Problem with ERR RS4

Anyone? it seems to me this white noise might be the 4.0 itself.

I've heard this in a couple of the ERR RS kits, but not all of them.  I have to believe it's in the ERR power supply for the RS4 board.  They replace the RS power supply with their own design.

 

I'll be interesting to see if you get a response, I'd like to know as well.

If thats the case, I might just order a new power supply or mother board from Lionel. Still waiting on a response.

 

Mark

Well, I'd give some thought about what you try to replace here.  I tried to use a RS4 board set in an official Lionel sound motherboard with the Cruise Commander, it didn't like it for some reason.  It kept screwing up the Cruise Commander configuration and the locomotive would take off like a rocket when I applied power.  There's only three wires connecting the two systems, but I guess that was three too many.  Unplug the RS plug and the Cruise Commander would run perfectly.

 

I replaced the RS4 board set with the RailSounds Commander and it worked fine.

 

All of this was installed in a tender of a steamer.

 

That experience made me think that the Cruise Commander may have a problem with something about the switching power supply that Lionel uses in the standard RS4 board set.

I have 4 of the ERR boards that came with steam engines I purchased from 3rd Rail.  They all have static, but so do other variations of boards with RS4.  By that I mean that Lionel, Digital Dynamics, and boards installed in steam engines of other manufacturers using RS4, all seem to have the "white noise" static to which you refer.  By working with the manual and remote volume controls I can get the static to a tolerable level.  I think it is inherent in the board and I agree that the "white noise" is an RS4 issue.      

I will say that none of my Legacy locomotives suffer from the same issue.

That's right, it stopped with RS5.

I wonder if there's a possible fix for RS4, I still have a ton of those.

This is the reply I got:

 

I have found white noise to be the rule and not the exception to Railsounds, even
factory. RS5 is probably better; I haven't noticed it, but...

Anyway, I find it all over the place in Lionel-based sound - ERR, TA, factory; I ignore it.
It's kind of the 21st Century version of a buzzing e-unit.

Another reply. This explains it:

 

ERR buys RailSounds 4 from Lionel. If you have other locomotives with Lionel RailSounds 4 , ERR should be comparable. Or maybe your club or a friend has a Lionel RailSounds 4 board. Sometimes people complain and there are faulty circuits in our board. Sometimes people complain because they expect ERR to sound like RailSounds 5 or above. I'm sorry but I can only offer to bench check your boards for you or you may return the ERR parts for a refund"

I played with the volume port a little inside the tender on the board, and some static went away. I guess I am use to RS5, but its not as bad as it was.

Mark

I've turned down the volume on a bunch of them to minimize the noise as well.

I'm glad to see that I'm not alone as I have been so troubled with the static that I actually thought it was something with my layout and not the engines themselves.  I even went so far as to buy an expensive Monster Power line conditioner to see if there was an issue with my power.  I can't believe there isn't a solution to clear out that static in this day and age with so many electronic advancements, regardless of how long RS4 has been around.