Z-1000 with Z-Controller and CW-80 Waveforms

Yowie!!  Pictures are worth 1000 words, esp when you compare waveform coming out of the brick to what the controllers do to it!

wow no wonder it causes such issues with MTh n some Lionel!

Alan

Guns,

  Real nice visual explanation, great stuff!

PRCC/Dave

I was just working on something  on the bench with the 'scope and happened to check the waveform, that got me checking a couple of them.   It is interesting to see how crappy they look.

Interesting. I thought the CW-80 used a triac, but I might be wrong. Not obvious how you'd get a triac to do that, unless they trigger it through the whole "on" time to get it to work below the minimum holding current.

Looks like my worn out chain saw....

They do use a triac, at at least this schematic claims they do.

Yes, I have seen that drawing before; never saw a triac drawn like that.

I have one CW-80 left, maybe I'll pull it apart later in the week just to see if there is anything to be learned. Who knows, maybe that ringing is from the fan motor! It is noticeably asymmetrical, as is the fan motor voltage/current due to the half-wave rectifier.

Triac controllers have looked like this for 50 years. They do a job though. There are more expensive options . 

cjack posted:

Triac controllers have looked like this for 50 years. They do a job though. There are more expensive options . 

What causes the "ringing?" 

Don't know but they all work better with a load. That's the point of having one, use it for a load, but I agree I would like to see no ringing in any case.

PLCPROF,

   Simply put the CW-80 in the circle 7 file and forget about it!  I will not even run bumper cars with that piece of unsafe junk any more, just purchased another old KW from one of the OGR members, for more than reasonable money however, to be used with one of the Christmas layouts we provide for the US Military Veterans Children each year.

PCRR/Dave

The CW80 works just fine with all 21st century Lionel products, in conventional, LionChief or TMCC/Legacy mode.   Clearly non-Lionel stuff occasionally is a problem judging from some people's experiences.  Williams locos seem to work fine in my hands.  Haven't tried it with postwar or prewar locos.

Gunrunnerjohn, have you ever checked the waveform of a ZW-C with the 180w bricks? I'm just curious.

Nope Denny, never looked at that with the 'scope.  The bricks have a nice sinewave.

I have, typical shark's tooth, but no oscillations.

I have a different, and possibly more relevant question for you "scope wizards."  What does the waveform look like when it reaches the MOTOR?  Assuming that you're running a modern, can-motored loco; and further assuming that the electronic E-unit (or Legacy motor driver, or PS3 motor driver) does some "chopping" of it's own, you could end up with a waveform that's nasty, brutish, and short.  Or possibly a motor that's starved for power.

A long time ago when my Dad had a scope handy, we looked at the waveforms coming out of the basic Lionel electronic E-unit from a 1980s starter set loco, and also the waveform from a K-Line K-3003 train set 4-6-2.  The K-Line's was much more interesting, it seemed to increase the duty cycle proportional to an increase in the input voltage.  I wasn't able to capture images then, but with the advent of Legacy, PS3, etc., this experiment might be worth repeating.  

What you have posted so far is interesting and informative, thanks for sharing!

Ted Sowirka posted:

I have a different, and possibly more relevant question for you "scope wizards."  What does the waveform look like when it reaches the MOTOR?  Assuming that you're running a modern, can-motored loco; and further assuming that the electronic E-unit (or Legacy motor driver, or PS3 motor driver) does some "chopping" of it's own, you could end up with a waveform that's nasty, brutish, and short.  Or possibly a motor that's starved for power.

 

Remembering that can motors run on DC, and that our power is rectified (filtered?) with the loco, it would hopefully get a fresh start as a DC-ish signal before being perforated by the e-unit or what have you.

I have a Williams e-unit and an ERR cruise commander unit apart on the bench, I will look at those for you within the next day or two. Don't have any Legacy I am willing to take apart, getting the shell back on is murder.....

John, What would really be interesting is to see the K-Line 120W Power Chief. Supposedly the improved COPY of the CW-80.  G

Landsteiner posted:

The CW80 works just fine with all 21st century Lionel products, in conventional, LionChief or TMCC/Legacy mode.   Clearly non-Lionel stuff occasionally is a problem judging from some people's experiences.  Williams locos seem to work fine in my hands.  Haven't tried it with postwar or prewar locos.

While it may work, it doesn't look very efficient.

John, Why the freq change on the CW-80?  G

GGG posted:

John, What would really be interesting is to see the K-Line 120W Power Chief. Supposedly the improved COPY of the CW-80.  G

Sure, just send me one and I'll check it.

GGG posted:

John, Why the freq change on the CW-80?  G

Frequency change?  If you're referring to the displayed frequency, I'm assuming that was measuring the ringing on the waveform instead of the basic waveform.

John:

Good info - all the guys in my O scale club run either the CW-80 or the Z-1000 on our small table layouts in the mall. I will pass this info along to them. The ringing n the CW-80 really surprised me.

Thanks

Joe

Gunrunnerjohn, have you ever check out the waveform on a Z-4000? I'm going to try and get the club to purchase one. They are all hard core Lionel and would rather chew nails than buy anything from MTH except rolling stock. Right now they are using the 275w PW-ZW on the club layout which has fried the smoke units in three of my cabooses when running Legacy/TMCC. I thought one was going to burst into flames. I should have ran it at 16v, maybe even12v instead of 18v. I always check the voltage before I run trains. My friend who is a Lionel tech fixed them, but I only run them with my ZW-C at 14v to 16v now. I only use non-smoking cabooses on the club layout.

Denny:

In addition to what John will show you please beware that if your club is running TMCC/Legacy w/o any powermaster or TPC between the transformer and track the Z-4000 may not be appropriate to use. If there are powermasters or TPC's in between there should be no issue. TMCC and Legacy locos have been designed around chopped waveform transformers. The Z-4000 is basically a smooth wave. Smoke output and auto coupler action are sometimes affected. From what I understand both the powermaster and the TPC change the waveform to a chopped  version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMR25JoCZiU

Joe

DennyM posted:

Gunrunnerjohn, have you ever check out the waveform on a Z-4000? I'm going to try and get the club to purchase one.

Funny you should ask.  I had previously posted these.

Z4000 2 Ohm Resistive Load at 4.9V

Z4000 2 Ohm Resistive Load at 12V

Z4000 2 Ohm Resistive Load at 19V

Z4000 No Load 11V

Z4000 No Load 21V

Thanks Joe. Now that I have thought about it, I'm pretty sure their not going to go with the Z-4000. MTH is a swear word around here. Which is funny considering my friend and club member who is a Lionel tech lives in St. Joseph, MI less than a mile from the MTH lab which he despises. I'm not exaggerating.

There's no issue running Lionel equipment, including the PowerMaster, on the Z4000.  OTOH, there's no reason to spend that much on a transformer to connect to the PowerMaster, the PowerHouse 180 is a better choice as you get 360 watts from two of them for about half the price of the Z4000.

People that "hate" one manufacturer or another basically have a personal problem IMO.   All the manufacturers make some good stuff and some losers.  The object of the exercise is to cherry pick the good stuff from the pile.

That would explain why MTH strongly recommends not using the controllers on the brick transformers on the DCS TIU's. I have a Z-1000 brick actually, and use it by itself. Guess I should be thankful I do.

You don't want to use the standard chopped waveform controllers on a PowerMaster or a TIU, as the logic assumes a sine wave as input.  Using the Z4000 with it's synthesized sine wave works fine, I should have taken a picture of that when I tried it.

As you can see, even at full throttle, the chopped waveform transformers don't output a decent looking sine wave.  In an interesting twist, if you have a brick feeding a TIU and set a variable channel to full throttle (22V on the display), you will get a pure sine wave out of the TIU.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

There's no issue running Lionel equipment, including the PowerMaster, on the Z4000.  OTOH, there's no reason to spend that much on a transformer to connect to the PowerMaster, the PowerHouse 180 is a better choice as you get 360 watts from two of them for about half the price of the Z4000.

People that "hate" one manufacturer or another basically have a personal problem IMO.   All the manufacturers make some good stuff and some losers.  The object of the exercise is to cherry pick the good stuff from the pile.

Well all I can say is most train guys around here do not like MTH, but then there are guys in my club that don't like modern trains. They are strictly post-war. They don't own computers or cell phones either. I would give MTH a try, but not their DCS system. I don't understand why it's set up the way it is.

reading thru this thread:     Am I okay running my Lionel 180bricks directly  thru my TIU?    One is connect to Fixed 1, the other to fixed 2.   I run both Lionel and MTH seemingly with no issues.

Yes, the bricks are ideal for connecting to the TIU. 

Not to beat a dead horse , but this is an impression of my CW80. The number of times it was run can be counted on one hand.