W A R N I N G concering LionChief sets and locos

Chuck Sartor posted:

 Put the engine and tender on the track with the throttle turned to 30%.

I think I see the problem.

Also, there are several different MRC "packs"... which one are you talking about?

This sounds familiar - seems I recall another poster having bad results with the throttle at lower levels.

I have an MRC transformer AC 1301, that I purchased before really knowing what I was doing. I have never connected it to my track because I was worried that it put out too much voltage for my LC/LC+ engines to handle. I figured if I ever used it, I'd just throttle it down, but now I read that at low voltages they can be problematic too?

I think I'll just throw it on eBay and try to recoup my money.

I wonder if the issue is that the MRC may not be a true sine wave output and therefore 24VAC is present even at minimal throttle. However, I would hope that Lionel's quality in engineering and design would prevent instant destruction from 24VAC as that is not an uncommon voltage potential on conventional setups.

Have you measured the true voltage at the track with that transformer?  LC and Lionel locomotives generally are designed for 18VAC at the track.  Manuals warn that more can kill them.

And I don't know where this thought that there is an issue running LC locomotives under 18V comes from.  I use a CW-80 turned to half throttle to run my Thomas and friends LC locomotives exclusively.  Keeps them on the O27 track when the little tots are running the trains.  Been doing this for years without ever having any issues.  I personally don't care for LC, but my experience has been they are rather robust and take the beating my boys have given them, physically and electrically.

I have and use a MRC AH601 Pure Power Dual Transformer. WHEN I run my LionChief locomotives with this transformer, I do limit the voltage to 14-16 volts. There are several LC locomotives that have run fine without issue. I do wonder what the voltage is when you have the throttle set to "30%". Don't know about component failure, but I would expect that the LC will not run if the voltage is too low.

While I am keenly aware of the sine wave chopping of the CW-80, I was under the assumption that the MRC transformers deliver a clean sine wave. I'm not saying that a transformer will not fail, but I cannot see how under normal conditions you would see 24 VAC @ a minimal throttle position. 

BMORAN4,

   This has nothing what so ever to due with Lionel quality, the MRC is not compatible with some of the Lionel engines for some reason.  Remember Lionel does not actually engineer it's product to be compatible with other companies products.  

PCRR/Dave

Pine Creek Railroad posted:

BMORAN4,

   This has nothing what so ever to due with Lionel quality, the MRC is not compatible with some of the Lionel engines for some reason.  Remember Lionel does not actually engineer it's product to be compatible with other companies products.  

PCRR/Dave

Lionel themselves has produced many transformers capable of providing in excess of 18VAC. As such, I believe a quality design would accommodate protective measures (not necessarily operation, but why not?) for such scenarios.

Rob, the specific MRC pack is MRC 600 Tech 4.  Maybe the Tech series puts out harsh chopped waves. I don't think how much the pack was turned up, it would/did happen. I'm not an electrical engineer, but my guess is the Lionchief boards have teenie-weenie surface mount power transistors that are probably operating full capacity with sine wave. Those tiny power transistors are carrying the same load as the previous pre LionChief version ( Polar Express ) that used the DREU style motor control that had standard size transistors bolted to a heat sink.

This is hard to understand, since LC & LC+ engine’s are claimed to work on so many power sources; AC, DC, DCC, DCS, etc. Is it just a too much voltage problem, or is it more of a wave form issue? Are there also issues with MRC HO DC power packs? LionChief products have been out there for several years now, as have MRC AC power packs, why has it taken so long for this problem to come to light?

While Lionel’s products may not be specifically engineered to work with other manufacturer’s products, it is certainly in Lionel’s best interest to be as compatible as possible, especially in this case, where I would think they would want to sell LC & LC+ locomotives to people with existing O Gauge layouts.

Bill in FtL

Bill Nielsen posted:

This is hard to understand, since LC & LC+ engine’s are claimed to work on so many power sources; AC, DC, DCC, DCS, etc. Is it just a too much voltage problem, or is it more of a wave form issue? Are there also issues with MRC HO DC power packs? LionChief products have been out there for several years now, as have MRC AC power packs, why has it taken so long for this problem to come to light?

While Lionel’s products may not be specifically engineered to work with other manufacturer’s products, it is certainly in Lionel’s best interest to be as compatible as possible, especially in this case, where I would think they would want to sell LC & LC+ locomotives to people with existing O Gauge layouts.

Bill in FtL

Is it Lionel's responsibility to ensure that their engines are compatible with a competitors transformers, especially one that - I would imagine - doesn't have that large of a market share compared to Lionel and MTH? Especially when that competitor markets some of their transformers as being able to boost energy output over 33%* above what Lionel's own trains can handle?

*With "Boost" the 1301 Throttlepack can supposedly output 24 V.

Gilly@N&W posted:

Don't know able component failure, but I would expect that the LC will not run if the voltage is too low.

That was my experience, at least with LC+. I posted about this a couple months ago, with respect to operational problems I was having with a LC+ RS-3. Turned out I didn't have the transformer turned up high enough. Once more voltage was applied, the problems vanished.

There have been other reports in years past of problems experienced by some operators when using certain MRC transformers with Lionel engines, although I don't recall anything as radical as burning up electronics. I think there have been reports of some incompatibility with certain MTH transformers as well. I don't try to understand all this sine wave mumbo jumbo, and am not aware that there is any definitive list of what transformers have what, or what engines are affected by what. I'm sure it would be too complex to compile, realistically.

I think the best practice is just to use modern Lionel transformers when running modern Lionel trains, and then you don't have to worry about it.

Deuce posted:

Bill Nielsen posted:

This is hard to understand, since LC & LC+ engine’s are claimed to work on so many power sources; AC, DC, DCC, DCS, etc. Is it just a too much voltage problem, or is it more of a wave form issue? Are there also issues with MRC HO DC power packs? LionChief products have been out there for several years now, as have MRC AC power packs, why has it taken so long for this problem to come to light?

While Lionel’s products may not be specifically engineered to work with other manufacturer’s products, it is certainly in Lionel’s best interest to be as compatible as possible, especially in this case, where I would think they would want to sell LC & LC+ locomotives to people with existing O Gauge layouts.

Bill in FtL

Is it Lionel's responsibility to ensure that their engines are compatible with a competitors transformers, especially one that - I would imagine - doesn't have that large of a market share compared to Lionel and MTH? Especially when that competitor markets some of their transformers as being able to boost energy output over 33%* above what Lionel's own trains can handle?

*With "Boost" the 1301 Throttlepack can supposedly output 24 V.

While it may not be Lionel’s “responsibility”, it certainly is to their advantage if their locos can work with other company’s equipment. It is also MRC’s responsibility to clear this up, especially since they make AC power packs, but no AC locomotives, so if their product is to be used at all, it must be used with another company’s locomotives.

We need more clarification on this, is it a problem with ALL MRC power supplies, just one or more series of power supplies, or just one individual pack that may be defective? Exactly what is the cause of the problem?

Bill in FtL

Breezin, The problem the board failed (and quickly) at low voltage, so turning up the power wouldn't  help. MRC's  Pure Power series may not harm the LC circuit board. I suspect it is their Tech series of power packs. It was just a fluke that I ran into this problem with this particular transformer type.

Chuck Sartor posted:

Breezin, The problem the board failed (and quickly) at low voltage, so turning up the power wouldn't  help. MRC's  Pure Power series may not harm the LC circuit board. I suspect it is their Tech series of power packs. It was just a fluke that I ran into this problem with this particular transformer type.

Chuck Sartor posted:

Rob, the specific MRC pack is MRC 600 Tech 4.  Maybe the Tech series puts out harsh chopped waves...

The Tech series has some very nasty wave forms, at "30%" there is still 18+ volts(as seen on a scope) which is what the LC is expecting, but not enough time/power under the chopped wave to do anything to process it.  At full throttle, this would have been a non-issue, the sine waves are filled out nearly fully except for a few blips in the curve. This scenario is typical for most modern power, especially the CW80.

The MRC Pure Power units are fine and should post no issues at all.

Bill Nielsen posted:

Deuce posted:

Bill Nielsen posted:

This is hard to understand, since LC & LC+ engine’s are claimed to work on so many power sources; AC, DC, DCC, DCS, etc. Is it just a too much voltage problem, or is it more of a wave form issue? Are there also issues with MRC HO DC power packs? LionChief products have been out there for several years now, as have MRC AC power packs, why has it taken so long for this problem to come to light?

While Lionel’s products may not be specifically engineered to work with other manufacturer’s products, it is certainly in Lionel’s best interest to be as compatible as possible, especially in this case, where I would think they would want to sell LC & LC+ locomotives to people with existing O Gauge layouts.

Bill in FtL

Is it Lionel's responsibility to ensure that their engines are compatible with a competitors transformers, especially one that - I would imagine - doesn't have that large of a market share compared to Lionel and MTH? Especially when that competitor markets some of their transformers as being able to boost energy output over 33%* above what Lionel's own trains can handle?

*With "Boost" the 1301 Throttlepack can supposedly output 24 V.

While it may not be Lionel’s “responsibility”, it certainly is to their advantage if their locos can work with other company’s equipment. It is also MRC’s responsibility to clear this up, especially since they make AC power packs, but no AC locomotives, so if their product is to be used at all, it must be used with another company’s locomotives.

We need more clarification on this, is it a problem with ALL MRC power supplies, just one or more series of power supplies, or just one individual pack that may be defective? Exactly what is the cause of the problem?

Bill in FtL

I have a MRC Pure Power 270, that is on a layout that runs primarily LC and LC+.

The MRC Pure Power has also run my other Lionel and MTH Railking locos just fine.

I do have  some old MRC Tech transformers from my HO days.    I've never used them to power my O gauge trains.   I have used them for lights and some accessories.

There is a valuable lesson here, and that is not assuming there are real standards with all this. Has nothing to do with quality of the manufacturers, it is just variance in the way they do things. On one throttle half throttle might equal half the rated voltage, on another transformer it might not be that linear. Brand A might produce 18v top, B 20......and yep, the whole clipped sine wave, pure sign wave thing as well. Very different buying a LC+ and running it with a Lionel ZW or CW (modern day) then let's say running it with an old ZW or KW or a MTH unit, pays to check things like at what throttle setting it produces 18v.  Post war engines could run on almost anything (someday I'll tell the tale of trying to use an old variac laying around to create a portable throttle system on my layout as a kid), modern stuff as we have talked about ad infinitum is a lot more sensitive to a variety of things. 

Is this in reference to RF LionChief or Bluetooth LionChief?

Thanks for the tip......

Gary

Dave, this the older 10th anniversary Polar Express and the standard older LionChief 2-8-4, not the newer Blue tooth. Specifically 691-LNCF-035 purchased from parts dept. a few days ago.