Upgrading the MTH Southern Daylight 20-3029-1 to TMCC

It looks like it has the BCR, so a replacement battery not needed, just to sit on the track for 30sec to charge and then it's good to go.  As for running as it came, no MTH equipment was needed as PS-1 was just a fancy conventional locomotive (Which I love running with my Legacy/TMCC handhelds.).  As for the smoke unit, the original would work just fine for ERR setups.

As for wanting the boards, I have several extras, so I don't need them, but I'd gladly take that BCR off of your hands.

Have fun with your new engine !  

Like Sinclair said , you have a BCR in the battery slot !  

Like You , I like Lionel & MTH !   I buy what I like !  I also like Menard's train cars ! 

You can use the PS/1 smoke unit with your TMCC upgrade, no need to replace it.

Thanks for the input gentlemen. As I said above, if I can tap into the Railsounds board for the whistle I'll use the Proto 1 smoke unit to make some smoke when I make it whistle.

I would be happy to take the ProtoSounds [1] castaways off of your hands!

David

David98 posted:

I would be happy to take the ProtoSounds [1] castaways off of your hands!

David

Send me an email. Email in my profile.

Thanks

Jayhawk500 posted:

Thanks for the input gentlemen. As I said above, if I can tap into the Railsounds board for the whistle I'll use the Proto 1 smoke unit to make some smoke when I make it whistle.

No place to tap into the RS boards to get a logic output for the whistle.  However, the ERR Sound Converter can be easily hacked to provide a logic output for the whistle, it reads the serial data and has uP outputs for the whistle and bell activation.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Jayhawk500 posted:

Thanks for the input gentlemen. As I said above, if I can tap into the Railsounds board for the whistle I'll use the Proto 1 smoke unit to make some smoke when I make it whistle.

No place to tap into the RS boards to get a logic output for the whistle.  However, the ERR Sound Converter can be easily hacked to provide a logic output for the whistle, it reads the serial data and has uP outputs for the whistle and bell activation.

Thanks for the info John. I'll look into it. By the way, did you get my email a while back? Just curious.

I just emailed Ken at ERR. He's out for the next 2 weeks. There's nothing on the sound converter on ERR website. You have anything? 

How far back was the email?  I get a lot of email.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

How far back was the email?  I get a lot of email.

About 2 weeks. I figured you did. I was just asking some questions.

David98 posted:

I would be happy to take the ProtoSounds [1] castaways off of your hands!

David

Check your email.

If I didn't answer it, chances are I may not have gotten it.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

If I didn't answer it, chances are I may not have gotten it.

It's okay. I got things figured out.

Thanks

Here's a quick update. I have the Super-chuffer and Chuff-generator installed and wired. Wires are run a neatly as possible in the hopes that some day of adding a small fan driven smoke unit for a smoking whistle. Next I need to get the boiler parts married up.

The Super-Chuffer is tucked partially under the smoke unit. The constant voltage lighting board remains since it drives the MARS light, the classification lights and side number boards. The headlight, I haven't decided to leave it as it is or add it to the Super-Chuffer.

GRJ, I know your diagram calls for an LED for the headlight. Will the S-C drive a 6 volt bulb? The reason I ask is, there are 2 bulbs in the headlight, one for the headlight itself and one for the front number boards. The headlights go to the Blue plug, MARS to the White plug and the class lights to the Yellow plug. Side number boards to the Brown plug behind the yellow one. The cab light goes to the S-C. The brown plug on the back half of the board in the second photo is the former cab light plug.

The bottom half of the boiler with side boards is on. Now I have to figure out how to connect the chassis and boiler.

Until next time...

Greetings Jayhawk!  Nice to see another fellow Oregonian around these parts.  Did you happen to catch the 4449 on its trip to Bend last summer?

The S-C will not drive incandescent bulbs, it's limited to one standard 20ma LED.  The only way to drive bulbs as you describe is to add a transistor or FET buffer to the headlight output.  This is how I drive the incandescent cab lights with the S-C, the bulbs go to track power and I use 12V bulbs.

GND is frame ground

HL is the headlight output from the S-C

Output is switched to ground when headlight is on

Janitor John posted:

Greetings Jayhawk!  Nice to see another fellow Oregonian around these parts.  Did you happen to catch the 4449 on its trip to Bend last summer?

No, didn't know anything about it until recently. At some point I'll be joining the Heritage Rail Museum So I can get updates and possibly do an excursion some day.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The S-C will not drive incandescent bulbs, it's limited to one standard 20ma LED.  The only way to drive bulbs as you describe is to add a transistor or FET buffer to the headlight output.  This is how I drive the incandescent cab lights with the S-C, the bulbs go to track power and I use 12V bulbs.

GND is frame ground

HL is the headlight output from the S-C

Output is switched to ground when headlight is on

Thanks for the info John. I know it seems simple, but I'll just use what I got currently. Thanks for the time and info again.

Just a quick update on my progress with my Daylight upgrade. After attempting to put the boiler and chassis together I realized that in order to disassemble this engine again I needed a better mouse trap. I re-used the PCB for the smoke and constant voltage lighting. I attached the lighting wires to this as it was before. You can also see I added a 4 pin plug so I can disconnect the boiler and chassis if I need to.

Now, on the chassis side, the 10 pin plug doesn't have areas to solder the contact springs to the board. So I soldered the wire to the spring, I had to scrape the coating on the board, and the epoxied the springs in the position they would have been with the original plug board. I also had to add a couple of ABS washers to the under side of the plug board to position the plug in the hole at the back of the engine. I added the washers after I took the photos. I have the element for the smoke unit connected to the switch on the chassis, so when the boss gets upset about all the smoke, I can shut it off. I still have to calibrate the Chuff-Generator.

I've triple checked all the wiring for the boiler and chassis. I did find out that the 90 deg plug on the MTH 10 pin tethers will not work with this engine. I need to use a straight one. So now I have to order that.

Now It's on to the tender.

Until next time.....

Any new updates? Be curious if you added the whistle smoke feature. 

Jayhawk500 posted:

I've triple checked all the wiring for the boiler and chassis. I did find out that the 90 deg plug on the MTH 10 pin tethers will not work with this engine. I need to use a straight one. So now I have to order that.

Now It's on to the tender.

Until next time.....

Be aware that the wire colors and some of the pinout of the straight and 90 deg tethers are not the same.

Trainlover9943 posted:

Any new updates? Be curious if you added the whistle smoke feature. 

No new updates.  I still need to order a 10 pin straight tether. As of right now, adding a second smoke unit is possible, but I need to find a small one to fit in the space provided. But to answer your question, not right now.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Jayhawk500 posted:

I've triple checked all the wiring for the boiler and chassis. I did find out that the 90 deg plug on the MTH 10 pin tethers will not work with this engine. I need to use a straight one. So now I have to order that.

Now It's on to the tender.

Until next time.....

Be aware that the wire colors and some of the pinout of the straight and 90 deg tethers are not the same.

Thanks for the heads up on that John. I have seen that comment in a few other threads. I may have to rewire the engines receptacle. I still cant get over what MTH wants for shipping.....

Hello everyone. It's been a while since I posted any progress on my SP 4449. Unfortunately my train modeling goes in the closet in the spring and doesn't resurface until fall when the weather turns bad. So I've begun to finish my project.

Cruise Commander (ver 4.1) and Speaker mounted using existing holes in the chassis. I just need to wallow out 2 holes for the speaker. I had ordered a RailSounds Lite mount from Lionel for my CSS, but I used it in this project instead. I will reorder one for the CSS later.

All of the wiring is complete. Rang out all the wires and everything checks good. GRJ pointed out that the diesel tether I got had different color code for the wires. So I had to re-solder the PCB on the loco's 10  pin connector.

I made extension wires so I can operate the engine and calibrate the Chuff Generator.  The colors don't match, but its a wire for a wire so the colors don't matter. Just as long as it works.

Now here's learning the hard way...I have all of this together and I power everything up, program the Cab 1 and wa la, it's alive.  I press the bell button and I get a bell. Press the whistle button and I get the whistle. Press the coupler button...Nothing. I check my Aux-Tender switch...Yep, its right. Oh...I left the Program switch in program...Now the coupler works. Push the DIR button (looking for the rear light)...Nothing. Okay, maybe the leads are reversed and it's now in forward. Push the button again (still looking for the rear light)...Nothing. So I do a resistance check on the bulb...Infinite. Hummmmm, Look up the bulb for the rear light in my parts paperwork...1.5 volt Grain for Wheat. That's the reason! A 1.5 volt bulb wont last long in a 14 volt circuit.

My bad, this is an MTH Locomotive not a Lionel. My Aux tender has the same problem now too.

I put Kapton tape all over the body of the tender and chassis to electrically isolate the body. I connected the Cruise Commander antenna to the body using the screw in the top of the body.

I ordered a set of o gauge rollers from Micro-Mark Tools. Hopefully it wont take too long for them to show up.

I have the chuff generator programmed for 4 chuffs per rev. I was able to get 1 chuff in a quarter turn of the wheel so I'm confidant It'll chuff 4 per rev.

The RailSounds I have is for the GS4. It took some playing around, But I figured out where the horn button was. Button 6 on the Cab 1 is supposed to be for "Steam Release", but it's the horn button. I also don't have the "Blow Off" when button 3 is pressed. Just the startup. Tower Comm and Crew talk work fine.

So now I have to  wait on my bulbs for the Aux  Tender and the rollers to get any run time on the engine. I'll have it a year in January and haven't run it yet. I can't wait to get this on the track. I've start setting up my Christmas layout, I'm going to try and get the O-48 curves on so I can run this beast and my CSS.

Until next time.....

My SP Daylight upgrade is complete as of now. I have attached a video of it going around my Christmas Layout. Sorry the video is so washed out. Someone needs to tell me how to embed a thumbnail to play the video.

Looks good, embedding them is really easy.  Click the icon on the toolbar and copy the video url into the dropdown box.

Here's your video embedded.

Thanks John! Its got your Chuff Generator and Super-Chuffer in it.

I see that, doubtless why it has 4-chuffs/rev and great looking chuffing.