I have a lionel engine with tmcc and cruise commander m. It is currently 2 chuffs per rev,is it possible to change to 4 chuffs per rev? Thanks for an answers and if anyone here is capable of doing it please say so.
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Not without adding your own chuff switch. I'm trying to get one manufactured, but it'll be several months.
Here's the thread where I describe it with pictures: Super-Chuffer Chuff Generation Enhancement
It does require board soldering, and some mechanical fitting of the optical sensor spacing, so I'm still up in the air as to how it might be sold. I don't want to get half of them back claiming they don't work.
Good luck with that project John, if anyone can work it out it's you.
Jack
Jack, the board works great, I'm just working out how to get them made for a decent price so they don't end up costing an arm and a leg. I've already put them in about 7-8 locomotives, but those were hand built. Clearly, for any volume quantities, I'll need to find an assembly option.
I've had all my TMCC steamers with 2 chuffs/rev upgraded to 4 chuffs/rev. Probably several ways to do it, but for mine it was usually adding a new switch to an axel on the tender. This mostly works because the circumference of a tender wheel is about half that of a driver. Because of this, the sound will not be in sync with the rods. That said, it sounds a whole lot better than the original two chuffs. Most of mine were expertly done by Alex M here on the forum.
Ron, many folks, including me, want to get away from the magnets and reed switches, that's why I'm doing this development for the chuff generator.
I have your super chuffer puffing smoke out of my JLC challenger and works great and would sure like to get my engine to 4 chuffs per rev as it has a poor chuff sound for the second chuff sound real short choppy chuff that would sound much better at 4 chuffs per rev and the smoke would come out of the stack much better now that the mike r update to the smoke unit is done. the 2 chuffs per rev at the slow speed the cruise commander m runs it at the smoke comes out like a witches pot and then speeds up with good puffs at faster chuffs. put me down for the upgrade.
I'm waiting on Johns solution, I have alot of engines I want to upgrade!!
Doug
When I get back from York, I'm going to try to get scheduled to get these made. I'm a little up in the air about installations, it does take some soldering skill to align the sensor to the flywheel, each type of motor/flywheel installation can have different spacing. That being the case, you have to mount the sensor board, then space the sensor to the flywheel at the proper spacing and solder it to the board. Based on my experience with a few user Super-Chuffer installations and seeing what happens soldering to the board, I'm in somewhat of a quandary of how to insure a successful installation package. If the sensor isn't mounted right, it obviously doesn't work right either.
Too bad the leads on the sensor are not nice round pins like those are designed to grip.
do it like train America did with the assembled pickup, different thickness plastic strips and a plastic the right thickness for the gap from sensor to flywheel with stripes on it.
That's fine for flywheels close to the diameter of the motor, but a lot of scale steamers have a much smaller flywheel than the diameter of the motor. For those, I have to extend the sensor. I'm already planning on the strips for the final adjustment.