Looking for a Railsounds board to add to my Lionel 1999 Christmas GP

The kit looks like a standard RS4 audio board and universal power board.  Does your motherboard show room to plug these two boards in.  They are standard parts.  You may not find the chips needed but any RS4 diesel set should bail you out.  Every Lionel tech and other has these in his parts box.  A photo of your motherboard will work looking for help.  You may have a power board already installed.  All the RS Power boards are the same from TMCC and early modular Legacy.

Can you post the engine item number.  I will look at it.  

Your locomotive is set-up to take both the TMCC and/or RailSounds upgrades on the existing motherboard. As Marty mentioned above, the 6-22964 RailSounds upgrade kit consists of a power supply board and a RailSounds 4.0 audio board.

If you can't find the kit under that SKU number, Lionel still has the RS Power Supply in stock (691-RSPR-A00) and hundreds of RS 4 audio boards that would work -- just remember that the CrewTalk/TowerCom announcement will be for whichever board you purchase. If you want to go this route, search on Lionel's website for "RailSounds 4" without the quotes, and any audio board that is 4.0 or 4E will work fine in your locomotive.

TRW

Put it together board by board, not a big deal.

If you use the generic diesel board, you'll have what is in that kit.  As others have said, the power supply is generic to RS3 through RS5.5, and it's still commonly available.  I looked though my board stash and I have several of the Generic Diesel, OEM ALCO, and OEM F3 boards, these would have generic crew talk without engine specific road numbers.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

As others have said, the power supply is generic to RS3 through RS5.5, and it's still commonly available.

One quick correction, John.

The "universal" RailSounds power board is good with RS4 through RS6. It does NOT work with RS3, which kinda renders its universal name incorrect.

TRW

I'm always suspicious of RS6 as it's not compatible with the Lionel Powered Motherboard.  However, you are correct, the generic P/S is in my T1 Duplex with the RS6 board. 

I was under the impression that the universal P/S was compatible with RS3 audio boards.  I thought they just changed from linear regulators to switching regulators for the older RS3 P/S.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I was under the impression that the universal P/S was compatible with RS3 audio boards.  I thought they just changed from linear regulators to switching regulators for the older RS3 P/S.

Besides that, the RS3 power board supplies a separate 12 volt line needed for the RS3 audio board, in addition to the standard 5 volt output.

The RS system from 4.0 forward, including the "universal" power board, only uses and provides the 5 volts.

At least I hope I'm remembering this correctly!

TRW

Could well be, no documentation on what they required.  OTOH, many of the supposedly RS4 boards I have are silk-screened at RS3 Rev. C.  I can assure you both of these boards work fine with the universal P/S.  They are clearly different PCB manufacturing runs, different silkscreen and different copper legends, but certainly seem otherwise identical, see pictures below.  Probably 60-70% of the RS boards I have are the RS3 silkscreen, and they are all perfectly functional in an RS4 socket.

Finally, a comment by Mike Reagan about the history of RailSounds boards seems to suggest that my assumption is correct.

RailSounds 3 was the beginning of the smaller and more compact 24 pin programmable chip system, which has recently become obsolete at Lionel HQ. This continued into RailSounds 4, which was basically identical, but the chip design was slightly altered. 4E had slightly improved TowerCom - it had both "please stand by" and "clear for departure" dialog.

Here's the whole topic: Lionel RailSounds history

So, if those aren't really RS3 boards, what does a real RS3 board look like?

John,

You're right -- I had forgotten about those RS4 audio boards mis-labeled as RS3, but luckily they all have the correct RS4 part number: 691-PCB1-04C. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but there were two manufacturers producing those boards in the US and eventually at least another two in China, so somewhere along the lines some boards were incorrectly screened RS3. But those aren't true RS3 boards.

For the record, this is what a true RS3 audio board looks like:

Unfortunately, there's a fair amount of incorrect information in the thread you reference -- mostly with the earlier versions. As an example, the "two-part" TowerCom with both "stand-by" and "proceed" messages predates RS4E. There's also another variant -- RS5.4 -- that doesn't appear to be covered.

I'm not at a good place at the moment to go through the other thread with a fine-tooth comb, but I'll try to get to it in the coming weeks.

Lastly, apologies to the OP for hijacking his thread.

TRW

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Here's the whole topic: Lionel RailSounds history

 

As I promised a few weeks back, I took a look over the RailSounds History thread that John mentioned above.

You'll find my comments here.

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

The kit looks like a standard RS4 audio board and universal power board.  Does your motherboard show room to plug these two boards in.  They are standard parts.  You may not find the chips needed but any RS4 diesel set should bail you out.  Every Lionel tech and other has these in his parts box.  A photo of your motherboard will work looking for help.  You may have a power board already installed.  All the RS Power boards are the same from TMCC and early modular Legacy.

Can you post the engine item number.  I will look at it.  

Thanks for all of the replies!!    Somehow I neglected to re-visit the post to see the answers.  This is for a 1999 Lionel Christmas GEEP, equipped with the base SignalSounds.  The owner's manual gives me the impression that all I need is the RailSounds board, not a new power board too.  Kinda thought it is a simple... plug-n-play proposition.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you use the generic diesel board, you'll have what is in that kit.  As others have said, the power supply is generic to RS3 through RS5.5, and it's still commonly available.  I looked though my board stash and I have several of the Generic Diesel, OEM ALCO, and OEM F3 boards, these would have generic crew talk without engine specific road numbers.

Thanks, John.  So I would need the RailSounds board AND a power supply board?  (I will have to look at my owners manual again. Thought I only had to add a RailSounds board.)  And you have these available?   I am in the greater Philly area, so perhaps I will try to get in touch with you.  Since I don't venture too far into the technical stuff, all of the photos of the different boards, etc., are kinda getting  me spooked. 

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

Can you post the engine item number.  I will look at it.  

The Lionel No. is 6-18897      LINK to exact product on E-Bay.

Yes, you need the power supply and the RS4 board, the SS board has the power build-in.