Question for ZW-L owners

I saw your question . I do not own a ZW-L but I do have the initial run of CC diesels and at the club, the z-4000's will not blow the horns consistently stopped or running.At home , I use a ZW and its whistle control does not yield consistent results on Gargraves track. Its better on Fastrack. If i run it conventional through the DCS Variable channel, the DCS handheld with the ZW works every time with either track. Its sort of like the experience you are having with the Z-4000 having to add the Bell Button.

The new ZW-L has a whistle/Horn and Bell buttons so I expect it will operate them on Lionel CC engines. It should operate them from the transformer or from a Legacy remote.

Rom

I have a ZW-L but not the conventional classic diesels.  However, it operates the whistle and bell on ever loco I have tried, including postwar Lionel diesels and steam. It replaced a Z4000 that sometimes would not.

Does the Orbitor set count as an "original CC diesel"?  (I'm not sure the issue that is causing you to state the question in that manner, like if maybe the design changed in later units that would not have the problem you are trying to avoid).

If so, I can try this tonight.

-Dave

Dave,

  Yes the Orbitor set counts. I have it along with the early F3s and Trainmasters and their horns/whistles do not work with the whistle button on the Z4000. I really would appreciate it if you would try your Orbitor set.

Brad,

Just tried the Orbitor engine. 

Conventional mode, using the handles and lever/button for horn/bell works fine.

Legacy Mode, using CAB-2, slider on remote also works the horn/bell just fine.

While this really has nothing to do with the experiment, I did at first think the bell sounded a little odd, but then I realized it was because it's been a long time since I've run a Pulmor growler(which was competing with the sound board)!  I'm convinced the bell is fine, as it sounded perfect in neutral and didn't change in any noticeable way (other than getting lost a little under the growl) when I then set the engine in motion.

Hope this helps.

-Dave

Thanks for doing that Dave. This may inspire me to buy a ZW-L. I don't know what the difference is with the Z4000 that creates this problem.

Brad,

I did a little follow up since you made me curious.

I confirmed that the Z4K I have also will not properly trigger the horn/bell on the Orbitor engine(just to prove to myself you didn't have an odd anomaly on your Z4K).

I then decided to see what would happen when using a TIU (fed by Z4K).  Using the variable channel of the TIU does "fix" whatever is incompatible with the waveform produced by the Z4K alone, as the variable controlled channel of the TIU did let me control the horn and bell properly.

This would be an interesting cross topic on the thread with the scope pics of what the transformers are producing.

-Dave