TMCC Tester Discussion

It works who cares what it looks like. Great Job! 

Nice job John any chance you could put a list of parts with  Lionel  part numbers  and a  schematic diagram of the whole thing!

Thanks Alan I want too build one too! 

Alan, that's way beyond the time I have to devote to this discussion.   I'm willing to provide tips, but I don't have the time to do a full up documentation package.  If you look around, there is documentation for most of the TMCC motherboards, pick one and build the unit around that.

Super, thanks for the details. That helps quite a lot.

Alan Mancus posted:

Nice job John any chance you could put a list of parts with  Lionel  part numbers  and a  schematic diagram of the whole thing!

Thanks Alan I want too build one too! 

Start with mother board 691PCB1072 and then go to a typical engine and pick out boards and couplers, etc that GRJ mentioned above.

I picked up this TMCC tester in a box of “stuff”. It has a nice logical layout and uses incandescent bulbs as indicators for smoke, couplers, and lights, and LEDs for motor direction. I thought it would be a good example  

I am not TMCC savvy enough to know what boards plug in to the 3 sets of pin headers or which generations of TMCC boards can be tested. 

Any thoughts?  I’m sure this is a no brainer to those of you that troubleshoot TMCC.

Bob

Those were put together by Mike Regan for Lionel's TMCC classes. They used his TAS boards he sold.

They are very useful. The connectors are for R2-4LC board Railsounds board and it's power supply board.  I added a chuff switch and serial out connector and speaker for testing ERR sound boards and also smoke regulator boards.

Carl

Yep, Carl got it.  Just put a set of boards in that one and you have a nice TMCC tester.  Nice score, I had to cobble mine together out of junk box parts.

While the test board is nice, I built mine on an old chassis with DC motors.  Being able to run along a layout was a better test of the R2LC for me.  Also helps when testing non oem configurations that may degrade on a time of use.

Certainly as far as sound, motor and accessory testing the bench model is great. G

I'm having a harder time seeing how my tester running down the tracks gives it all the utility I need for simply testing various components.  

FWIW, I do have a motor on my tester, and when I want to simulate a load, I just grab the worm gear and provide a load.  My test set is typically used for testing individual components, hence all the extra connectors that have been wired in over time as the requirements occur.

As a basic rule, I always bench test in my test setup (photo) any new RC module prior to installation in an engine. Remember: "trust but verify".

John... Thanks for starting this thread. I just got my parts order from Lionel and have what I need to put a test fixture together

I am now searching for pin outs on motherboards 691-MB00-10A and 691-PCB-1072. Both have screened legends on plugs, but a pinout would be nice. If someone knows the molex (or other) PN for the black two pin female connectors I would appreciate it. I have shells and pins on hand for the white connectors. Sure wish I had a index to the supplements.

The east Texas club web site that had an index is off line.

Richard

Here you go, the Supplement Index.

Supplement_Index_for_Lionel.pdf

The black connector is a Molex Micro-Fit 3mm connector:  Molex 0430250200.  The matching pins are on the bottom of the product page.

John...once again many thanks. Molex shells and pins in my DigiKey cart. The index will be like turning on the lights when searching for Lionel docs.

Richard

Yep, the index with the publication is mostly useless as it's a graphics file, you can't search it!

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm having a harder time seeing how my tester running down the tracks gives it all the utility I need for simply testing various components.  

FWIW, I do have a motor on my tester, and when I want to simulate a load, I just grab the worm gear and provide a load.  My test set is typically used for testing individual components, hence all the extra connectors that have been wired in over time as the requirements occur.

Well to be honest you can just use the engine too.  As I stated, when the problematic engine has a communication issue with the R2LC is where being able to test on the layout is an added advantage.  Just think of your test set with wheels driven by the motor.  Doesn't mean you have to run it on layout.   G

George, all it has to do is satisfy your requirements, as long as it does that, you're good.

Typically, if I'm having that issue you describe, (yes, it's happened to me), I stick the engine on my rollers and work on it there.

I'm not sure I want my test set on rollers, things get away from me fast enough now!

This is the tester they use at Lionel for the RCMC boards.

Looks like mine Blake, lots of spaghetti wire.   I've considered the RCMC tester, when I get enough of them to justify taking the time, I'll probably hack one out.

I found the Wiring Diagram for  691-PCB-1072 motherboard that I was looking for on supplement 45. If you download into Acrobat reader it's on page 86. There are no page numbers on sup 45 but it is almost at the bottom of the file. Still looking for MB 691-MB00-10A.

Here is John's Index as an Excel spreadsheet. You can search this.

You can search PDF files as well.

45 is a scanned file. My search does not work. Am I missing something? John your index  PDF file search works fine. Would really like to scan Lionel's index files. I admit that I have not tried the other files. May need to do that.

Richard

Sorry just had a power blink. I meant to say I would like to search Lionel's supplement's. Any ideas on how to do that?

Richard

All of the supplements are scanned files, you can't search them.  That's why the index is so handy.

Blake Morris posted:

This is the tester they use at Lionel for the RCMC boards.

I’ll probably make one as well except that I’ll make the cables long enough to attach to the board without actually having to remove the board from the locomotive.  Ill just power up the board with the locomotive sitting on the test track.  

Blake

The speaker is a bit curious, the RCMC doesn't have sound.

It's nice to see that Lionel's tester is as primitive as mine.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

All of the supplements are scanned files, you can't search them.  That's why the index is so handy.

At one time I printed a PDF file then scanned my printed page using OCR software. There’s probably an easier way..... it ciphered about 90% correct, editing the other 10% in Microsoft Word was pretty easy

GeoPeg posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

All of the supplements are scanned files, you can't search them.  That's why the index is so handy.

At one time I printed a PDF file then scanned my printed page using OCR software. There’s probably an easier way..... it ciphered about 90% correct, editing the other 10% in Microsoft Word was pretty easy

If you look at the supplements, the text is scattered all through the illustrations, it would NOT be easy to scan them and edit them.  I've done the same with a number of documents, and "easy" is not how I describe it, and I'm an excellent typist!