Replace flyer chief boards with Legacy boards in 2-8-4

I think it's going to involve a bit more than changing the boards.  In any case, I thought the Flyer Legacy boards already did DCC.  What models are you talking about, the basic Lionchief type electronics?  If so, it would involve a WHOLE lot more to graft the Legacy board package in!

When you ask questions like this, I have the same 'ol request, exact model numbers please!

If you want to run the S gauge Berkshire with DCC by far the easiest and most likely cheapest way is to buy the Legacy version. It will run DCC out of the box. I have a Flyerchief Berk, did not care for it, so it was converted to TMCC using ERR boards along with a lot of separate parts. It does not run on DCC. FlyerChief uses a wired connector between the engine and tender, TMCC and Legacy use wireless. The cost of the conversion to TMCC was more than the difference in cost between the FlyerChief and Legacy engines. I am reasonably certain all the Legacy components are not available from Lionel to do a full Legacy conversion of a FlyerChief engine.

As someone with no experience with DCC, if you plan to run it with DCC why not just install DCC? Hard to believe Legacy is less expensive.

Pete

@Norton posted:

As someone with no experience with DCC, if you plan to run it with DCC why not just install DCC? Hard to believe Legacy is less expensive.

Pete

I got the answers I was looking for, I just thought that I could unplug the chief boards and plug in the legacy boards. But that is not the case, and to install DCC sound decoder to keep the smoke unit is not cost effective or cheaper than just buying the legacy berkshire.

Thanks for all of your responses.

Plus, the Legacy Berk has significantly better details.

Rusty

Flyer chief is not dcc however it will run on dcc track power with the universal or dedicated remote or lionchief app. if you want to go dcc instead of replacing flyer board the wow 501 would be a good choice

I know you have your answers, but for further info, Legacy boards are not sold to the public. Secondly, you would be very disappointed if you bought a Flyerchief Berk converted it to DCC and then compared it to a Legacy Berk. Legacy Berks are fantastically detailed scale models (except the flanges of course) while Flyerchief locos are at the toy end of the spectrum. As always, this is no criticism of Flyerchief fans, but rather trying to match products with what Pete has stated about the type of railroading he is interested in.

Lionel has been selling their Legacy boards for a few years now. Actually started selling their first generation boards nearly ten years ago. There have been a few threads on the three rail forum by folks upgrading engines to Legacy. Not inexpensively though.

Pete

Bottom line they all toys to do with one each is pleased doing

@Norton posted:

Lionel has been selling their Legacy boards for a few years now. Actually started selling their first generation boards nearly ten years ago

Well that is very interesting to say the least. When I first came into the hobby a few years ago, I fell in love with Legacy and immediately started exploring how I could customize non-Legacy S scale locos to add this functionality. I was told consistently by several experts that you could install ERR's TMCC boards, but that Legacy boards were not available for custom installations. I then did many TMCC installations in non-Lionel locos. Over time, I tired of the limits of TMCC and the small selection of railsounds boards and switched to doing DCC customizations. In that time, I have never read or heard mention of anyone selling Legacy boards or of anyone doing a Legacy custom install. In fact to the contrary, I saw the market go crazy when ERR closed its doors and we almost lost the ability to buy TMCC boards. I can't imagine why people would have cared about losing access to TMCC boards for custom installs if Legacy boards are readily available for such.

I would love to know more. After reading your post I ran several searches on OGR, on Lionel support/replacement parts page as well as broad Google searches, but found nothing. Can you give me any other leads such as the name of a dealer who sells them or the name of anyone who has custom installed a Legacy board?

The nice thing about flyerchief is they run fine on dcc power using the decated remote or universal remote or on the app with ipad ipad

You can get the boards directly from Lionel. The website is lionelsupport.com. Replacement parts.

There are 3 generations of Legacy and apparently the newest releases have a 4th generation but not much information about those yet.

1st generation around 2008 used a R4LC and DCDS with Railsounds 5.5. Boards look identical to Odyssey but with different code.

2nd generation is RCMC with Railsounds 6 or Railsounds Lite.

Then RCDR and BEMC  with Railsounds Lite which I believe is what is used in Flyer as well as some O scale. I have not worked on any Flyer so someone else will have to confirm.

Search the forum on Legacy Upgrades for threads on doing this. Examples of all three generations are described.

Keep in mind there are no kits and minimal information on wiring the boards. You will have make all of your own wiring harnesses. Had you inquired a few weeks ago you could have gotten the parts at half price. Now you have to wait another year to get that deal.

Pete

One correction, I don't believe Railsounds 6 was used with the RCMC.  The RCMC changed the serial protocol for talking to the sound card and the sound card also had any "memory" removed.  Things like the bell function are controlled for each ding from the RCMC as opposed to just starting and stopping the bell with a serial command.  This information came from Jon Z., the designer of the RCMC, so I'm pretty sure it's accurate.  This is also why you can't get the new RS-Lite Legacy sound cards working with the older Legacy R4LC board.  Try swapping Legacy tenders from newer RCMC equipped Legacy engines with older tenders from the pre-RCMC equipped engines, you'll see that while many functions work, others don't.

The vision Hudson uses an RCMC with Railsounds 6. Possibly a few more of the early RCMC installs.

https://www.lionelsupport.com/...;q=11209&match=0

Pete

Interesting Pete, I wonder if they did special code to support it.  I know I can take my RS6 equipped Legacy T1 Duplex tender and try to use it with any newer locomotive with the RCMC and it doesn't function properly.  That's specifically what I was asking Jon about when he described the changes in the RCMC operation over the R4LC for early Legacy.

While that combination may be customized to work, I wouldn't take it to the bank that you can use RS6 with the RCMC as a general rule.

Well I do know a Railsounds 6 board won't work with a Legacy R4LC. I suspect if you find a Railsounds 6 board it would have to be driven with an RCMC. Sounds like a RCDR wouldn't work either. I haven't come across too many engines with RS6 boards anyway.

Pete

@Norton posted:

Well I do know a Railsounds 6 board won't work with a Legacy R4LC. I suspect if you find a Railsounds 6 board it would have to be driven with an RCMC. Sounds like a RCDR wouldn't work either. I haven't come across too many engines with RS6 boards anyway.

Pete

Pete, you know something that Lionel doesn't know!  I have the Legacy Lionmaster T1 Duplex, it has a RailSounds 6 board and the Legacy RCDR.  That's the tender I was doing the experiments with.

Legacy LionMaster PRR T-1 Duplex 4-4-4-4 #5511 Parts Breakdown

While it works with the RCDR, it doesn't work with the RCMC equipped locomotives, I tried a few.  However, I am able to take the T1 Duplex tender and using a Legacy R4LC-C03 in my test board feeding the optical link to the tender, I can drive it and get all the sounds properly rendered.

I don't pretend to know all the in's and out's of the compatibility, much of this stuff is discovered by tinkering with various combinations.

Well thats interesting. I was not able to trigger a Vision Hudson RS6 board using an R4LC C02 or C05. Both work with RS 5.5. Could they be that version specific? In this case it could be an issue with the Hudson RS6 board or the R4LC version. I will at least have to try a C03 R4LC. Who knows?

Pete

I would love to see a table that details all the fine points of the communication between the locomotive and tender for the various versions of boards.  I know that Jon said that the RS6 was only used a handful of times as a transition before the RS-Lite boards were introduced.