Polar Express lost its voice

More likely than not- the failure is in the wiring at the lionchief drawbar connector on the engine side. I fixed 3 of these this week alone after the holiday.

The heatshrink is NOT an effective strain relief as they were assembled and shipped and often the wiring harness is pulled tight causing extra flexing and stress as the drawbar swings.

Yes, the drawbar wiring can short and minimally blow the amplifier IC on the board, or kill the entire board- but first things first- start at the known to fail wiring.

https://ogrforum.com/topic/lio...-lion-chief-set-help

@VT Railroad posted:

A friend was running his Polar Express set on a holiday display.  It has lost its voice. The bluetooth still links up and the speed and direction control work fine. Unfortunately there is no sound. Tested the speaker in the tender and it is working.  Do I need to order a whole new board from Lionel or is there a repair that I can do to the installed board? Thanks.

You said you tested the speaker but did you test the board? Plugging a known good speaker into the direct sound output port of the lionchief board? It is an 8 Ohm speaker and the connector is either JST-PH on pre-bluetooth boards (orange connector is color coded),

JST-PH

or newer Bluetooth boards, they use a smaller pitch connector JST-ZH 1.5mm pin spacing

I use something like this for testing https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FTB281F as it comes prewired with a JST-PH connector.

I buy these pre-crimped and wired JST-ZH connectors

https://www.amazon.com/ZH1-5mm...24AWG/dp/B0DCP5924X/

last, the datasheet for the CE0030B audio amp used on the Lionchief boards.

https://ogrforum.com/fileSendA...ipower%20CE0030B.pdf

Amp location on Lionchief boards is next to the speaker connector

All these years we have seen a high volume of these wire failures and yet Lionel has done NOTHING to improve or fix.

Jim

I tested the speaker and the continuity from the connection to the speaker terminals.  All are fine. Lionel has a replacement board. Question is will the original hand held controller work with the new board.  The set was purchased in 2022.

@VT Railroad posted:

I tested the speaker and the continuity from the connection to the speaker terminals.  All are fine. Lionel has a replacement board. Question is will the original hand held controller work with the new board.  The set was purchased in 2022.

As long as you buy the correct matching board from the original set that then matches the original remote.

So- product number off the box is the best way to ensure that, then use that product number at Lionel support and that parts break down and list matches.