Sound in the tender. Currently using two 50 mm drivers, not Fatboys. This is still a work in progress.
Pete
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Lookin' good Pete, looks like you're pretty close to the finish line. 
I have hit a road block John. A few months ago I asked here if a Legacy R4LC could talk to a Railsounds 6 audio board. No one replied. Further reading some of the posts and also doing a lot of work looking at serial data on my scope shows serial data is different between early Legacy and current Legacy.
My R4LC can talk to RS4, RS5, and RS5.5 tenders but not RS6. The tender sees there is serial data present as sounds don't fire up on power up but it doesn't respond to any input. It responds as expected when coupled to a late Legacy engine.
I hope to have a definitive answer by York.
Pete
I see that the two that I have that use the RS6 board both use the RCDR TMCC board, so maybe there's something to your contention. I did get an RS6 board to work with the Legacy R4LC running it as a TMCC locomotive in my test stand.
gunrunnerjohn posted:I see that the two that I have that use the RS6 board both use the RCDR TMCC board, so maybe there's something to your contention. I did get an RS6 board to work with the Legacy R4LC running it as a TMCC locomotive in my test stand.
John, when running in TMCC mode was the R4LC connected by direct wire or through the optical devices used in the wireless tether. All my testing was done with a photodiode monitoring the IR LED. Thats is where I saw a difference in serial data. Interesting the RS 6 made sounds when dumbing down the R4LC instead of the other way around. The possible downside of that approach is giving up 200 speed steps to the motor driver.
The CV now crawls in Legacy mode.
Pete
It was a direct wire, it was on a diesel motherboard. I wonder if you need to invert the serial data?
I built an an inverter on advice from JonZ but it made no difference. Also tried both C02 and C03 R4LCs to no avail. I have a C05 on order. I hope to have my hands on an RCDR in a few weeks as well.
Pete
Well, the RCDR is used in both of the locomotives I have with RS6, so that would appear to be the ticket if the C05 version doesn't work.
Yesterday I tried posting a few more pics of custom parts that went into building this engine. Then my browser crashed 
. I like experimenting and trying different solutions where applicable.
Using optical devices as chuff triggers has been discussed in the past but installing them in most steam engines is rarely easy or reliable. Usually little of the backside of the driver is visible due to the frame design or other components in the way.
This engine lent itself to that approach. The wheels are held on with screws so can come off and be modified and there was plenty of space on the frame to mount a detector.
Here are the drivers before and after. The back was blanked off using .005" styrene and Avery Label material was used as the reflector. The data sheet for the Optek OPB607A sensor actually specified Avery Labels in its examples. Works well and has not skipped a chuff yet. I may even use smaller dots to give better smoke puff definition.
Then I had to make a bracket to hold the optical sensor.
Here is a pic of the bracket installed with sensor (center left) along with the fan smoke bracket made last year. Circuitry to power the detector and drive the fan motor is below smoke unit.
Also I had to make a bracket for the program/run switch and smoke on/off switch. This is mounted to the back of the frame in the pic above.
Pete
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Norton posted:D, it might be possible to use a DC motor with more torque than a Mabuchi RS385 but it would have to be quite short to fit on the existing motor mount. The motor I used is 61mm long. I have another Pittman that is 56mm long. I was hoping that would fit on the existing mount but even that is too long. Maybe someone makes a pancake motor that would fit?
Lionel is selling the frames with wheels for the Vision Hudson that might work. The mounting holes in the rear of the frame are located near the edge of the frame like my mod. You would still have remove the mounting posts in the body and glue in new mounts similar to what I did. It could be done with saws and files. Just take a bit longer.
Vision Hudson Frame.
Pancake motor similar to this.
http://www.maxonmotorusa.com/m...ilterCategory=ecflat
Maxon 200189:
Pete
I have a Lionel 6-18000 Pennsy Scale 0-6-0 Swicher with slope back tender......It too has a Pullmor Motor, and I was wanting to install a can motor. I saw one that was done with the Mabuchi RS 385, and I didn't like the cab being full of motor......
This pan cake motor might be the best deal, where I can still get done what I'm needing done, as well as, having the boiler back head, as I was wanting to do this motor change and back lighting the back head, not un like what 3rd rail does on some of their Steam Locomotives....
I want to thank you for posting your pan cake motor find, and info of where to purchase it from/supplier.........!
Maxon 200189 is the pancake motor part number, I need to replace the Pull Mor.........?.........Thanks Brandy!
Brandy, I just googled pancake motor for the picture. I can't help with a definitive source. One problem you might have is, pancake motors are much larger in diameter than typical cylindrical motors. Even if you find one the same diameter as the Pullmor consider that the Pullmor shaft is off center. The Pancake motor will sit lower.
This site is a great source for motors of all shapes and sizes. See if they have something that will work for you.
Pete
I see another problem to using one of the Maxon Coreless motors. (and possibly brushless). How to drive the things. I don't have any experience with the Brushless versions but I tried to drive a coreless Maxon with an LCRU and a DCRU and they did not play well together. The coreless motors when used with PWM need a much higher pulse frequency than any of the TMCC boards I have tried provide. I have not tried any Legacy driver boards. Has anyone tried driving a coreless motor with Legacy boards ? I have a dozen Maxon motors that are 44mm X 27mm and deliver about 50% more power than a Mabuchi 385 that is the same size. I would love to find a solution to using these with TMCC, Legacy or DCS. I know that the DCC manufacturers have addressed this problem so it can be done.
There is another possibility that I have been thinking about. Use two 385s stacked one on top of the other, or side by side, driving a spur gear on the worm gear shaft. You could play with the ratio between the motors and the spur gear to end up with virtually any final drive ratio you may want. The way Carl Tuveson modifies Flyer locos using a Spur and pinion gear with a Can motor gave me the idea. J
Interesting about Maxon motors. I have used a number of them to repower my HO engines running on straight DC. Haven't tried using them in O gauge stuff. You are right they do make much more power for a given size.
Pete
Pete, looking at a Pancake motor and how the shaft position would cause the lower edge of the motor to sit too close to any trailing truck has a solution. Back to the pinion and spur gear I was talking about you could use such an arrangement to raise the pancake motor up to provide clearance for a trailing truck. Now to get a brushless driver to talk to a R2LC or R4LC. J
JohnActon posted:Pete, looking at a Pancake motor and how the shaft position would cause the lower edge of the motor to sit too close to any trailing truck has a solution. Back to the pinion and spur gear I was talking about you could use such an arrangement to raise the pancake motor up to provide clearance for a trailing truck. Now to get a brushless driver to talk to a R2LC or R4LC. J
For a brushless motor don't you just need DC even if its PWM DC? If so a non Cruise DCDR would work or a DCDS Odyssey board with speed sensor should work. Its the motor driver than matters not the radio board. A Back EMF board would not work.
Pete
Pete -
Impressive upgrade; out of my league. I had forgotten this thread. I'm still wrestling (almost finished...?) with my former "ATSF" Warhorse, Mercury-version Lionel 5344. I'm down to scraping together the decals! Maybe final assembly will occur this week. Going to live with the Pullmor (the more you run it...).
Then maybe a J3a chuff project - right after I look into my suddenly bizarre-running Lionel USRA 2-6-6-2 - it has an early "Odyssey Lurch" gone wild.
Owning a lot means fixing a lot. Another reason to sell a lot.
Thanks D. I was going to followup with some of detail upgrades. I picked up a junk Williams Masterpiece Dreyfuss (Smithsonian sister) and retrieved some detail parts from it. They went into the cab. Being brass I wanted to solder the brake stand to the floor so I extended the apron into the cab. This had to be able to be removed to work on the backhead. This is what I ended up with.
The cab floor had two screw holes in the center section for something (??) so I soldered two screws into the floor for use as studs. Being soldered in I didn't need the screwdriver holes so they were machined off.
Also the backhead is very nicely detailed, especially considering its a mid '90s engine. It got a paint job. Flickering LEDs were added for firebox glow and white LED added for cab light although I may go back to incandescent. I don't care for the light pattern.
Here is a shot of the cab now with curtains thanks to MTH. Window "glass" are plastic microscope cover slips. Figures are Bowser.
The engine now runs smooth and slowly. Smoke output matches MTH's. I hope to pull at least ten 18" heavyweights, preferably 12.
Now to get sound to the tender.
Pete
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So far, so good Pete.
At first glance, I thought this was the silver Commodore, but seeing it's the dark metallic gray one makes this even more interesting. The mods you've done so far - especially the cab - look exquisite, and really make a huge difference on an almost 20 year old locomotive. The scullin disk wheels also look far better than the closed spoked ones.
Thomas, at least you have a choice on the wheels. You could replace these with actual spoke wheels from the 1990 700E. This is actually built on the Silver frame. I swapped bodies with the intention of selling an upgraded Silver one which came with magnetic couplers, wired tether and RS2. I knew I would be gutting the engine and the silver frame was a better choice. This may be sporting roller bearing rods someday. Mario is working with Shapeways to print metal ones. The CV was built with plain bearings and spoke wheels and later upgraded with Disks and roller bearing rods. i don't think the combination of Disks and plain bearing rods ever existed.
Pete
@Brandy re: pancake motor, see this thread:
https://ogrforum.com/...98#75481396439244298
IMO a pancake motor is better suited to the transverse spur-geared locos like the 2036 and 2046. The work shown in the link above is the first time I've actually seen it done (and the motor used is of unknown quality.) Lionel LTI did basically the same thing when they introduced the 18606 in 1986, and I wasn't impressed by the performance of those late 1980s 2-6-4's.
For longitudinally-motored locos like the Hudson and B6 switcher, a "gear head" in front of the motor, or some variation as proposed by John Acton above would be a better way of lowering the shaft, and getting it closer to its original position. If additional gear reduction isn't desired, Pete's use of a double universal joint works great, and he had the skills to make a custom motor mount to hold a Pittman motor at the required angle.
Norton posted:JohnActon posted:Pete, looking at a Pancake motor and how the shaft position would cause the lower edge of the motor to sit too close to any trailing truck has a solution. Back to the pinion and spur gear I was talking about you could use such an arrangement to raise the pancake motor up to provide clearance for a trailing truck. Now to get a brushless driver to talk to a R2LC or R4LC. J
For a brushless motor don't you just need DC even if its PWM DC? If so a non Cruise DCDR would work or a DCDS Odyssey board with speed sensor should work. Its the motor driver than matters not the radio board. A Back EMF board would not work.
Pete
Pete, I have a RC plane brushless motor that uses an outboard driver board. So it will not run on straight DC. There may be brushless motors that have an onboard driver circuit but the pancake motor shown earlier in this discussion has that multi-conductor ribbon leading out makes me think it uses an outboard driver board and getting a TMCC or Legacy radio to communicate with it might be a stumbling block. Some of the drivers for brushless motors have inputs for pwm but whether or not they will speak the same pwm language as TMCC or legacy pwm is a big question mark in my mind. If they will this could be a boon as some of these driver boards for coreless, brushless motors can put out 400W that would allow me to install 4 Maxons in my PS1 Centipede. I think whether the pwm input for these coreless/ brushless motor driver boards might play well with with TMCC or Legacy pwm frequency is a question that Gunrunner might shed some light on. I did not see any info on these boards with pwm frequency specs. J
I haven't looked at those with an eye to using them for TMCC, so I can't offer an intelligent opinion on the suitability without more research. All the brushless motors I used were in aerospace applications, and we used custom driver circuits for them.
I have not verified this with a scope but believe the PWM is 60 or 120hz. The triacs are triggered by line frequency. If you have a scope or frequency counter on a VOM just put it across the motor terminals.
BTW coreless motors are what should work with TMCC/Legacy. Brushless require special drive circuitry to mimic a commutator.
I admit to confusing the two.
Pete
It runs. Still a work in progress but it now runs with most features working with legacy electronics. Owners of Pullmor Hudsons should appreciate how it now runs.
This weekend I will see how many cars it will pull on the club layout.
To complement the train a Tomar CV drumhead was added to the observation car.
The engine is running with a Legacy R4LC. Along the way I discovered the R4LC will not communicate with Railsounds 6 boards. It will talk to RS 5.5 boards so for the moment a Railsounds 5.5 board from a NKP Berk is making the sounds. Good sound except for the crew/tower com which does not match this engine. I hope to find a way to talk to the Vision Hudson board, absolutely correct for 5344. I hope I don't have to use an RCMC to accomplish that.
Stay tuned.
Pete
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Pete, I have a couple of locomotives with RS6, both of them use the RCDR, one is an S02 in the Genset, and the other is an S04 in the Lionmaster T1 Duplex. Apparently, there is some difference in the serial data to the RS6 board.
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Hi Pete
That runs and sounds great , very nicely done!
Alex
Thanks guys. John, I have one RCDR from a recent Legacy 0-8-0. It looks like they made many versions of RCDR. This is what I have. I plan to make connectors for it next week and see what serial data looks like.
If anyone wonders why Lionel doesn't offer Legacy upgrade kits here is one reason. There are scores of versions of all the new boards. Gone are the days of an R2LC and DCDR. One size fits all.
Pete
Norton posted:If anyone wonders why Lionel doesn't offer Legacy upgrade kits here is one reason. There are scores of versions of all the new boards. Gone are the days of an R2LC and DCDR. One size fits all.
My take is that they don't want to compete with their high-end locomotives. The RCMC is universal, just program it up to have a nice assortment of features and you have a Legacy upgrade.
When I started this project my intent was to make this engine pull a prototypical length named passenger train. To me that means a 12 car minimum to maybe 18 cars. I took this engine to FCTT-Hi Railers modular layout today to test it out. I brought 13 cars with me but the setup siding on this layout only allowed 12 cars with the engine and tender.
Here is the train on the ready track.
Just getting underway. Complaints of too much smoke (really) made be turn it down later.
Pete
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Now underway. The engine accelerates rapidly. Only the uneven trackwork keeps it from smooth running as it loses traction on the many dips in the layout. On smooth track typical of a home layout I am pretty confident it could handle 15-16 cars assuming couplers would hold together considering the all diecast tender (including frame) probably weighs as much as three of the cars.
Sorry for the poor video. I have no talent for photography but still trying to learn.
Pete
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Looks great Pete, and that's nice smoke. 
Beautifully exicuted, Pete. Makes me wanna try the same with my Yellow Belly. As designed, the old Pulmor can barely handle 5 or 6 heavyweights without maxing out the throttle....and that's with new ERR electronics.
Still running my B6 with the can motor conversion succesfully. I recently swapped out its CC in the tender and stuffed CC Lite into the boiler.
Bruce e
Pete,
All this work is fantastic. It’s so amazing to see an already great locomotive made borderline perfect. Excellent smoke, speed control and strength.
Looks like the Pittman mods really proved its worth. I don’t normally pull more than 6 or 7 passenger cars, but I can agree a prototypical consist like that is far more impressive.
I am okay with the RailSounds choice here since the chip doesn’t sound too different from the 6 chime used on the NYC. Added to the fact finding NYC steam RS chips are especially hard...
And Bruce, are your passenger cars still fitted with incandescent bulbs or do they have LED lighting? I have my 18005 scale Hudson pull 6 Lionel heavyweight cars fine when I changed to the LED’s. That being said, changing from Pullmor to can motor also reduces the voltage draw significantly - something I need to do with my Yellowbelly, Vanderbilt, and Mercury 5344. Though with ERR stuff in uncertain future, that could be halted for awhile, but that’s another story...
Wow fantastic work Pete!
Just a thought, your the expert but what about the sounds from the first legacy 4-6-0 #6-11150?
It has the same whistle as the VL Hudson but uses the earlier electronics.
Here's video (not mine) for reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1n6yVfs8Vfk
Rick, That board would have been my first choice for a RS 5.5 board if Lionel offered it but they only show a handful of steam 5.5 boards for sale and most are for articulated engines. I actually used that tender to verify my engine was putting out good serial data from the drawbar as I was only getting silence from the Vision Hudson RS6 board.
I intend to press on until I can use the Vision Hudson Railsounds. I think my best bet is in replacing the R4LC with a RCDR as John points out they will drive RS6. Many trade offs though. I am using the triac on the R4LC to drive the smoke resistor. The RCDR likely requires an AC regulator. I try to avoid those as they are always a problem area I prefer to keep it as simple as possible at least in the electronic side.
This model of 5344 is becoming very much like the prototype in that its a testbed for different ideas.
I briefy mentioned earlier in the thread that I had acquired a damaged Williams Masterpiece Dreyfuss. One reason was for the roller bearing rods. Being metric they didn't fit the CV but I plan to first install the RCDR and BEMC in this chassis.
Who knows, it may end up under the CV shell yet. Its certainly light years ahead in detail.
Pete
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You get the RS6 card from the VL hudson to work? Or not yet.
Matt, its on the back burner now that is summer time. Little time for trains but I will get it to work if I have get an RCMC. I hope I don't have to go that route.
Pete
Pete, Did you try a fit of the Vision Hudson frame under the CV shell? I was going to attempt it this winter. Thanks!
I didn't Rob. I suspect the body would still have to modified but it would still require less machine work. I have a Gray Vision Hudson I considered doing this with but that would be a much costlier deal. The extra frame and wheels cost me 10 bucks so no worries if I messed up.
Another less expensive option I may have considered if they were available when I started this is one of Smithsonian Hudson Chassis that are showing up on eBay now. That would have the best detail by far.
Thinking back I think one reason I nixed using the Vision chassis is the cylinders would have to be shaved for the body to fit just like Lionel did to the CV chassis.
This is the CV chassis:
Pete
Pete, I over looked this entire thread. Ive always wanted to do exactly what you did. Now. I know it can be done.
