True-Blast II Sound Problem - fixed

You can cut it loose and separate them to find the problem, nothing prevents you from putting another zip-tie on it after you're done.

The small board is the sound unit. If it's not already there, I cut them loose and use those double sided foam "sticky squares" to mount it to the back of the speaker assembly.

Robert - Don't cut the plastic zip tie!  The same thing happened when I got my new Williams/Bachmann B&O E7 Diesel from Trainworld last week - however, when I hit the horn or bell button, I could hear, VERY VERY faintly, the sound being played if I put my ear right up to the engine.

When I opened her up, I saw the sound board - and there's a little circular ring that sticks up off the board.  THIS IS THE VOLUME CONTROL.  You can rotate the outer brass ring of it with your fingernail or the edge of a screwdriver - and it moves way too easily.  That's how I fixed the volume.  However, it's either WAAAY low or HIGH - there's no in between (except static).

Looking at your pic above, I can see the sound volume ring thingy is right in front of the wiring harness and the black twist tie wire wrapped around the bundle.  My bet is, the wires in the harness (or the black twist tie) rubbed against the ring and caused the volume to go down, and when you were manipulating the harness, the harness touched the ring and VOILA! - you had turned up the sound.  It doesn't take much to make that outer ring rotate!

I'm certain this is all the problem is. And, by the way, that's the VERY same speaker I have in mine!

I had a similar sound problem with an E4 Rectifier.  My speaker was loose,  no longer held by the gobs of hot glue.  I turned up the volume as discussed above.  Now the Whistle works fine but the bell works intermittantly at best.   I plan to replace the sound with a Dallee electic locomotive sound board.  Haven't done this before so we'll see how that goes.  I agree that you can cut and seperate the sound unit from the reverse/power board.  By the way, Dallee Service was super speedy...I faxed the order early one morning and had the sound and speaker at my door the next day...I live in Ohio and Dallee is in PA.

Thank you guys for all the replies.  I've got much less reservation about cutting loose the zip tie and relocating or re-zip tying the board 'sandwich' as John and Len point out.

Lee, I guess others have encoutered the somewhat 'low tech' zip tie and foam block setup based on the responses, but I believe you might be right in thinking this is an older version.  I was visiting a bit with Mario, from Mario's trains and he was telling me that my Amtrak F7's and some of the other F units out there can be from production runs of 2yrs ago or more.

The set was shrink wrapped, and in what I guess are the typical Williams by Bachman gray & red boxes.  I still inspected the wheels, traction tires and chassis thoroughly to be sure, but could find no evidence of prior use before I first ran it.  When running, it does seem like the engine is a little noisier ('whirring' type noise) than my F7, so I'm going to drop the trucks and add a little lube to be safe.  I've heard that's a good idea on the earlier Bachman runs of these engines.

This FA-1 L&NE AA set is from a Hobby Shop, but via the bay (Valley Trains).  I kinda missed the blowout a month or so back, but these were still 'blow-out' priced at $149 plus free shipping, so I snagged them.  They're really nice looking engines with some add on details than my Williams F7's (grab rails and non-working red marker lights).

...

The Good News! I believe it's fixed now, based on Phillyreading, Starhopper, and willcline64's thoughts I didn't realize I was resting my finger on the potentionmeter as I was jostling the wire harness.  So with some unscientific testing I realized if I touched the pot with my finger tip while hitting the horn button it worked.  I took a small screw driver as suggested and worked it back and forth, still I found the spot where it sounded consistently even while running or after cycling on/off and through directions.  As mentioned there didn't seem to be a range to volume as much as an on, off or static.  Maybe it wouldn't hurt to swab the pot with some alchohol or contact cleaner on a q-tip, but it seems to be working properly now.  So thanks again guys!  I really appreciate all the help I received via this forum.

Robert

Glad you found the problem and fixed it.

A little FYI about older Williams for sale, Western Depot has a lot of the left over Williams items, before Bachmann/Williams era. These are very nice and run great but they are somewhat older stuff still in the box.

Personally I like the older Williams before Bachmann, because it is easier to work with and some of the older engines, the Crown Edition, have better sound systems from QSI installed.

Lee Fritz

The reason that it works more like an "on/off" switch may be because the pot was locked in place with what is called bird ... (Droppings) in the industry.  The bird droppings have the unintended consequence of preventing electrical contact when the pot is moved to a different position.  If you can get the droppings completely cleaned off, the pot will resume it's normal function as a volume control.

Earl

Thanks for the tips Lee & Earl.  I believe I will need to go back and try a swab of some contact cleaner or some such as the sound dropped off again when running.  I dropped the trucks and added some lithium grease as has been suggested on the forum, but forgot to go back to the pot. 

The sound returned while running so I must have it set close to one of those 'bird dropping' bits.  That will be on my to-do list along with wiring the motors up in 'series' after some more reading.  I guess my Z750 might be bit lite on power at 75W, since Williams recommends min 80W, but these engines seem to go from a humming, kind of lugging start to "blast off" speed without much variation in-between.

Thanks again!

Robert

I have the same engine (my is L&N) same problem, horn and bell will not work, I have followed all the advice that is on this forum as well as the Bachmann forum. Cleaned the potentiometer with a Q tip soaked in alcohol. A wiper was mentioned in the Bachmann forum , don't know where it is of if my is gone, broken, I may have damaged it with a Q tip but I have never seen it. I switched transformers from a CW 80 to a Z 1000. Tried the horn with the engine in idle full power, running forward and backward no luck.

Not sure how to clear the bird dropings.  I did by accident touch the area behing the volume control with a screwdrive and picked up a radio station in Dallas.

Thanks for the help

Brent

Hi Brent, my 'guess' (pure speculation) would be the "wiper" might be the moveable portion of the potentiometer.  Does yours have the slot in the middle of the pot for adjustment?  Have you managed to get any sound out of it (very faint horn, whistle or static like I got)?

One trait I've notice on the Williams is that when the bell or particularly the horn is pressed there is a momentary increase in track voltage...engine speeds up slightly.  Mine would still do that even when it was not sounding properly.  Sorry, that's all I've got at the moment, but I'm a relative newb.  There's lots of folks here who have experience with these Williams, hopefully they'll have some ideas.  Good luck!

Robert

I doubt that you broke the wiper, maybe you could have bent it. You may have to take it to a person who knows how to clean the potentiameter switch, it's not that hard to do but just tricky for somebody doing it the first time by themselves.

Also the speeding up of the engine means that your transformer is working correctly when whistle or bell button is pushed, and there could be another issue affecting your engine.

Don't know how the Williams do with a CW-80 but they do very well with an MTH Z-1000 transformer, as I have a few PS-2 engines as well.

Lee Fritz

A belated thanks to you guys.  I just installed a Tru-Blast II in my Lionel 783, and I was at my wits' end, trying to figure out why I wasn't getting any sound out of it.

So while doing a search for possible problems, I came to this thread.  It was, as Starhopper suggested, the volume control potentiometer.  Once I cleaned it out with alcohol and a Q-tip, it started whistling normally.

Thanks again!