2020 Lionel E9 Sync problem

What you are describing is exactly how I first noticed the problem on my New York Central set. I use momentum setting 5 and when I would reduce throttle to zero in order to have the set slowly roll to a stop from speed the two engines would fight each other, with the rear unit always stopping first —cab light on —while the front engine is still pulling. Only later did I find that I could recreate the problem in motion if I hold down the whistle switch. Now it even happens sometimes at speed without the whistle being activated.

I did some further testing and found on my set it is the A unit that has sound which is the problem.  It doesn’t slow down fast enough.  If I run a train using the A with sound and an SD40-2 instead of the non-sound A the problem persists.  If I run the non-sound A with the SD40-2 the problem disappears.  I also found if I run the two A units in the normal back to back configuration, but run the pair in reverse (the sound unit is now the trailing unit, the problems are exactly reversed.  At momentum settings below 6 the engines fight each other when the engines are accelerated too fast, but they slow down quickly without any issue.

My horn button does not seem to cause any problems, so our two issues are not exactly the same, but may be related.

With mine the more I run it the more it seems it’s the trailing A unit that is malfunctioning...I say that because running at a constant speed the trailing unit will occasionally shut down! Cab light comes on. Then If I just tweak the throttle it comes back to life and starts to catch up to the lead unit.

I have not had the issue with the the horn but I actually did notice the same issue when on a small test track with my ZW-L. I don’t typically quickly increase or decrease speed so when I went to a friends layout with Z-4000’s I didn’t even think about the issue and didn’t notice anything. Surely it’s just something in the new boards that sneaked by Dave. While I hope they find a fix I hate having to ship trains from Kansas, all of the mail carriers are extremely hard on these throughout the shipping process

Yes I have also had some bad experiences shipping back to Lionel. Right now I’m just running the lead unit by itself. By the way, just noticed that Rule 17 doesn’t work. Headlight does not dim when engine stops with Rule 17 on Auto. Also a few of us have noticed an annoying static sound from the sound unit...not during crew talk but all the time.

@zhubl posted:

I have not had the issue with the the horn but I actually did notice the same issue when on a small test track with my ZW-L. I don’t typically quickly increase or decrease speed so when I went to a friends layout with Z-4000’s I didn’t even think about the issue and didn’t notice anything.

When you say you did notice the same issue on the test track, what issue was it?  When you ran the engines on your friend's layout did you not notice anything because you didn't quickly decrease speed?

Well for one I kinda forgot I noticed the issue on the test track. Correct though I never noticed the issue at his layout probably mainly due to that I did not quickly increase or decrease speed. I did hit system halt once but was not next to them when I pressed that.

System halt would have stopped all the motors so you would not have seen the sync issue appear.

Now I'm glad not to have purchased that beautiful set.

Did anyone send their's back to Lionel? If so, what was the outcome?

Thank you in advance.

@Walter Anderson posted:

Now I'm glad not to have purchased that beautiful set.

Did anyone send their's back to Lionel? If so, what was the outcome?

Thank you in advance.

Walter

Great question. It helps us all when folks report back what was done and if it fixed the issue.  We all learn and it makes the search function more valuable.

I don't have any answers but I had these same problems on my Frisco E8's 2033390.   My dealer offered a return-for-refund so I jumped on it.  Regarding the static at low volumes, Lionel has stated that this is normal function.  So they will not accept RA's for the static noise.  I've wanted to purchase at least six different sets of these AA's (E8's, PA's, and Sharks) in the last couple years but have avoided due to the static "feature".

The sync problem I reported in the initial post was corrected by sending the set back to Lionel.  They replaced some of the motors and re-flashed something.  They have run fine ever since.

I was told they couldn't fix the error in the dialog that indicates the train has stopped when the speed drops to slow speed if you are using the sequence control feature (hold down Aux1), but would fix the bug in future engines.  The only other audio "annoyance" is the strange "hee-haw" sound that appears in every diesel engine I have heard since the new Legacy board has been used.  It isn't too bad in the E9s, but an ES44AC I have the noise is loud and frequent.  I heard the noise in Eric's Trains review of the new Verandas so I guess that audio is suppose to be there. Not sure what it is suppose to represent.

Her haw?

Back when we were having problems with the E9s we had more than one thread started.  The link below gives more details about the problems and how Lionel fixed what they could.  Pages 2 and 3 are contain more details about how the sets were fixed.

https://ogrforum.com/...l-e8-problems?page=2