Optical Chuff Switch for Command Upgrades

Hi John,

I remember you mentioned this to me a while back, I really like this idea, and it will be better and more reliable than the reed switch with magnets.

Fantastic work !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alex

John,

You're a creative person with the knowledge to accomplish any electronic project you can dream up!

I'll be giving this a shot on my next upgrade.  Thanks for sharing with all of us.  You're a true asset to this forum.

I like this idea too. Is there a way to power it from whatever TMCC circuits that are already in the engine?

Thanks guys, I hope it works as well for you as it has for me.

It should be pretty straight forward, this is how I've done the last few upgrades, I was tinkering with component values for a spell.  I recently discovered some got a double chuff, and I traced it to uneven reflection on the tape.  The filter cap keeps those small glitches from triggering an extra chuff, that was the last hurdle.  One problem with optics is they are as fast as light, so things that wouldn't upset the magnet and reed switch solution tend to get you with the opto.

Jim, though I haven't tried it, there is 5V power on the R2LC for the wireless tether.  It's on pins 19 & 20, but I don't certify it'll not cause an issue with the chuffs going to the tender.  Since I use these with my Super-Chuffer, I have plenty of 5VDC power available.

I don't use smoke, so, no need for a super-chuffer. 

Sure there is Jim, Rule-17 lighting and cab light control.

With a few components, you can derive 5VDC from track power.  Diode, capacitor, and a little regulator chip.

Great idea!

So, this can give my Lionel 6-28023 traditional K4s 4 chuffs instead of 1 chuff per revolution?

John your the best,  I'll be using this for now on over the reed switch.

John, you are number 1.  Great work.

4 chuffs per revolution means just putting 4 pieces of reflective tape on the driver wheel

make sure they are properly spaced at every 90 degrees of arc

GRJ,

Thank you for posting this.

A couple of questions to help the electronically challenged like me.

How do I tell which pins are 1,2,3 and 4?

Is the 5Volt DC in to pin 1 plus or minus? Where does the other side of the 5Volt circuit connect?

I only see 3 wires connected to the chip. Are you grounding directly from the chip to the chassis?

Thanks guys, hopefully this will be helpful to a few folks struggling with the magnets.

You can make the sound have four chuffs, but nothing short of a smoke unit replacement will give the smoke four chuffs.  That one has a mechanical puffer that's locked to the driver rotation.

Since two of the wires are frame ground, I connect them directly at the encoder and just run a single ground wire.

The 5V is positive, I missed putting the + sign on it to avoid ambiguity.

Here's the base diagram for the reflective opto sensor.

will Hennings be selling these as kits?

I don't know about Hemming's, but perhaps Henning's.

I haven't gotten that far yet, I'm still thinking if there's anything I can do to make the installation more bulletproof.  I'd like to figure out how to make the sensor less sensitive to the distance from the wheel, I have a couple of ideas I'm looking at.  If it requires a bit more circuitry, I may make a tiny PCB to support the effort.  If I did that, I could include the 5V regulator for folks that just want to upgrade to 4-chuffs.

Hi JOHN,

  When I was at your house early this year, I saw a sign in the corner of your shop, "Genius at work".  It is so fitting for you.  Keep up the good work!

How well does it work in light and dark environments, and going from one to the other?  What about passing by bright light sources?  Did you just super glue it to the bottom?  And any issues with longevity of the tape going through switches and other rail guards like bridges and grade crossings?

Also another crazy question, how well would this work to wire two of these in series, one on each engine, for an articulated locomotive?  I ask because all of my semi scale articulated are duel motor, so the engines go in and out of sync visually and I'd love the sound and smoke to match visually.  this would requires a switch on each engine and not just one with 8 marks on the rear engine.  Has anyone tried it with the reed or magnate switches?

I've had no problems with light affecting it, after all it's under the locomotive where it's very unlikely to encounter bright lights.  I've taken a bright LED flashlight and went all around the engine running on rollers trying to throw it off, and it never missed a beat.

I suspect that the results wouldn't be what you desire with two of these both feeding the sound.  First off, the articulated sound sets already have the double chuffs, and they move the second chuff closer and farther from the triggered one to simulate what you're talking about.  If you added two switches, you'd have sixteen chuffs for each rev, and it would sound more like a machine-gun than chuffing.  Finally, when they get close together, the sounds tend to not trigger correctly and so you'd have dropouts in the chuffing which sounds pretty bad.  I also seriously doubt that anyone would actually be able to tell that you'd actually synchronized the chuffs to the wheel position, I think you're proposing a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

I did try this a long time ago with a cab forward and reed switches, it sounded terrible, and I quickly abandoned the idea.

The way this would have to work for satisfactory results would be to send the independent switches to the audio board and actually have it designed to manage the chuffing sounds for the independent cylinder sets.  I seriously doubt that's going to happen any time soon, and it's sure out of the realm of the DIY camp, a manufacturer would have to think this was a good idea and devote considerable resources to the idea.

John, Have you tested this wired directly to pin 17 on the R2LC as well as the Railsounds boards chuff input or just your Super Chuffer?

Pete

Yep, that's how I use it in virtually all of my upgrades.  I rarely use the isolated output of the Super-Chuffer, that's really only needed if you wire directly to the RailSounds board and require the 100% isolated switching.

Except that I noticed it rather quickly on my VL BB.  But I do understand the extra chuffs using the articulate sound set.  But I was mainly thinking about like someone else on the forums id and use the GS-4 sound set on his Cab Forward.  I really like the idea of having the horn and whistle as well as the correct 8 chuffs.  I guess the optic sensor and 8 reflective stickers would work.

Why would they do that?  The GS-4 and Cab Forward's whistles are unique in sound from each other (entirely different pitches) plus the Cab Forward has that distinctive whistle-wheeze sound from the air compressors that pretty much no other engine had and is unmistakeably "Cab Forward".

You're right John, nobody will mistake the cab forward sounds for any other locomotive.

Because you can't get an ERR soundset for the Cab Forward, but they wanted the horn as well as the whistle, and they hated the air compressor sound so they were happy to add a sound set that didn't have it.  That is why they used the GS-4 sound on their Cab Forward.

As for me, I already have a K-Line Big Boy and Allegheny which have the factory articulated sound set, and AFAIK it is the same as the ERR upgrade.  I have a MTH PS-1 equipped Cab Forward that I want to convert to TMCC, and since there is no current method to keep the PS-1 sound set and add TMCC as the companies that offered such abilities are long gone, I thought about doing the same as the other forum member so that I have a locomotive with a different sound set instead of three locomotives that sounded all the same.  I love the MTH PS-1 locomotive sounds as I can tell which locomotive is running just by the sound, and I'd like to be able to do the same once I have them upgraded.

Well, when I upgraded my cab forward, I used the PS/2 upgrade for that reason.  It does have a totally unique sound set, and you're not going to get anything like that with ERR or from Lionel at this point.

Sounds to me that the person in question wasn't aware that there IS a horn sound available on the Cab Forward (both the earlier TMCC and Legacy), virtually identical to the GS4.

Also for what it's worth, the aforementioned TMCC version's compressor sounds were (inaccurately) only heard while at standstill while the Legacy version has it on in motion as well. 

As for specifically addressing the individual hating the compressor sounds, don't know what to say about that, except for the old saying about not accounting for taste, or some people's tastes don't go beyond their tongues, kind of like those that dig the Fantasy Daylight colors on that same locomotive.    

John, I think you are missing that I'm talking about the ERR upgrades, not Lionel factory RailSounds.  The forum member I'm speaking of upgraded, with great detail added, a Williams conventional Cab Forward.  I personally like the compressor sounds for mine, but PS-2 is not something I want to invest in just for sounds, especially since I couldn't even run it due to using Lionel's CW-80 transformers.

Have you had any issues with missing chuffs due to wheel play moving back and forth in curves and the like?  I noted you mention shims to cut down on the wheel play but I really don't think that's an option with 3rdrail engines.  No way no how would I want to pull the wheels off a brass engine and with 3rdrail there's lots of side movement on the drivers.  Two upgrades I plan on doing are 3rdrail engines.

In one upgrade, the wheels moved a lot, and it was causing me a problem.  That's the one I used a shim in to minimize the side-to-side movement.  FWIW, I've done that with the magnets and reed switch as well, the spacing for those is just as critical.

I don't pull the wheels off to install the shim, it's a plastic split washer, I just slip them over the axle.  I don't want to pull the drivers off any steamer, it's never a piece of cake to get everything back on properly.

Again another solution, I would never have thought off.

I suspect that putting shims on an axle with flangeless drivers would minimize any issues with reduced side to side movement causing tracking issues. 

Hi John. Great idea. I might try this on 2 Rail DCC upgrades in place of the chuff cam. Thanks.

I've used the plastic shims a few years back, I had a couple of Legacy diesels that has sufficient slop that on one truck the gears actually were disengaged!  By shimming the wheels, I was able to correct it without disassembling anything.  I make the shims out of bread closure tabs.  I have actually seen a Lionel black shim used in a locomotive similar to what I cut up, but I've never found a part number.

Don't you buy bread at your house?

I make the shims out of bread closure tabs.

That's where I "purchase" them.

 For those that buy bread with twist ties , I've used C and E clips to shim mechanical items without disassembly.

 The frame/wheel gap would serve as the seating slot, and the clip gets a spring washer action going keeping lash at zero until heavy side thrust moves it.

 Grinding a round in a feeler gauge tip will seat it if it's a deep/blind/narrow gap.  

 Despite component crossover matching, carefully searching brands for opto data sheets should yield results for brighter l.e.d.s in both "normal" and infrared light optos, that will work fine.

  I think the initial matching by most companies is often based on the components electrical properties being near exact, over the light transmission/reception. I've seen some opto oriented sales info that was "light detailed", for where lighting conditions would need to be a focus then the circuit is built around that.

 Being a cheapskate I've broken open some cases, and just replaced the led or receiver too.(none as small as those John) 

 White or silver reflectors can even make a difference. I assumed silver would be always be better but on occasion, they definitely preferred white reflectors. 

Ad a counting IC, and it could stop or slow, when the "water or fuel" ran dry. That would be more fun than sound or cruise for me .

At least as long as I don't have to carry the big refill can needed to a nearby station .

There's a balance in using the reflective sensors.  Too much drive and you can't tell the surface of the wheel from the reflective tape.  Part of the selection criteria was coming up with that balance.

Good luck with your counting project, I'll continue on the sound project, I think it has more potential.

John,

Where are you mounting the cap/resistors for your sensor?  I've built two up and I've been able to mount everything to the sensor and shrink tube it for insulation.  I'm using a 6.8v 1uf cap for size.  Hoping the 1.8 volts above 5 is enough to prevent premature failure of the cap.  I'll have to take a few pics and post them.

I run the three wires from under the locomotive and then just shrink wrap the components in-line.  I don't want any more bulk under the frame than I have to have.