Polar Express Berk Jr to ERR TMCC Upgrade

Looking good, although I think I'd have used the Cruise Commander, I'm addicted to cruise nowadays.

FWIW, I did mine a few years ago using the Cruise-Lite board that used to be available and the RS Commander.  Both of those are in the tender.  Of course, I used the Chuff-Generator and Super-Chuffer, and I can tell you that the Chuff-Generator should work fine on that tape, I've used even skinnier ones.

I added one of my audio boards to the baggage car to play the Polar Express clips from the movie, I control that with a 4-button key-fob.  The steam engine  has the normal RS Commander steam sounds, I use the small steam for the hooter whistle, seemed right for a Polar Express.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Looking good, although I think I'd have used the Cruise Commander, I'm addicted to cruise nowadays.

FWIW, I did mine a few years ago using the Cruise-Lite board that used to be available and the RS Commander.  Both of those are in the tender.  Of course, I used the Chuff-Generator and Super-Chuffer, and I can tell you that the Chuff-Generator should work fine on that tape, I've used even skinnier ones.

I added one of my audio boards to the baggage car to play the Polar Express clips from the movie, I control that with a 4-button key-fob.  The steam engine  has the normal RS Commander steam sounds, I use the small steam for the hooter whistle, seemed right for a Polar Express.

Thanks John. I was wondering which Railsounds would have been more appropriate. I have a spare Lion Chief board that I was going to try and just use the sounds from. But I think I need a way of tricking it into thinking its moving some way. If I going the Railsound route, I'll be using the 4 pin Lion Chief coupler system.

I think you'll be MUCH happier with the real RailSounds than trying to get the lame LC board working.  I don't even know if it's possible to get the sounds working without is receiving the signal from the remote, my sense is it'll just go "beep...beep...beep".

If you put the boards in the tender, I don't see how you can use the 4-pin connection.  You need two pins for power, two for the motor, one for chuff, one for smoke control, and one for headlight.  You can dispense with the one for the headlight by wiring the Super-Chuffer light input (pin-3) to either the 5V supply or even track power to turn the headlight on all the time.  However, even with that hack, you still need six wires.

I'm not seeing how a DC commander fits into that small space in the engine.  Just a thought, have you considered the Mini-Commander II, it's sufficient for that small locomotive and could live in the locomotive.  However, it can't control the smoke for a full sized smoke unit, so that's a downside.

I think you need to consider an alternate tether, perhaps just add an extra tether using something like the Minatronics Micro-Mini Connectors, I used those for my K-Line Porter TMCC Upgrade.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you put the boards in the tender, I don't see how you can use the 4-pin connection.  You need two pins for power, two for the motor, one for chuff, one for smoke control, and one for headlight. 

John, I took the overall dimensions that 3rd Rail has on the ERR page and in the instructions and measured it out. It should fit.....given those dimensions. It will be cramped but should fit. This is why I said "I hope" in my first post. It should arrive today.  The Conventional tender has power pickups for the whistle that's in the tender, I will use these pickups to power the railsounds board if I go that route. I would only need one wire for Chuff to the railsounds board if I get the DC Commander in the engine. I took out all of the weights and this is where the Commander will go.

Just a quick couple of pictures with the boiler on.

You REALLY do NOT want to count on the wheels and track to share ground between the engine and tender, you MUST have a real wire!  You can get  away with track power, though the closely spaced rollers will be a significant issue over many switches.

With the DC Commander in the engine (still can't believe it'll fit), you don't need a chuff going to the tender, but you do need serial data.  You MUST NOT USE the chuff input on the RS Commander for anything but a totally isolated chuff switch like a reed switch.  The serial data will bring the chuff back to the tender, however you'll have to wire directly to the DC Commander R2LC chuff pin as they didn't bring chuff to the connector.  Why a duplicate antenna connection was more important than the chuff input will forever remain a mystery, at least to me!

If you want electrocouplers and/or directional backup light on the tender, those need a wire as well.

Nice work Chris!

My Mikado Jr with TMCC has the the R2LC on a motherboard along with the DCDR (now Cruise M) in the engine. Helps a lot having the motor where it belongs in the firebox.

Pete

Thanks for the input John. I just got to get the Commander here and see how everything will fit. You are probably correct. It may have to go in the tender. But one can hope....

I know I have that drawing here somewhere, but can you post that R2LC drawing again please.

@Norton posted:

Nice work Chris!

My Mikado Jr with TMCC has the the R2LC on a motherboard along with the DCDR (now Cruise M) in the engine. Helps a lot having the motor where it belongs in the firebox.

Pete

Thanks Pete. We'll see how this goes in the next few days.

@Norton posted:

My Mikado Jr with TMCC has the the R2LC on a motherboard along with the DCDR (now Cruise M) in the engine. Helps a lot having the motor where it belongs in the firebox.

Well, the motor was always in the locomotive, we're talking about the location of the drive board.

Happy New Year everyone!

I have an update and hopefully I'll get GRJ's help here as well. But that's a bit later. I mounted the DC Commander in the chassis this morning. Before I started I removed the PCB from the heatsink so I wouldn't damage it. I originally was going to run the mounting screw in from the bottom, but the chassis boss is too thick. I started drilling from the top on my drill press and I ran out of drill bit. So I opted to just tap the hole with an 8-32 tap as deep as I could. I then drilled out the anchor nut in the heatsink so I could run the screw through it and into the chassis. I mounted the heatsink to the chassis with a small amount of Locktite 242 on the screw threads.

Next I installed the wires into the front of the Commander for the Power and the Brushes.

                                                    *****Update*****

I had to remove the green terminal blocks from the PCB due to clearance reasons. I then soldered the wires directly to the board.

With the PDB roughly re-installed with heatsink insulators between the heatsink and the power transistors, I centered the PCB in the chassis. Then I put the body on to see if it would completely sit on the chassis, it did.

Then I finished wiring up the Commander and the motor. The blue wire is the Chuff wire from the Chuff Generator to pin 17 on the R4LC, chuff input. The switch on the left is the original smoke on-off switch, the switch on the right is now the RUN/PMG switch.

So this now leads me to ask for John's help...I got everything programmed, I used " ENG 25", Set, Aux 1 - 4, and I have no smoke out. Yes, the switch is in the 'on' position. At the 'Feature' position I have 0 volts. I did swap out the R4LC and received the same result. Also, I don't have 5 volts at the smoke motor. Meaning it's not chuffing. There is 5 volts if I go to ground at the motor but the motor isn't running. I have double checked my wiring three times, Did I miss something?

The Rule 17 headlight is operational.

First off, you need to have a load on the triac to have it trigger and output a voltage.  Try connecting a 12-18v incandescent light bulb across the feature output and ground without the smoke unit wiring.  See if that reacts to the smoke command.  If you swapped the R4LC and didn't short anything, I can't see how the R4LC would be bad.  However, if a good bulb doesn't light there, it's most likely the R4LC.

I presume you have checked with a meter the wire that connects to the feature (smoke) output of the DC Commander and verified it's not grounded, but shows the value of the smoke resistor when you read resistance to ground.  If it shows anything else, find out what's wrong there.

Feature to ground reads 20.8 ohms, smoke element value. When I put the 18 volt bulb on the feature to ground and powered it up, it took off like a shot and the bulb was lit. I removed the power and re-applied power and the bulb was out, and never came back on.

Also, Can the triac be read with a meter while its still on the board? If so, how does it read? I know for a fact I didn't short anything out. Always removed power before I did anything.

One last question, There is a pair of jumpers on the Commander board, These jumpers are on the right set of pins, when the "STD" is on the left. I haven't moved these. What are they for?

Thanks

Reprogram the R4LC with AUX1/4 again and see if the bulb lights.  If the locomotive is taking off immediately upon power up, something is very wrong if you're in command mode.

It only took off right after I put the bulb on the feature to ground, then I powered it up. Then I powered down and then back on and nothing.

Will try reprogramming one more time with Aux1/4.

The bulb across the smoke output should not have affected running in any way.  The only purpose was to see if the smoke output worked, and if you could switch it on/off with AUX1/8 and AUX1/9.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The bulb across the smoke output should not have affected running in any way.  The only purpose was to see if the smoke output worked, and if you could switch it on/off with AUX1/8 and AUX1/9.

Ahhh, Great suggestion! It may be turned off. I'll look!

If that doesnt work, I'm going to grab my CSS and see if the R4LC's are working. I still have it apart for mods.

Update:

John...You are Da man! The "feature" was tuned off on both R4LC boards. Once I confirmed both with the bulb, I reconnected the smoke unit and it immediately started smoking. Sorry for the crappy video, but its just to show its working. I also have a bent drive wheel so the engine shakes too much and it doesn't have enough weight since to boiler is off. So it doesn't maintain contact with the rollers too well.

Next up is to wait from my order from Lionel to arrive in a couple of weeks. I will be running 3 wires to the tender, "Serial, AC+, and Common ground".

If you want a backup light and/or electrocoupler, better plan on a couple more wires.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you want a backup light and/or electrocoupler, better plan on a couple more wires.

Nope, basically going to leave it as is. Thanks for the help! Again!

Mine got a backup light, but I didn't bother with the coupler, I figured I wouldn't be uncoupling much anyway.

One last video, assembled. Got to wait on the parts now to complete. Everything but the Railsounds board is in the engine.

Okay, I couldn't help it...The spare PE LionChief board I had is now in the tender. The wiring coming from the engine was removed from the speaker and the spare PE board was connected. There must be a motion sensor of some sort on the board, because I get all the sounds EXCEPT the chuffing sound. Which I'm okay with since I had it turned off anyways cause I find it annoying. I still plan on adding the wires as I stated above in my earlier post for future plans.

I'm not seeing how you connected this to TMCC.

I didn't. I'll use the LionChief remote until I get the railsounds board installed, which I still need to purchase.

In case you're interested, the chuff is generated by an optical chopper that's interrupted by a tab on the smoke plunger linkage.

Thanks John, all that stuff was removed for the conversion.

I have finished my TMCC conversion to my Polar Express for the time being.  With the removal of the Lion Chief board from the engine, I lost the verbal dialog when the engine is in motion. I still have the "This is the Polar Express" and "All Aboard".  I also have the bell and whistle.

I had to hog out a hole in the bottom of the chassis to pass the 4 wires through. These wires are AC common, AC+, The Antenna, and serial data. The serial data will be for a future install of a RailSounds board.

This is the Lion Chief draw bar. The wires left to right are as follows: Serial Data, Antenna, AC+, and AC Common. The small loop in the second and third photos is the serial data wire. I also had to remove the Lion Chief board mount because it was too much and wouldn't allow the body to sit down on the chassis completely.

Then lastly a short video of it running on the track. I hooked this engine to the cars and it was barely able to pull the cars. This engine could stand to use some more weight. I had to remove the large steel weight in order to put the DC Commander in. I also have a bent drive axel that needs replaced and it's on order. Just waiting to Lionel to process the order. It been 2 weeks now.

I have to apologize for the quality of the video. But it shows what it looks like now....

Until next time...