Super-Chuffer Chuff Generation Enhancement

Mikado 4501 posted:

Most people seem to be more in favor of upgrades compatible with the Lionel systems than the MTH.

From experience, I can see why. MTH's electronics are slightly more complicated and fragile to put in. Quite a few friends of mine have had many upgrade boards blow out and wait eternities for a replacement, and if it's not that, sometimes other parts may blow out instead like the lighting boards or smoke board. I've had one that worked fine after installing all the parts, but when it came time to put the file in from the computer, the board smoked.

The Lionel/ERR ones seem to be much more easy to put in, again coming from experience. Of course, that's considering only the Lionel electronics. Lighting and other components, as George mentioned, is often another story.

However, my fellow 4-H train club members prefer TMCC/Legacy controlled engines over DCS ones because they seem to be a bit more consistent in responding to commands. I'm pretty sure we need to upgrade our wiring on our large layout better for DCS, but all our TMCC equipped engines respond 100% of the time, whereas the DCS ones tend to respond 50% of the time, depending on the engines in question. Plus more club members seem to prefer Lionel sounds over MTH sounds.

I guess it's just from different experiences mostly. I personally like both and they both run fine at home.

Thomas, Not meant to be a discussion of which system you like best, just upgrade cost.  If you want to put $400 into a $200 to 300 TMCC engine to gain cruise and chuff and puff that is your choice.  Just as folks have to make a decision to put $200 to $300 into an MTH $300 engine.  Just a cost analysis.   G

I'm biased toward what I started with in 1950...and the difference in costs seems more like noise on the cost signal than an impediment to getting things modified to run electronically remote. It's an expensive hobby actually...

Fair enough, George. To put it simple, more people seem to find the extra cost of upgrading to TMCC/ERR worth it in the long run.

You assume they need the cruise, many of the ones I upgrade are Odyssey locomotives that already have cruise.  However, consider that they actually need to upgrade to cruise, how does the comparison come out?

You don't get all those extra lighting controls with the PS/2 or PS/3 steam upgrade, a fact that you seemed to forget.  Unless I'm missing something in those upgrades, you get the basic headlight control, smoke control, and motor control.  Does the board have the capability?  Yes, but not the way the DCS kits are designed and delivered.

My upgrade gets them Rule-17 lighting and automatic cab light control, and I can even throw in snazzy automatically controlled ground lights now.  Chuffs programmable from the remote?  That's a non-issue IMO.  Once you set the chuff rate for your locomotive, how many times do you go back and tinker with it?  Most of the people I know want it to stay once it's set.

I suspect the real decision point is whether you want to run TMCC or DCS.  If you're a died-in-the-wool MTH man, then the DCS upgrade is probably how you'll swing.  If you're a TMCC/Legacy guy, than the TMCC upgrade will most likely get the nod.

Chocolate and vanilla, flavors for everyone.

john,

if I had a sample ,PVC,  I could drill you some in the lathe,  just have to figure drill size to get to your thickness. or bore it,

then you cut to length.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

You assume they need the cruise, many of the ones I upgrade are Odyssey locomotives that already have cruise.  However, consider that they actually need to upgrade to cruise, how does the comparison come out?

You don't get all those extra lighting controls with the PS/2 or PS/3 steam upgrade, a fact that you seemed to forget.  Unless I'm missing something in those upgrades, you get the basic headlight control, smoke control, and motor control.  Does the board have the capability?  Yes, but not the way the DCS kits are designed and delivered.

My upgrade gets them Rule-17 lighting and automatic cab light control, and I can even throw in snazzy automatically controlled ground lights now.  Chuffs programmable from the remote?  That's a non-issue IMO.  Once you set the chuff rate for your locomotive, how many times do you go back and tinker with it?  Most of the people I know want it to stay once it's set.

I suspect the real decision point is whether you want to run TMCC or DCS.  If you're a died-in-the-wool MTH man, then the DCS upgrade is probably how you'll swing.  If you're a TMCC/Legacy guy, than the TMCC upgrade will most likely get the nod.

Chocolate and vanilla, flavors for everyone.

Ok, You changed the conditions of the original issue.  I certainly agree upgrading smoke and chuff for a TMCC / ODY engine is only $90 plus LED and Labor.  But how much does it cost to upgrade an MTH or conventional Engine to TMCC/Cruise and Chuff and puff?  That was the original comparison. One you say you do a lot of.    

I do not begrudge you one nickel for the products you designed and produced to fill a shortfall in the TMCC Architect.   It was needed and filled a significant gap in TMCC capability.  I was only pointing out the cost difference to upgrade is significant to get similar capabilities.  That was all  I find it interesting you disagree with the cost comparison, specially since you make your own harness to save a few dollars and have routinely recommended against PS-2 upgrades to RK style engine because of cost.    

By the way, for large steam you can put the PS-2 boards in the engine which does give you greater functionality.  Have done this with K-Line Hudson as an example.  Just requires custom harnesses.  G

riki posted:

john,

if I had a sample ,PVC,  I could drill you some in the lathe,  just have to figure drill size to get to your thickness. or bore it,

then you cut to length.

I think my "low tech" solution is working, it's much easier than I figured it would be.

To tell you the truth, I am just glad there are options.  Doesn't matter which system.  I use both of them and convert non-working engines to either of them, depending on my mood or sound set.

Gene Anstine

When might these be available through Henning's?

Should be within the next few days, just have to do the final details of getting them listed.

Just bought one on Hennings online.

I'm looking forward to doing my first super-Chuffer/chuff generator upgrade. 

Bob

I guess I better get those suckers up there tomorrow!   They're sitting on my table to deliver to the shop!

For all the folks waiting, the Chuff Generator is now up on the Henning's Trains store.

 10200 - Programmable CHUFF-GENERATOR

Correct me if I'm wrong, based on what I have read all I need for my K-Line scale K-4 with TMCC is the programmable chuff generator and the super chuffer to get prototypical 4 chuffs per driver rotation with sycronized smoke?

As long as the K4 has fan driven smoke, that would be correct.

Would this Super Chuffer Board Work with the Early LEGACY. Like JLC Big Boys/ First Issue of the FEF-3 Early?

Sure, all you need is a fan driven smoke unit and a chuff switch. 

The one sticking point with Legacy is you need to be able to put the tach strip on the motor if you want to use the add-on Chuff Generator for 4-chuffs/rev.  Most Legacy had 4-chuffs/rev, so you probably wouldn't need the Chuff-Generator, and there's no problem with the Super-Chuffer.

Finally got around to installing the CG into my scale J. A big improvement from 2 to 4 chuffs. The install was easy even though I had to make a circuit to get the 5v. Only problem was the tape for the flywheel was to short. Fortunately I had a bunch of tapes from the old TAS EOB upgrades laying around. 

Are there different lengths of strips available?

The new kits have longer strips, I noticed that I made the first batch too short.   You can also easily print your own on gummed shipping labels.

I bought from the first 10 or so at Hennings. Are those the longer ones? No issues, I need to use one yet but just thinking ahead.

Next id like to see a small board that picks up the serial data for the whistle or blow down feature that triggers a fan on second smoke unit like you see in the early vision line models.

Or have a board that runs the Diesel smoke units when you Rev up it blows a plume of smoke out the wisps back down like you see on the Vision ES44ac's.

cjack posted:

I bought from the first 10 or so at Hennings. Are those the longer ones? No issues, I need to use one yet but just thinking ahead.

Those are the shorter tach strips in the first dozen kits, now they're long enough for even a fairly large flywheel.

Bruk posted:

Next id like to see a small board that picks up the serial data for the whistle or blow down feature that triggers a fan on second smoke unit like you see in the early vision line models.

Or have a board that runs the Diesel smoke units when you Rev up it blows a plume of smoke out the wisps back down like you see on the Vision ES44ac's.

I'd like to see world peace.

I'm actually considering working on the serial decode board that would have an output to do whistle smoke.  Right now there's a solution that takes a little hacking, but will do the trick.  If you buy the ERR Sound Converter and do a little surgery, it has an output that is active when the whistle is blown that can be used to trigger whistle steam.

I have published a schematic of a diesel mod that gives you two level smoke, low volume at idle and full smoke when you're moving.  Here's an application that gives you two-level smoke, Rule-17 lighting, and cab light control.  It's a little board that I built several years ago, I offered them for sale some time back and there were no takers.

Can you send some of the longer strips to Hennings so I can buy them? I am willing to purchase a few just to have them. Besides I might knocker one also.

Thanks.

I've attached the tach strip image that I print on shipping label paper, you can make your own and have lots of spares.

Hey John, I have the idea that sizing the tape to the flywheel isn't as critical as it is with doing a full command upgrade but do we need to overlap the strips so they line up perfectly or is there a little leeway in this area?

Milwrd

Super. Thanks.

Just printed a life time supply on label paper. Thanks again.

milwrd posted:

Hey John, I have the idea that sizing the tape to the flywheel isn't as critical as it is with doing a full command upgrade but do we need to overlap the strips so they line up perfectly or is there a little leeway in this area?

Milwrd

Check out the instruction sheet, the spacing is not critical.  I just recommend that if you have a small white or black stripe that you widen it with a marker to make a fat black strip.  You just don't want a narrow strip that might make an uncertain count and slightly screw up the tach count. 

An interesting question was posed to me by George (GGG), and I created a modification to a suggested application schematic to reflect this option.

The thought is if you have an Odyssey sensor on your drive motor, but you have ditched the Odyssey for the ERR Cruise-Commander-M for better performance or because the DCDS died, you already have a sensor and don't have to go through the mounting and spacing exercise for the Chuff-Generator.  Instead, you simply use the existing hall effect sensor and magnet ring on the Odyssey I motor to replace the reflective sensor and tach strip.  Here's the wiring for that option, note this example uses the Cruise Commander, but you can do the same thing with the standard TMCC package.  This diagram also shows the optional ground light feature of the Chuff-Generator.

Thanks George for the suggestion, hope this helps someone.

John, so I can do this on my next TMCC GS2 upgrade and then I can put the CG board anywhere. Since it doesn't have to sit on top of the motor to read a tach tape. 

It just eliminates the optical sensor and tach tape correct?

Doug, I haven't actually tried this mod, the only issue I can see is there are only four magnets in the wheel on the Odyssey ring, so the calibration of the chuff position may be a bit coarse.  It'll be "close" to 4 chuffs/rev, but it might be slightly off.  Take a 16:1 gear ratio and you'll have 16 pulses for each 1/4 rev of the driver.  Contrast that with the typical 24 stripes on the tach tape, that gives you 96 pulses for each 1/4 rev of the driver.

I don't have an Odyssey motor handy for a bench test, so I haven't seen how well the hall effect sensor generates a nice pulse.  It may be problematic, I'll know when I run across an Odyssey motor that I can do a quick test with.  It may also be necessary to add a pull-up resistor to the hall effect sensor output.  I actually have several Odyssey motors, but they all have busted magnet rings, so I have to arrange to pull one of the flywheels to install the fix-it kit for Odyssey.  I don't happen to have a wheel puller that will do the job.

Well then.....maybe I won't do it that way 

If you want to send me a working Odyssey motor, I'll see if it works.

A number of requests came in for conventional operation just using the Chuff Generator to replace the chuff switch.  Since it normally gets it's 5V DC from the Super-Chuffer, that creates a small issue.  I decided to build a small and simple power module that runs directly from track power and generates the 5V DC necessary.  This is a small module about 7/8" long, 1/4" wide, and 3/8" tall.  It takes track power and outputs 20-30ma 5V DC.  It has an RF choke for DCS compatibility as well.

Awesome, what voltage ranges does it work at?

And could it be used to drive track powered LED headlights?

The minimum voltage is dependent on the voltage you want out.  If you're using a 5V regulator, you can feed it anything over 5VAC and it'll have 5VDC.  For constant current, it would depend on the impedance of the load, typically to drive an LED, you'd have the full current at around 5V AC input as well.  If you want 12V DC out of it, you'd have to have 10-12 VAC on the input.

No problem driving LED's, that's one of the primary uses.  Of course, for headlights, you can just use a resistor and a diode, and if you have two LED's, wire them back to back and dispense with the diode, they'll protect themselves.

John, I've read all the posts on your chuff generator. The only thing I didn't see is if this would work on the Pul-Mor motors. My guess is "no", since the Pul-Mors don't have a flywheel. Correct?

Chris

Correct, if there's no place for the tach tape and sensor, it won't work.  I still resort to magnets for those installs.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Correct, if there's no place for the tach tape and sensor, it won't work.  I still resort to magnets for those installs.

Copy, Thanks.