This is very cool.  I will have to chec what I have that will take it, and order at least one.

I can already see I'm going to need several of these!

Very nice. Best of luck with your new endeavor.

Bill nice job on the art work. Great job

Bill, Shouldn't that be CHUFFER verses CHUGGER? (Red Bolded)

Tomayto, Tomoto. 

The fingers and the brain are not always in sync.

<GRIN> I know the feeling Bill!

When editing the English/Japanese (Japlish) there are times when it actually looks right but is far from it! When you do it for a living, there are just little continuity issues that just tweak you! or could be the the OCD!

It's the OCD Dennis.

One feature that would have been cool to have is sensor that will shut the fan off if smoke fluid is too low.

Looks like an excellent product, regardless!

Paul, that was discussed, but it would require modification of the smoke unit and additional wiring and expense in the board.  Probably a task very few would undertake, so the extra cost didn't seem justified.  TAS smoke units had a sensor, but they supplied the whole package, the smoke unit and the controller.

Does anyone have a video of one of these installed?

There are two, one by John and one by one of the stores people.  A search should flush them out.

Yep, there was a link above, here's the direct link.  This is to the older version, I'm going to post a video of the enhanced one soon.



Here's a quick bench test of the new board with the enhanced electronics.  This is the one that will be shipping.  You'll notice the chuffs are more distinct, even at high chuff rates.  That was the goal of the circuit improvements.

A question was posed off-line about running this with a conventional locomotive.  As it sits, it requires about 8.5 volts AC to reliably operate.  That's more than the starting voltage for conventional operation.

I did a little experiment and created a voltage doubler circuit, it's just two capacitors and two diodes.  With that circuit powering the Super-Chuffer from track power, I got down as low as my transformer would go, 5.2 VAC, and I still had plenty of voltage on the Super-Chuffer for operation.

Bottom line, it is possible to use this with conventional locomotives, but it needs a small added circuit.  If there were enough interest, I could create an add-on little board that just adds the voltage doubler circuit.  Of course, it's also possible to just buy the two capacitors and diodes and wire it up.

Obviously, for conventional operation, the board would restart whenever you interrupted track power to change directions, but that is probably not a big issue, it initializes pretty quickly and is back in operation.

This would be an add on for Williams Steam Engines. With this we could get rid of the old suethe Smoke units and go for fan driven and puffing with an added fan driven smoke unit.  me personally got tired of replacing the Suethe Smoke units and went for a modified unit put out by another forum member Box Car Bill and they work absolutely flawlessly.  But with that unit the smoke come out like a Protosound 1 or Loco Sound Loco from MTH the more power you put on the track the more it smokes and comes out in a steady stream. with this you can get puffing smoke with very little modification to the engine. I for one am in for a couple of these boards as soon as I can afford them

come on guys lets show an interest in the conventional side of this

For the Cadillac installation, you can add a new RailSounds Commander and get synchronized sounds out of it as well.

What will be involved to install this unit?  Is it easy enough for the average person to do it or do you need special skills?

Very exciting!  Put me down for two of these, can't wait.  

Only for TMCC?  Will there be a version for Legacy engines as well?  

Great and impressive work John.  You set the bar high and the rest of us benefit.  Thanks for your contribution to this hobby.  Your efforts help many of us enhance our experience in 3-rail.  

Getting close to release.  Here's the first 50 back from the assembly house, programmed and ready for testing and packaging.

I've got engines just begging for these!

Jon

Hopefully, next week we can relieve their pain.

I am in for 4 for starters!

Rod

Bill, and John, this is great looking forward to the release of these units

Thanks,

Alex

The idea of running conventional comes up regularly.  As the board is now, it requires around 8.5-9.0 volts of AC to properly run.  That's obviously not all that compatible with conventional operation unless you start out at warp speed.  I sketched out a little voltage doubler circuit that would allow operation with AC voltages down to 4 volts AC.  Just curious how much interest there would be in such a board to solve the issue of running it with a conventional locomotive.  This would be a fairly inexpensive board, probably in the $5-6 range.  I tested this on my bench, and the Super-Chuffer operated down to around 3.5 VAC.

I would be interested, especially for my Williams 4-6-0, but it would have to work conventionally with fairly easy installation.

I guess that depends on what you think is "fairly easy".  

Here's the link I posted previously in this thread, you can look and see how "easy" you think the installation is.

Super-Chuffer Installation Guide

Adding the voltage doubler is just wiring track power to the input and the output to the Super-Chuffer board.

I am in for Two of the doubler Boards as well as two of the super chuffer just as soon as I can afford them

The first lot is just 50 boards until more parts come in, FYI.

Just ordered a couple for my upgrade projects... Can't wait to give them a try!  I really appreciate the effort in bringing an interesting new product to market.

-Dustin

Wow....congrats and best wishes on your product launch!

Peter

It was actually a very interesting project, and I learned a lot doing it.  Never too old to learn new tricks it seems.

I posted some short video shots of the current updated board in this thread, they're on the last page of the thread.

My New Super Chuffer Board Demo

I was thinking about what would be really helpful to those of us who are not so electronically savvy would be a YouTube video of how to install one of these. I believe it would also increase sales.  Asking gunrunner if that is doable?

John,

Just curious, are the wires already attached to the board or must they be added?

Well, I suppose that anything's doable.   I suspect a series of pictures and text would be easier to follow, and probably a lot easier to produce.  Making a good and clear video for something like this is not that easy.

The boards come without wires.  This is so you can either put a header connector on them or direct wire them. 

I just received a couple Super-Chuffer add on boards from Henning's Trains and the board is super indeed. Small actually tiny, wire supplied, and great documentation. And they arrived in just a couple days from the day of the order. Great service.

Thanks for designing this John.

I'll report back when I get to install this in a steamer.

Looking forward to hearing about your install.  Of course, we need video!