Menards building noise

I can hear it over the sounds of my trains and it gives me a headache!  I can't handle it.  

The neon uses a ribbon connector. It’s going back. Guess I won’t be buying any more menards buildings. 

I unplugged the ribbon cable and the noise is still there. I was hoping it would go away so I could get another building without the neon.....

Yes it’s off so I assume it goes to both neons. 

I'm almost certain it's this transformer which steps up the low-voltage input to the high-voltage (typically 100V or so) needed to illuminate those "neon" signs.  This is like the whining sound you'd hear in older strobe flash cameras where high voltage was generated.

You're essentially hearing the wire windings vibrating at the frequency of the oscillator circuit - typically several thousand Hz.

Yes, the circuit and/or components could have been designed/specified differently to eliminate the whine but I suspect cost was an issue. 

The board is inside and it’s not easy accessible. Here are the best pictures I could get. 

Circled item above looks like a transformer.  If you have nothing better to do, you can typically press or squeeze the coil part of the transformer and materially affect the volume of the whine.  The transformer should not be hot to the touch.

Of course confirming this is the source of the whine is simply to establish blame (!) ... doesn't solve the problem.

Please see video

stan2004 posted:

Circled item above looks like a transformer.  If you have nothing better to do, you can typically press or squeeze the coil part of the transformer and materially affect the volume of the whine.  The transformer should not be hot to the touch.

Of course confirming this is the source of the whine is simply to establish blame (!) ... doesn't solve the problem.

Pushing on the yellow thing makes the whine louder. Too bad I can’t make it quieter. It’s a shame that this cheap part is causing me to not want this building. 

For once, an advantage to having Tinnitus! I've been told my Menards Buildings and Miller signs make noise. Can't prove it by me...

AmeenTrainGuy posted:

If you are sure you don't want the neon then you could rip the transformer out very carefully. 

First of all I really appreciate the help.

Second I bought a “ready to run” building with the assumption that everything works and there are no annoying sounds. I didn’t spend $100 on a building that I would have to “fix” and possibly screw up the electronics.  As far as I’m concerned menards can have this back. 

About a year ago there was a lot of OGR grousing about the 4.5V DC power adapters Menards was selling for their lighted buildings.  In less than a year, they pulled the products from the shelves, re-designed or found a different supplier, and had new-and-improved adapters on the shelves.

If you get enough customers to speak up, I'd think you could get Menards to at least consider re-designing the inverter circuit for silent operation.  It's not rocket science. 

stan2004 posted:

About a year ago there was a lot of OGR grousing about the 4.5V DC power adapters Menards was selling for their lighted buildings.  In less than a year, they pulled the products from the shelves, re-designed or found a different supplier, and had new-and-improved adapters on the shelves.

If you get enough customers to speak up, I'd think you could get Menards to at least consider re-designing the inverter circuit for silent operation.  It's not rocket science. 

I work too hard to spend my money on inferior products. I speak up with where I spend my money. I can’t believe I’m the only one that can’t stand the whining from this building. 

I have 4 buildings with signs and I have never heard anything, and no I'm not hard of hearing. 

Maybe it is something in your electrical system that is causing the sounds. 

Dave

I heard it in the store also. I thought maybe the train sounds would hide it but nope. 

Did you try Boxing out the Transformer and board?- And don't forget to leave some cooling vents!

Inferior products? Inferior to what? I don't think there is a manufacture out there producing fully assembled and decorated building for the price Menards is. you can go over to the Woodland Scenics built-up line but those are pretty spendy. Unless you have a wealth of board design knowledge and some of the guys on this forum do you are pretty much  stuck with what you have. You could rewire all the LEDs in the bulding to run off the 4.5v DC supply but youll need a bunch of resistors and lots of time or just forget the lights.

I'm in the same boat as Gilly I didn't hear a thing! Lucky for me I guess. I am sorry your not happy, I have 6 Menards buildings and haven't heard anything. including the Morton salt building.

Did you try Boxing out the Transformer and board?- And don't forget to leave some cooling vents!  I did try boxing out the boards with sections of foam.  Didn't make any difference.

 I have 6 Menards buildings and haven't heard anything. including the Morton salt building.  That is interesting.  Did you hear the sound on my video?  I heard that sound on both units I brought home.

TANNER111, as the rest of us older guys are attesting, put the building away for 20 years and then you will be like us...you will not hear a thing. To answer your question, no, I did not hear the noise on your video. To be honest, I thought the sound had been muted. :-(      Never realized that there was a benefit to being an older modeler!

Rick

I must say too, I didn't hear a thing on your video, but, I can't hear myself think sometimes too.. LOL.. I have every building Menards has made on my layout and the only thing that makes noise is the roof vents on some of the models but never heard the of any the signs making ANY noise... Bob

Interesting thread - not sure I'd trust the phone AV to capture the sound like he's hearing it.

Wonder if its just a batch to batch issue on the transformer part?...some resonate/whine, others don't?

Probably be good to have a list of buildings that =might= have this issue...since this can be very off putting for some people.

I'm sure it would drive me insane.

The description reminds me of those little pezio elements you'd put in your barn or garage to keep rodents away - most of the time you couldn't hear it - but sometimes it could be annoying to the point of headache.

Is this a part that the user can swap?(presuming that could help)

I went back and listened to my video and I will admit that I had to crank the volume to hear it.  My video didn't do it justice, but it's there.  When I hear it in person, I get an instant headache.  It goes through me like this cold Chicago weather!  I returned the Morton's building and listened to the Pepsi building.  That one has it too but I don't think it's as bad.  Hard to say for sure since it has the plastic shell around it.  Give me a year.... I may try another menards building to see if this issue gets fixed.  For now I'll focus on other things.

I think the proper term for these signs is electroluminescent (EL) not neon.

I have several Miller Engineering signs and they all have the high frequency whine. It's just the way they are. I can hear it clearly and my doctor says I have some high frequency hearing loss. The only solutions I know of are to crank up the volume on the engines and drown out the annoying sound or just turn them off.

From the pictures it appears the EL driver board is the same on the Menards building as the Miller Engineering driver board. The board should have a pushbutton to change the animation pattern and a slide switch to turn it off. Try to find the slide switch and turn it off.

Ken

All the slide switch does is turn off the animation and change the whine from pulse to constant. The display display stays on. The only way to turn off the whine is to pull the plug. It’s disappointing because it’s a cool building. I’d be fine if only the LEDs worked and the whine was gone but I’m not going to rewire it.

The whine is louder in the last few seconds when showing the girl...about 15 to 20 dB louder.  Here's an audio spectrum plot from the beginning vs. end of the posted video.  The whine is about 2600 Hz and 5200 Hz.

It does NOT have to be this way.  Imagine if your phone charger wall-wart made such a whine...similar technology but a company selling a whining charger would not be long for the world.  Somehow the hobby community has come to accept this whine in EL inverters. 

Tanner, if you look in the bottom of the building you can see a ribbon cable. Let me know if you see it.

Mike, I saw it and I unplugged it from the board.  The noise was still there.  Is that where you were headed?

Yep, thays where I was going. It's the power cord for the signs.

Does anyone have a video of the menards power and light building with the lights on?

Cabinet Bob just put up a drone video with one and the lights were on, if not what you need and can wait till morning I can take one for you!

Thanks Mike.  I found Cabinet Bob's so I'm good.

Interesting.  I don't hear anything from my seven M.E. signs, but the beer sign on my Menards tavern is very annoying.  I think that I'll replace it with a M.E. sign.

I have a high pitched whine from the owl character portion on the Red Owl Store.  It changes when you put the owl into blinking mode.  It is annoying.  At some point I was going to address it.  Busy gluing ballast in place, then track cleaning.  I will pay attention to this as the problem is similar.  I was going to just pop in an LED for constant lighting, eliminating that part of the circuitry if possible.

I just purchased four buildings. The buzz comes from two of them, with the flashing signs. The piggly wiggly was the worst. I had to unplug it after 3 minutes. I wish there was a fix!

@Steven Fou posted:

I just purchased four buildings. The buzz comes from two of them, with the flashing signs. The piggly wiggly was the worst. I had to unplug it after 3 minutes. I wish there was a fix!

There is:  Don't buy them.

This is not a quality control issue, it's simply the best that be done for the money.  (Menard's would have to add cost in order to modify the design to make it quieter.  When that happens you'll be complaining that it's too expensive.)

You're not going to get perfection out of Menards, or anyone else in this business for that matter.  You're asking for far too much.

Just send them back.

Mike

I find this unusual.  I have many fancy Menards buildings with the flashing lights mentioned and don't hear any of the sounds referred to in this blog.  What I do find interesting is that I just received a new CW-80 transformer. No cooling fan to make noise, but when I put my ear to it I heard a buzzing sound.  Put my ear to my other transformer bricks, Lionel and MTH, and they all have that buzzing sound.  Glad that I can't hear it during normal operations and was surprised that they make this sound.

Ron