Question about adding a capacitor to a TMCC board

Are you talking about the sound boards in the tender with a Lionel locomotive with the wireless drawbar?  Have you looked at the YLB - RailSounds Battery Replacement

Thank you for responding John. I noticed the LEDs in the engine flickering and it also seemed to screw up the control of the engine. It would not respond to speed increases and  was acting erratically, it wouldn't speed up and all of a sudden it would take off, also sounds were hit and miss.

What is the specific product number?  Is this a stock locomotive or has it been upgraded?

I upgraded it with an ERR TMCC equipment and Railsound board. I've done another engine but did not have any of these issues.

The locomotive is a Weaver Reading Crusader. All the old electronics have been removed when I installed the new stuff.

I presume the ERR boards are in the tender, right?  For most brass upgrades, I add a pickup to the tender, usually the two rollers on the locomotive don't do the trick.

Your symptoms also suggest maybe antenna issues. Have you made sure the antenna is not grounded and has sufficient length?

I think David is thinking of a large capacitor to power EVERYTHING that is DC inside the engine. I think even a supercapacitor bank might have a problem with that. Maybe a battery, which opens up a new set of issues, but it has been solved, its called 'dead railing', there are people on this forum that do it.

But before you go down either of those rat holes, learn a lesson that was very hard for me to learn. Sometimes its not the center rail; check the outer wheels for grime; check for good connections from the frame to the input of the board.

- postwar F3 with electrocouplers - couplers would not reliably fire - bad ground connection, ran a wire to the frame of the electrocoupler.

Atlas non-powered trying to add LEDs - paint on the frame caused poor connection.

- K-Line EP5 - arrived and barely worked. Cleaned outer wheels with a BRASS wire brush in a Dremel, wiped off some grime on the center roller, and voila, works like champ!

- MTH vista converted to LEDs - turns out ground is through those little springs in the trucks!

The list goes on.

Note on those Dremel wire brushes, uses safety glasses, and sweep up after you are done.

Thank you gentlemen for your responses. I have tried cleaning the roller surfaces with a Skochbite pad but the wire wheel I'm sure would be better. I should have mentioned that when I put the engine and tender on the test rollers and run a wire from the center rail to the pickup collector, the engine seemed to work fine and the LEDs did not flicker. I surmising from this that the issue is between the roller and the pin that rolls on. I do intend to add collectors to the tender and tie them in with the hot coming from the engine also.

@illinoiscentral posted:

I think David is thinking of a large capacitor to power EVERYTHING that is DC inside the engine. I think even a supercapacitor bank might have a problem with that. Maybe a battery, which opens up a new set of issues, but it has been solved, its called 'dead railing', there are people on this forum that do it.

Ain't gonna' happen with the ERR Cruise Commander.  You also aren't going to dead-rail the Cruise Commander, it requires AC power to function.

John, among the "whole new set of issues" is, you have to replace most (all?) of the electronics in the engine with dead railing. I didn't want to spend too much time on something I don't know much about.

TMCC is incompatible with DC power, so dead railing DC is a non-starter.  You are correct, you'll be replacing all the electronics.  Legacy requires AC power as well, but later Legacy engines running in Bluetooth mode can run on DC, so as long as you don't mind using the BlueTooth mode, those could then be battery powered.  LionChief, LionChief Plus will run on DC.  LionChief Plus 2.0 will run on DC in BlueTooth mode.

However, the question comes up, why would I spend the time and money to convert 100+ locomotives to battery power and then have all the issues of maintaining and charging 100+ batteries?  I'm not thinking of fixing something that ain't broken.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

However, the question comes up, why would I spend the time and money to convert 100+ locomotives to battery power and then have all the issues of maintaining and charging 100+ batteries?  I'm not thinking of fixing something that ain't broken.

John,

Very, very well said.

I'd add, to counter another proposed advantage to dead rail, that these conversions wouldn't save me many wires on my layout, only a handful of power feeds to the track.  Power feeds to the accessories, the lighting in the buildings, and all the switches (turnouts) and signals still need old-fashioned wiring, and plenty of it.

I think that I'll watch the migration to dead rail from the sidelines.

Mike

David I don't believe that this is about track power.  Your second post describes classic symptoms of losing the command signal, and defaulting to conventional mode.  I.e., the loco stutters, stops, or takes off at full speed.  Factory Lionel TMCC steam use the boiler handrails as an antenna.  How did you configure your antenna?

Thank you again for everyone's input. To answer Ted, I ran the antenna under the tender and hot glued it to the underside of it.

Under the tender is a very poor place for the antenna, and that likely answers the question of what is going on!

The typical "fix" is to float the tender shell and use that as the antenna.  FWIW, I also upgraded the Weaver Crusader, and the tender shell is the antenna.

Weaver Reading Crusader Locomotive Command Upgrade First Test Run

You can also remove some coal load and run the antenna along the bottom of where the load was, seal the hole you made for the antenna and put the coal back on and glue it

You can, but I find it easier not to screw with the coal load and just use Kapton tape to float the tender shell.  Then I secure it with nylon screws.

Is there a certain mil thickness you find best John?

@David D posted:

Is there a certain mil thickness you find best John?

I use 1.5 and 2.0 mil Kapton, it seems to work fine.  If I'm worried about an irregular surface perhaps compromising my insulation, I just add another layer.

Ok, sounds good. Something I should along with the last question about it, is this material available at the local Ace Hardware type place or do I need to look elsewhere?

@David D posted:

Ok, sounds good. Something I should along with the last question about it, is this material available at the local Ace Hardware type place or do I need to look elsewhere?

No, you can get it on Amazon or ebay

Here's an assortment of widths for $13.  Each role is 108 feet, so they'll last a long time.

Kapton Tape Assortment

Well Happy Easter to all. I'm posting this followup to thank everyone, again, who gave of their time and expertise. I'm happy to report that the Reading Crusader is up and running great. I can't be sure exactly which change took care of the problem but I added a center rail collector to the tender and isolated the tender shell and am using that as the antenna. The upgrades include TMCC controller, Railsounds, John's Super Chuffer also his Chuff Generator and all LED lighting. Two of the more unique features are the skirt/driver lights, made possible by the use of the Chuff Generator, and the multi-colored, flickering LED in the firebox.

David, I think a fair guess would be the change in the antenna.   The "under the tender" antenna was pretty much doomed to create poor TMCC signal reception.

Thank you. Good to know for future projects.