Question on new VL Big Boy whistle.

Odd that the whistle sound doesn't come from the locomotive.  Of course, this is very easy to check, take the tender off the tracks and then blow the whistle.  If it's coming from the engine, you'll hear it.

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?

It definitely should come out of the locomotive and definitely fairly loud. As long as you have raised the volume from the cab remote it should be full volume. You can try a full reset only other thing is possibly adjusting the volume with the LionChief app.

Thx Zachariah. It does come out of both engine and tender, the tender is loud.  Its when I put my ear to engine the whistle is not as loud as Tender. The other sounds from engine are very loud. With both together the whistle seems fine. Have you checked your new big boy to see how yours compare to mind?

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.

Ok did that and you are definitely right the new big boy the engine sounds are no where near loud at all. Just to confirm I was not crazy I put one my original vision big boy and it was as loud as I expected it to be. I don’t know if the lack of a baffle or if the new boards are the cause of this.

Thank you very much Zachariah. I feel better knowing it must be new design. I did put my 2010 Vl challenger on track and the engine was loud like your old big boy.😀👍

@zhubl posted: I don’t know if the lack of a baffle or if the new boards are the cause of this.

The lack of a baffle would certainly cause a reduction in volume.

👍

At the club today whistle definitely seams quieter than the original even with the tender.

On the newer Legacy models you can adjust the whistle and engine sounds separately I think.

It’s 1 and 4 vs. Aux1, 1 and Aux1, 4.

I know you can raise and lower volume with 1 and 4 but didnt know you could do it separately like you said. I’ll have to try it.

Yes Zachariah, that should be much louder. I like a loud whistle. Especially because of engine and chuff sounds.

The whistle should be very loud, the loudest thing that comes out of the locomotive.

The original VL Big Boy has an independent physical volume control. Newer Lionel's do not.

I just read in manual that the newer engines you can lower engine sounds (volume), if you push aux1 and 4 it lowers volume on all engine sounds.  To raise engine sounds volume, push aux1 and 1 So once your moving good and lower engine sounds, you can hear whistle and crew talk great. So you can lower engine sounds separately, which is nice.

Ps this includes the new  VL big boy.

I also thought the whistle seemed a bit quiet. Glad to know it's not just me. The chuffing was shockingly loud I was very pleased with that part. I'll have to try to make the adjustments.

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

@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.

The missing baffle could be a major reason that the sounds are not as loud!  One only has to do a simple bench experiment to see what a huge difference a proper baffle makes to the sound volume and quality!

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!)?

Ok so just for reference here’s some videos of 4014 (fist run VL BB) and 4019 (rerun of VL BB) it’s hard to tell a volume difference you can definitely tell it’s missing some bass.

had to split everything up but I just blocked the IR Teather to listen to just the engine whistle

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.

Great demonstration Zachariah.thanks everyone for all the good feedback.

@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.

For most locomotives like the VL-BB, the calculations for a baffle will be a moot point, the size that is recommended has no chance of fitting inside the locomotive!  Also, most any baffle is way better than no baffle.

The obvious place to start is the part for the 2014 model...

@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.

@Ron Casamento posted:

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

It takes quite a while on the original VL-BB, and I suspect it's the same for the current one.

Thanks Zachariah, I’m a little concerned as I haven’t seen any change in coal load. The engine is pulling about sixteen cars. It has been around layout a fair amount.i guess I’ll have to wait a while to see.

Thanks John.

@Ron Casamento it's definitely slow. I thought mine wasn't working either but it eventually went down. You can test it with the remote but I cannot recall what the buttons are on the CAB1L. It tells you in the manual.

Thanks Billy. I did check it with remote and works fine that way.

@Ron Casamento well that's a good sign I assume

👍👍

@Ron Casamento posted:

Thanks Billy. I did check it with remote and works fine that way.

If the mechanism works in test mode, it's unlikely it's failed.