RailSounds Lite Wiring

Connect the L (low) to the brown lead location, the M (middle) to the blue lead location, and the H (high) to the red lead location.  Here's a picture from Bruk's excellent reference for Legacy, available in the TMCC/LEGACY REFERENCE MATERIALS & MANUALS thread.

Thanks John!

But I need the plugs and pins for those itty bitty sockets. Or should I just solder (hard wire) the wires to the volume board?

The 1.5mm pitch connectors are the JST-ZH family.  I use the same crimp tool for those, the Engineer PA-09.  I use the smallest die space, 1mm.

JST-ZH 3-pin Female Housing

They also have pre-crimped wires at the bottom of the page, saves you trying to get a good crimp.

I hope you’re running this loco in conventional and not trying to run your new Legacy RSL card off the serial data coming from a Cruise Commander. You might have bigger issues than getting a volume pot harness. 

Why not?  I install dozens of Cruise Commanders and the ERR RS Commander, it has the exact same serial data input circuit with the opto isolation.  They work fine.

John, I believe he said he’s replacing his ERR card with Legacy RSL card. We’ve been down that road ☹️

Correct Greg, and they both have the exact same serial input interface.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Connect the L (low) to the brown lead location, the M (middle) to the blue lead location, and the H (high) to the red lead location.  Here's a picture from Bruk's excellent reference for Legacy, available in the TMCC/LEGACY REFERENCE MATERIALS & MANUALS thread.

I thought Legacy Rail sound lite boards don't work with ERR TMCC?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The 1.5mm pitch connectors are the JST-ZH family.  I use the same crimp tool for those, the Engineer PA-09.  I use the smallest die space, 1mm.

JST-ZH 3-pin Female Housing

They also have pre-crimped wires at the bottom of the page, saves you trying to get a good crimp.

Thank you john, That's exactly what I was looking for.

I've had variable luck with the Legacy boards with 8 bit serial data, but you're right, that's likely to be an issue.  I totally missed that connection.

Sid's Trains posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Connect the L (low) to the brown lead location, the M (middle) to the blue lead location, and the H (high) to the red lead location.  Here's a picture from Bruk's excellent reference for Legacy, available in the TMCC/LEGACY REFERENCE MATERIALS & MANUALS thread.

I thought Legacy Rail sound lite boards don't work with ERR TMCC?

 The ERR board looks to be exactly the same, minus J3 and J8. The volume control is where J5 is. Now if the programming is different between the Legacy and the ERR board, That's going to be a crap shoot. I'm hoping that everything works. I looking for the voices to be more specific for the 2101 and the correct steam whistle vice the ERR LS whistle. If it doesn't work I'm out the $75 for the board. If it does...Yippeeeee, for me.

The only wires not connected from the above picture is the Yellow, Black and Pink. Everything else is there.

I just ordered the connectors, wires and pins from Digi-key. Now we wait. Once I get everything in and tested I'll post up the results here and in my CSS thread.

As others have mentioned, I totally missed the Legacy/TMCC mis-match, sorry.  It's likely not to work properly.  One thing that would be "interesting" to try is the Legacy R4LC on the Cruise Commander.  If you talk to it in TMCC mode, I wonder if that would work and allow the serial data to be compatible with the Legacy RS board.  I'm guessing probably not, but it would be an interesting experiment.

Another possibility is to add a Legacy RCDR to the mix and send that serial data back to the tender.  Here's a diagram from Bruk's great treatment of Legacy boards, this would be my fall-back position.  The chuff would be interfaced to the hall effect sensor, you'd probably have to consider an opto-isolator if I had to guess, I haven't researched this totally.

Click on graphic to expand.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

As others have mentioned, I totally missed the Legacy/TMCC mis-match, sorry.  It's likely not to work properly.  One thing that would be "interesting" to try is the Legacy R4LC on the Cruise Commander.  If you talk to it in TMCC mode, I wonder if that would work and allow the serial data to be compatible with the Legacy RS board.  I'm guessing probably not, but it would be an interesting experiment.

Sounds like a plan John. I'll take this one step at a time. If this doesn't work, Then I'll move on to the R4LC board for that engine. Got to try right? Besides, its only money.  So, Got to ask, will the Legacy R4LC board work with the DC Cruise Commander?

So I just looked it up on Lionel's site. No R4LC, it uses the RCMC receiver. You have a P/N for a Legacy R4LC, if I have to go there?

You posted that while I was typing. But, how would that work with the cruise commander? I'm also using your Chuff-Generator if that makes  difference.

The Chuff-Generator doesn't care about the board version, Legacy or TMCC, that's should be a non-issue.

I honestly can't say if you talk to this in TMCC from the command base if it'll function, I'd have to try it. 

The only solution that seems pretty likely to function is adding the Legacy RCDR to be an independent receiver of the commands, it'll output the correct Legacy 9 bit code to drive the sound board.

I’ve heard that an RCDR can drive an ERR Railsounds Commander. But can it output the double 9-bit words that a Legacy RSL relies on to work correctly?  I believe that was the core issue preventing the proper operation of the Legacy RSL when driven by ERR boards. Switching to a R4LC still doesn’t work because it communicates single 9-bit words. Someone please tell me I’m wrong... 

GregR posted:

I’ve heard that an RCDR can drive an ERR Railsounds Commander. But can it output the double 9-bit words that a Legacy RSL relies on to work correctly?  I believe that was the core issue preventing the proper operation of the Legacy RSL when driven by ERR boards. Switching to a R4LC still doesn’t work because it communicates single 9-bit words. Someone please tell me I’m wrong... 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there is no easy way to make the Legacy Railsounds Lite board to work with Tmcc ERR products. The only way to make it function is with the RCMC which is a whole nother story which someone like Bruk Banister could explain.

Hummmmmm, Wonder if Lionel would be willing to reprogram my ERR board with the CSS audio.....Doubt it!

Thanks for all the input guys...

I have the CSS up and running after the Pittman upgrade.

https://ogrforum.com/...-6-18011-mods?page=6

GregR posted:

I’ve heard that an RCDR can drive an ERR Railsounds Commander. But can it output the double 9-bit words that a Legacy RSL relies on to work correctly?  I believe that was the core issue preventing the proper operation of the Legacy RSL when driven by ERR boards. Switching to a R4LC still doesn’t work because it communicates single 9-bit words. Someone please tell me I’m wrong... 

The RCDR version with Legacy code will obviously drive the Legacy RailSounds boards, and does so successfully in many of Lionel's locomotives.   There are RCDR versions also programmed for TMCC code, that obviously would drive the ERR RS Commander.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

GregR posted:

I’ve heard that an RCDR can drive an ERR Railsounds Commander. But can it output the double 9-bit words that a Legacy RSL relies on to work correctly?  I believe that was the core issue preventing the proper operation of the Legacy RSL when driven by ERR boards. Switching to a R4LC still doesn’t work because it communicates single 9-bit words. Someone please tell me I’m wrong... 

The RCDR version with Legacy code will obviously drive the Legacy RailSounds boards, and does so successfully in many of Lionel's locomotives.   There are RCDR versions also programmed for TMCC code, that obviously would drive the ERR RS Commander.

So your saying to have both the ERR commander and then the RCDR to only drive the sounds under the same commands.

I'm saying that there are RCDR boards with TMCC code and Legacy code, just as there are R4LC boards with either TMCC or Legacy.  The serial data from the RCDR board with Legacy  code will drive a Legacy RailSounds board with no issue.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm saying that there are RCDR boards with TMCC code and Legacy code, just as there are R4LC boards with either TMCC or Legacy.  The serial data from the RCDR board with Legacy  code will drive a Legacy RailSounds board with no issue.

Oh I see what you mean now. Makes sense.

Sorry, you lost me.

I got a RCDR and a railsounds lite board from a Legacy Boom car. I have them all wired like the picture says but I get no sound.

Strange!!

@Helichuck posted:

I got a RCDR and a railsounds lite board from a Legacy Boom car. I have them all wired like the picture says but I get no sound.

Strange!!

What picture?

You can just plug power, volume pot, and a speaker into the RS-Lite board, it should give you some sound.

Hi John,

The picture is above in one of the comments, it shows the connections to the board.

I have 2 boards and can't get either to work, I though there might be something special I needed to do.

I will give it another whirl

Tried again, just power speaker and vol control.

Nothing no hum nada

Odd, I wonder if the boom car is special.

I happen to have the guts of one in my parts box.  What do you know, silent as a church mouse, I get nothing out of it.  I'm guessing we're both missing some grain of information here, I doubt the boards are all bad.

Well, I partially cracked the code.  I have a TMCC test rig and it has connectors for the RS-Lite board, normally I use them for the ERR RS Commander boards.  I connected those to the crane sound board and I get sounds.  If I disconnect the serial data I get no sounds, so I'm guessing there is no conventional mode.

Sounds like you're not getting serial data to the board.

I will Check that out when I get back to the bench.

Thanks John!!!

I was able to get it to work with another set of boards, now to figure out which of the other set is the issue.

Thanks for helping!

Lionel has been known to ship bad parts, it's not like it doesn't happen.