Remote Control for Lionel Sound Boxcars

That's pretty cool, a perfect application for your remote project. Nice looking FOB too. As usual, your very neat installation, complete with harness. Looks just like factory! I would need a sound car (don't have any), but it really looks like a neat project to do. 

I'm trying to get people interested in the remote control stuff I'm building.

I hear Lionel is still selling the sound cars Tom, just FYI.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm trying to get people interested in the remote control stuff I'm building.

It's working.  I'd like some when you're ready to ship.

John would it work in a Lionel tugboat?

You just woke up my interests in sound cars and remotes with this one!

@John Pignatelli JR. posted:

John would it work in a Lionel tugboat?

No reason why not.  What would you be controlling?

@rtr12 posted:

You just woke up my interests in sound cars and remotes with this one!

That's what we like to hear!

Great project! I'm definitely interested in this! Sound coming from cars just adds to the railroading experience. And I'm going to have to check out your other thread! I missed that one. Great attention to detail! Terry

If you want to add your own sound, here's another thread to check out.

Finally, the Universal MP3 Sound Board Has Arrived

I'm interested. 

I do have a device made by the Electric RR Company for my Hotbox car.

I don't know if this device is still available.

You can still wire up the Hotbox Reefer with the ERR Mini Commander ACC board, that's how I did mine.  This remote control would also do it.

Great idea, John.  I have a few sound cars including the flat spot car.  Getting the sound and other features just right is a little annoying having to turn them over, make a change and see if that is right.  Another great idea.  Like John P., I also have a tugboat.  Functions are pretty simple: smoke on/off and sounds on/off.  The tug has no volume control.  I would imagine that anything you cook up for the sound cars would work fine in the tug.

One question, John.  You recently moved, you are building and new layout, you are on many of the railroad forums, you repair other people's trains and you come up with all of these cool idea that we all didn't know we needed until you came along.  The question - do you sleep, ever?

Well, let's say some of my tasks are falling behind.   The reason it takes longer than it should for some of these ideas to be completed is I just don't have the time to spend.  More ideas hatching in the back room, but finding time to do them is a whole other issue.

Very nice setup. I like the 4 independent functions.

I've been putting simple on-off remote capability and all my "high-end" 🤣🤣 box cars.  I got sick of stopping the trains every time I wanted to turn the sound on or off.

What's the little receiver module you're using?

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

What's the little receiver module you're using?

It's a low voltage latching relay that I pick up on Amazon. I was skeptical because the reviews were poor, but I have six or seven now and they've worked great.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I have a number of the Lionel sound boxcars, my latest purchase was the UP "Flat spot" FreightSounds PS-1 Boxcar #125404.  One thing that always annoyed about these is the manual control aspect of everything, you can't change their configuration while they're running.

Time to fix that.

Some folks have doubtless seen my postings in the The Universal Wireless Remote Control Topic thread.  I thought it would be useful to take one of these units and apply it to a practical application.  For this task, I figured the 4-channel relay receiver would be a good fit.  There were four things I wanted to control and four channels on the receiver, a perfect match!

The object of the exercise is to control the following items.

• Power on/off to the sound board
• Volume step-down from volume pot setting
• On/off control of the two configuration switches

That accounts for all four channels of the receiver.

Below is a shot of the completed installation with the doors open.  I positioned the receiver in the doorway so I could access the configuration button in case I wanted to reprogram the receiver module.

Although it's not necessary, I actually made a little wiring harness so that I didn't have to chop any of the existing wiring in the car.  I know some folks might like this option, so I figured I'd do the first one with that  option.

The wiring harness below goes between the power and speaker connections to the sound board.  The speaker connection has a 27 ohm resistor in series with the speaker, and the relay control can short that out for full volume to the speaker.  The power connection just routes the power through the relay channel to provide control of the power to the board.  Power for the remote control receiver, obviously, is routed directly from the track pickups.

One little surprise came up there that was addressed later.  Turns out the sound board has quite a large inrush current to charge it's power supply capacitors.  To address that, I later added an inrush limiter to the power lead, it's visible in a later picture sticking out of the wire harness.

Here's the complete wire harness plugged into the the remote control board, the two pairs of wires hanging out are connected in parallel with the two configuration switches. I just soldered these two pairs of wire in parallel with the existing connections to the configuration switches.

Obviously, in order to have full remote control, you have to set the configuration switches to their OFF position.  This allows the remote receiver to control the state of the switches.

Here's the chassis with everything mounted and ready for the shell to go back on.  Yes, I added my YLB to the car to provide protection for the audio.  Note for setting the switches that the closed positions are in opposite directions.

The configuration switches act immediately on the audio stream, so it's not necessary to cycle power to see the effect of the switch changes, you can toggle them on the fly and immediately hear the change in the audio stream.

The reason I had to control power was these cars don't actually have an "off" position for the output sounds, any setting of the two switches still results in audio output.

The 4-button keyfob provides the remote interface to control the car.

Hey John,

Do you have available ERR KITS to just turn the Sound ON/OFF in the the Sound Boxcars and Tankcars? E-mail me with availability and price, OK?

FREDSTRAINS

@Fredstrains posted:

Hey John,

Do you have available ERR KITS to just turn the Sound ON/OFF in the the Sound Boxcars and Tankcars? E-mail me with availability and price, OK?

FREDSTRAINS

I have a handful of the ERR Mini-Commander ACC kits left, they're not cheap, but they're available.  They'll do a simple power toggle of the cars using the TMCC remote.

I did the Hotbox cars and also a cattle car with sounds that was factory manual. Now they are lots more fun with the ERR ACC kits. Oh…and I also did an early era milk car. It’s fun to toss milk cans where ever I choose on the layout.

I have half a dozen cars I did with the MC-ACC boards, the milk car, the log car, the barrel car, a couple of hot box reefers, a searchlight car, etc.  I also did an MC-ACC interface for my sound board and did a sound car.

For simple on-off remote capabilities wouldn't these work?

https://evandesigns.com/produc...ote-control-for-leds

12-19V AC for $11

John

@Craftech posted:

For simple on-off remote capabilities wouldn't these work?

https://evandesigns.com/produc...ote-control-for-leds

12-19V AC for $11

John

Probably not since they're designed to dim LED's, I doubt the power handling capacity is there.

This, OTOH, would work, and all you need it a bridge rectifier and a filter cap for 18V track power.

DC 5-30V 5V 12V 24V 433Mhz RF Wireless Remote Control Switch Relay

$3.59 and shipping is $2, or free if you buy three.

You find the most amazing stuff John.  I can't believe I still haven't ordered from that website.

     John 

EDIT:  1 per customer.  Still worth it.

I use AliExpress all the time, I hate to send the Chinese any more money, but they have some bargain priced stuff.

AliExpress:

"Sorry, some items are not available. Please edit your order."

Maybe another vendor has them on that website.

John

Now it's working

NO:  Unavailable

Lots of people there have similar products, that was just the first one I got in a search.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Lots of people there have similar products, that was just the first one I got in a search.

With so many vendors on that website how do you know which are reliable and which are not?  Or does AliExpress get after them like Amazon does with it's vendors?

John

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I have a handful of the ERR Mini-Commander ACC kits left, they're not cheap, but they're available.  They'll do a simple power toggle of the cars using the TMCC remote.

I will e-mail you, OK!!

FREDSTRAINS

@Craftech posted:

With so many vendors on that website how do you know which are reliable and which are not?  Or does AliExpress get after them like Amazon does with it's vendors?

John

The short answer is, you don't.   Amazon is just as bad separating the wheat from the chaff as far as stuff like this goes, they don't do any QC checking on electronic stuff that I'm aware of.

If you get something that's not as represented, you can usually get satisfaction from AliExpress, it does take a bit more work than with Amazon.

Thanks John

John

Gunrunnerjohn

I like the product, but not the key fab. I wish you could design it to work with TMCC.

@NYC 428 posted:

Gunrunnerjohn

I like the product, but not the key fab. I wish you could design it to work with TMCC.

Doing a TMCC receiver not only is a technical challenge getting the appropriate parts, it's also a big licensing issue with Lionel.  Add to that the work involved in development, and that just ain't gonna' happen.   The reason I went with the keyfob was no licensing and the work of designing the communication link was already done.

I understand