Lionel LionChief 0-8-0 Steam Locomotive bell sound not working when all other sounds work fine

No, there are not separate wires for separate sounds in Lionchief.

My advice- use the Lionchief app to connect to the engine and this may show that bell sounds is turned down.

The only 2 reasons I can some up with- remote bell button not working or again, via the lionchief app, one can accidentally turn down specific sounds.

@Vernon Barry posted:

You click on the speaker icon from the home page when connected

If it still doesn't work, then probably needs to go back to Lionel.

https://www.lionelsupport.com/warranty

@Team Kavanagh posted:

1.) When all the sounds stopped in December 2022 due to the wiring connection issue; could it have partially damage the bell sound on the circuit board in the tender? There are NO circuit boards in this Lionchief tender to damage. There is only one Lionchief control board that both controls the engine and makes the sounds across the 2 wires in the drawbar to the speaker in the tender. Highly unlikely to only have damaged the bell sound but yet everything else survived.

2.) Is the "bell sound" part of a specific wire inside the tender connector? NO, just a speaker that plays all sounds in the tender. So no cannot be a wire.

3.) Are there multiple wires, one for each specific sound? No, as stated, nothing in the tender but a lone speaker connected by 2 wires to the engine. If either wire fails you get NO sounds, not just bell sound.

We are just interested in learning why the "bell sound" is not working when all the other sounds work fine.

Again, either the store or someone may have used a Lionchief app to the engine during testing and repair and that could accidentally turn down only bell sounds and leave all other sounds up, or the command is never being sent because the remote has a damaged button specific to sending the bell command.

But generally no, I have not seen a failure where bell sound only was damaged in a Lionchief board, but all other sounds worked.

Good Morning Vernon,

First and foremost; thank you for your prompt reply!  It was great to see your name again!  Hope that 2023 has been a good year for you and your family.

Second, our family thinks you are the OGR Forum "GOAT - OTE!!!"   Greatest Of All Time - O Gauge Train Expert!

Although we owned a very small slab ranch home and dream about having an extra room and/or basement or even a garage to build a traditional model railroad layout, its always a fun time of the year to get the boxes of O Gauge model trains out of storage, set up the plywood base, the track layout, and then operate the trains.

John helped with an idea to design a different track pattern under the Christmas Tree for 2023.  It really is applying the "science, technology, engineering, math" to determine type of manual switches, curve radius, size length of straight tracks to make it all work!   Once again we designed two functional ovals, and added a new full operational full siding with the addition of three new manual switches (right hand) and more track sections.  Lionel FastTrack can be expensive. (Its all fun though.)

Anyway, your answer was spot on the mark!  We drove to Charles Ro Supply Lionel Dealer in Malden, MA for more track sections and the sales associate did notice the wire harness connector was backwards (upside down) between the LionChief 0-8-0 Reading engine & tender. Thanks to Paul, James, & Michael!  Those three and Butch are helpful people to talk with at the Charles Ro store.

The bell sound volume had been lowered all the way to quiet last Christmas on the app.  I'm not a techie, and only use the controller, but Anne (wife) & John (our son) had been using the app last December before we placed the engine off-line after reading your advice about the wire harness.

All three Lionel LionChief engines are working smoothly!  As mentioned its a simple, enjoyable time spent together operating the O Gauge trains.  John likes thinking, and operating the trains into the siding, making different freight set-ups, and listening to the trains roll around the tree.  We learned this year about the "scale" and "traditional" size Lionel train cars.  Holy molly, the "scale" size are a lot larger compared to the "traditional" size cars.  We keep the two sizes separate as only have three "scale" cars (two coal hoppers and a tanker) we run behind the 44 Tonner Santa Fe 463 engine.

Thanks again Vernon!  Have a safe, relaxing, healthy, enjoyable 2024!  Merry Christmas!

Sincerely,

Team Kavanagh of Maynard, Massachusetts