railsounds chips

I have swapped two generic RS4 chips out for two N&W specific chips. They were both purchased from Lionel as spare parts.

In both cases, after the swap, the engines would not run. My friend Kanawaha had to do a TMCC feaure reset on these engines to get them to run again. For whatever reason, they didn't "know" that they were a steam engine. After the reset, perfect. No problems.

If you have TMCC and know what you're doing, go for it. Otherwise I'd suggest leaving it alone.

Gilly

Lionel will sell any chip you want.  Email them and provide the information. 

AFAIK, you can't buy the Legacy sounds without a trade-in, unless that's changed recently.  They have a lot of the RS4 boards for specific locomotives for sale.

Lionel is selling Railsounds 4 boards. The main difference between a generic and specific board is a mention of the engine cab number in the tower com. You might get a different whistle or horn as well. Crew talk is still garbled. 

Unless your engine has the same cab number as what the board was programed for I am not sure it would be an improvement.

Railsounds 4 came in two flavors. The original is listed simply as Railsounds 4. The later ones with improved chuff sounds and whistles are listed as RS4E. RS4E will give improved quality even if it doesn't have a specific cab number for your engine.

Ironic now that many of the new Legacy boards are generic with no cab number or railroad referenced.

Pete

Making RS4 sound changes has been a recent project for me, and John is correct, that without begging, the Legacy Railsounds have not been for individual sale, but there are plenty of RS4, RS4E, RS4.5 and RS5 boards for sale.

Here's some of the swaps that I did: Generic versus Specific Railsounds.

I have had the best luck just swapping the PIC and ROM chips, using an extractor, between the boards as not all RS boards work with all radio / RS power boards.

Good luck!  Its a fun trip and well worth it.  I liken it to instant gratification; no paint to dry or glue to set.

My favorite swap was taking out the "generic" sounds from an Atlas GP35 and adding "specific" sounds (albeit from an UP SD40; and yes I know it's a turbocharged 645).

Thanks,

- Mario

I was not aware that RS5.0 boards with RS chips were being offered for sale without a swap out.

A handful of them showed up, but for the most part I suspect you are correct.

Mario that is weird about not working, because the RS Power board is generic and the same all the way through early component Legacy sounds.  The base board of RS for the early stuff also.  Now R4LC and R2LC operate with different serial data code, so mixing and matching TMCC with Legacy can cause issues.  Mixing a RS 4.0 will give some issues if trying to run on R4LC.  It works but with quirks and other stability issues.  I tried it.  G

I have swapped a couple of RS4 chips into RS5 (to correct a whistle that

I don't like, and to eliminate the syncopated chuff on a compound, which is wrong) steam locos as a test; unfortunately all was not well. The locos ran fine (no surprise there), and the sounds were what I was looking for, but the backup light stayed on and the Electrocoupler would not fire (sound, yes; solenoid, no). So, no go.

RS4 to RS4 swaps have always just been drop-ins, so far.

Anyway, never did any Legacy fiddling - I have a couple only, and they are fine.

=========

Still waiting for the Cool Ranch flavored RS Chips jokes. Too low-brow for this crowd?

Nah - I've been on this Forum too long to fall for that. 

Anybody know if an RS5 board will work with an older TMCC system with either a Lionel motherboard or a TAS board? I've got a couple of old Weaver Hiawathas that would probably sound better with the RS5 sounds out of the Lionel Hiawatha. 

I have a RS5 board in my TMCC test set, it uses a standard RS power supply and an R2LC-C08.  Works just fine.

I'm confused about GGG's statement about mixing an R4LC with standard RS4 audio boards, that's always worked fine for me.  ERR supplies the R4LC standard with their products, and they interface seamlessly with RS4 boards.  Obviously, if you have later firmware in the R4LC, say a Legacy set, that might be an issue.

OTOH, I just popped a Legacy R4LC-S03 and a RS4 audio board from an SP 2685 in my testset and it runs fine with my old CAB1/BASE1 on the test bench.

i have a TMCC engine from 2003.  that is likely to be RS4, right?  the catalog description does not make a distinction, which further leads me to conclude RS4.  what are the conditions for me to get a replacement sound chip (assuming they have it)?

Best to contact Lionel directly and see what you can do.  I don't think getting a RS5 or later is going to be all that easy.

My experience mirrors GRJ's. I have swapped RS4 and RS5 boards, no problems. Same with R2LCs and R4LCs, at least the common ones in pre legacy engines.

If TAS has railsounds it would RS4. I don't think they ever made their own audio systems and no 3rd parties got Lionel's RS5. ERR is supplying their RS 5 boards now to 3rd parties and that is also an option for anyone here. Its just not quite plug and play like swapping a Lionel RS5 for a Lionel RS4. Not much more difficult though.

Pete

I just want to replace what is there, gunrunner. The chip is fried. 

Forest, contact Lionel and they will sell you what you need.  Lionel does sell these.  Mike Reagan made that change about two years ago.  This is not just for the tech guys.  They will have your chip.  What chip do you need?  I am sure many forum members will have what you want.

FYI, the Railsounds power board is the same from RS4 through early Legacy with the modular boards. 

Marty, can you get any RS5 chips?  How about the Legacy ones?

Marty,  I need the sound chip for the Alco PA 6-14579 that was in the Anniversary Set 6-31712.

i don't think I can contact them until 8/1. 

Your audio board part number is 691RS4E02C.  Call Lionel and use this board number and tell them what chip you need.  John, RS5 and Legacy can be ordered by a Tech and you know a guy.

Thanks!

Does any one know off the top whether Lionel ever produced a chip replicating, more or less, the sound of the Baldwin 608 SC prime mover? I have three of the MTH units with original Proto-Sounds; I want to convert them to TMCC but like the MTH engine sound.

John, The R4LC your talking about is really a R2LC.  Try a Legacy R4LC in an operating engine on the layout.  When I did this with a RS 4.0 wire tethered unit, the sounds would occasionally mute on their own.  Believe it must be the difference between 8 bit and 9 bit serial data.  It is workable but with quirks.

I actually put a Legacy R4LC with a Legacy Speed control motor board that is similar to ERR in a TMCC with RS4.0.  The engine ran fine (with cruise control), but you also have smoke control issues because Legacy uses an ACREG to control smoke and the R4LC triac is on all the time.  No control of the on off of smoke without the ACREG in the loop.  

I basically made my own Legacy engine with speed control from a TMCC engine.  SInce I did not want to add the ACREG to this engine also, I removed it all and went with the R2LC and Cruise board.  G

Marty, I think you still need to send in the defective board whether RS5 or Legacy in order for Lionel to replace them. This is true even if you are a Service Station unless they have changed their policy.

I know a SS guy that converted an older M1a to Legacy but was unable to get the M1b Legacy sound chip.

Also I don't think the Legacy boards have removable chips anymore.

I seem to remember that there is some differences in the power supply boards.  Older R2LC boards would work with the newer power supply boards but newer R2LC boards would not work with older power supply boards.  Also I have seen that different revisions of the R2LC boards will not always work properly.

I'll keep that in mind.

Anytime John.  Looking forward to catching up at Alex M house next week.

I did put the Legacy R4LC-S03 into an engine I'm working on, I ran it for about 15 minutes.  I had no issues with sound or any other operation.  It has the standard RS4 sound board and the generic power supply board. 

I didn't do the smoke as you are correct in that it expects the AC regulator to be controlling the smoke.

I'm pretty sure that when you're running in TMCC mode that the serial data is 8-bit and not 9-bit.  The Legacy stuff handles both for backward compatibility.  If the data stream were 9-bit, the RS4 board wouldn't recognize it at all.  As a test, I configured that TMCC locomotive in Legacy mode.  It still ran, but the sounds didn't work right, they acted like it was in conventional mode.

Well, mine did as I said.  Was yours an IR tether, wire or diesel?  Mine was a wire tether and the sounds would mute.  I could restart then with a press of the Vol + button.  The deal breaker was the smoke though. Otherwise I had a 1999 TMCC steam engine with legacy and cruise.  G

Mine happened to be a diesel board set.  You could wire in the smoke regulator, obviously that takes more work and another board.

"Your audio board part number is 691RS4E02C.  Call Lionel and use this board number and tell them what chip you need."

marty, successfully ordered today...thanks!