyone know where you can purchase the R2LC boards for these old sets.  The set is the 6-18135 NYC F3 diesels, the 38107 non powered diesel is not working correctly. Thank you for responding.

These two questions are important to correctly identify the problem...

Do the front coupler and headlight work using TMCC?

And does the sound system, including the horn and bell, work OK in conventional?

TRW

The front coupler and headlight on the non powered unit work intermittently. They work most the time but there was a couple times that they did not respond either.  I will have to get my Command Set back out and reprogram it for conventional.

There’s no such thing as reprogramming for conventional. You simply unplug your command base and then power up the unit. Your loco will look for the signal for a few seconds and then default to conventional.

First test the sound system in conventional with the horn and bell to verify proper operation  

if you’re getting intermittent operation under TMCC, there are a few other things to try.

1) Verify that you can control a different loco properly via TMCC to rule out systemic issues. Your powered unit will be fine for testing.

2) Confirm that the antenna is attached to the underside of the shell, and that it is plugged into the motherboard.

3) Refresh my memory… does the R2LC board have a metal box with an opening on top (a tuner coil) in the upper left corner? If so, carefully adjust that with a flat blade screw driver by first moving it about 1/8 of a turn in one direction and then back to where it was previously. Don’t force it if it doesn’t want to move. Reinstall the board and report your findings.

TRW

This set was moisture damaged. The box to the non powered unit especially. There is nothing wrong with my Legacy or Command Control systems. I took the unit back apart,and pulled all the boards again. The R2LC board had evidence  of mildew on the back of it. I used tuner cleaner on all the board contacts. And plugged them in, and unplugged the a few times to self clean. And pulled all the plugs again to self clean. The antenna is fine and it will accept programming. The headlight and coupler works. The diesel engine sound works in Command and conventional. The horn works in conventional only with my ZW transformer. I could not test the bell. I am assuming that either the R2LC board is damaged or the sound chips need to be removed and clean the contacts. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN BUY THE TOOL TO REMOVE THE SOUND CHIPS. Thank you guys for all your input.

I also turned the tuner coil back and forth, it turned freely. I marked the housing so I could put it back exactly where it was when I started.

Search on eBay for a PLCC chip extractor. You can find them for less than $5 from China or a bit over $5 from the US. I'd post a link but I don't believe that's allowed.

Once you have the extractor in hand, *carefully* remove the chips on the RailSounds audio board, letting the extractor do most of the work. Give the contacts a quick spritz of your tuner cleaner, and reinstall, taking care to make sure the chips are in the same orientation that they were in originally.

TRW

Thank you very much for all your advice. I will order one and try that as soon as possible. I will post my results afterwards.  It's worth a shot, I wanted one of the extractor tools anyway.

Secarider,

     How are you running these engines in command control, as a train or as an engine? What ID #s are you using for each A unit?

JohnB

Does anyone have a R2LC board for a 6-38107 non powered F3 locomotive. From the 6-18135 NYC Century Club set they would be willing to sell.

John,

I programmed them both at the same time as per the instructions, in Command Control as engines. The same way I did my Chesapeake and Ohio set, and they work perfectly. The non powered unit definitely has electronic issues. As previously stated, this set was exposed to moisture. There was dried up mildew inside of the box of the non powered unit. And there was even mildew on the back of the R2LC board.

Following up with this post. I used a chip extractor,and pulled all the chips. I cleaned the sockets and the chip contacts. The non powered unit is still the same. Headlight and cab light will turn on and off. The couple works, as does the diesel sound. The horn and bell will not function. I assume probably the R2LC board , or one of the other boards does not function properly.  Thank you all for your suggestions

Have you tried a reset/restore of the R2LC? The correct code is a 6.

If the above doesn't work, my guess is that the sound board isn't seeing the serial line from the R2LC. Problem could be the R2LC, the sound board, or the motherboard that connects everything.

I'd recommend trying to identify the specific problem before purchasing boards blindly. The best way to do this is to swap boards from a loco that you know works. Just about any R2LC will work (C6-C13, and make sure to reset/restore to a 6) and while that loco is RailSounds 3, you can substitute RailSounds 4 boards in their place but you MUST replace both the RailSounds and power supply boards at the same time.

TRW

TRW thank you very much for your response. This set came used with no manual. I downloaded the manual from Lionel which showed a Sante-Fe instead of the NYC. And I did not see it listed anywhere in the manual how to reset the R2LC. That was the first thing I thought to do, but all it showed was how to program the pair. I pressed Engine 1 set  Aux 1 then 6, an the horn sounded. I shut them off put them back in run and the bell, horn and crew talk now work in Command Control. I'm like really I thought for sure a board had to have burned out or something. Because when I first programmed them it worked for a minute. As soon as I pressed crew talk, the bell and horn stopped working. And the crew talk never came on at all. So that's awesome

Glad to hear everything worked out.

TRW