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I received my new VL Big Boy. I checked closely and noticed the whistle sound comes out of Tender only, not the engine. I assume that’s correct. I know there are speakers in engine also. I wish the whistle was louder. I have volume all the way up. For those of you that received the new big boy if you could check to see if whistle sounds only come out of Tender. This is not a complaint, just curious. Thanks all.

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Thanks John. My original thought and was wondering should the sound be coming out of engine and Tender. I took off tender and the whistle is also coming out of engine, but is about half the volume of the tender. So the sound does come out on both engine and tender. Not sure why volume on engine whistle is half the volume of tender. I did set volume at highest level. I assume that is the way it is designed?

Zachariah, can you do me a favor. On your new big boy, can you take your tender off track and see if your engine whistle is still loud  without tender on track. That way I know if mine is working correctly. Like I said, the whistle sounds good with tender attached to engine, but engine whistle volume is definitely lower volume than tender With my tender off track the engine whistle’s volume is quite low.. I use cab 1L legacy remote  I did reset like engine like you said. Everything else performs perfectly on unit. I hate to send it back unless I know for sure it’s a problem. Thank you in advance. Ps, the volume is set all the way up with my Legacy cab1L.

@Norton posted:

Given the gazillion smoke units in this thing what are the odds the speaker is the size of an earbud? Who's going to be the first to void the warranty and open it up to see whats in there?

Pete

  Zhubl already opened his up on another thread.

He noticed that this "re release" of the VL bigboy lacks the baffle over speaker in the boiler of the loco that was there on the original VL bigboy.

Certainly with the expansive area underneath the shell could lead to poor sound quality without a chamber over the speaker.

One wonders why it was omitted, space would be the first obvious reason of course.

Last edited by RickO

Good demonstration. Its most noticeable when you block the i.r. in the drawbar.

On the original , the engine sound is nearly as full as the tender. On the new one ,it's rather flat.

Seems there always something Lionel has done in the past that it falls short on in subsequent releases.

On a side note. Your video really shows the significantly increased intensity of the class light LEDs as well.

@Junior posted:

I always wondered how one determines what the proper baffle is. Are we talking the proper length and diameter of a closed end tube (shades of Physics 101!)?

There are lots of calculators online. The size will determine the response of the speaker. Additional, putting a port in the baffle can increase the low frequency response, but you have to be careful of the length and diameter. It will affect the tuning frequency and air velocity.

@rplst8 posted:

There are lots of calculators online. The size will determine the response of the speaker. Additional, putting a port in the baffle can increase the low frequency response, but you have to be careful of the length and diameter. It will affect the tuning frequency and air velocity.

Ah yes....resonance. Now where did I put my high school Physics book..... 🤔

New question on new VL Big Boy. Does anybody know how much run time depletes some or all of the coal load on tender. I have run it for a bit and it doesn’t look like it has moved. The switch is on. I can deplete and fill coal load with cab 1L with no problem.

It varies with the actual load on the locomotive using the “force coupler” (the sensor on the locomotive drawbar

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