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26 replies

Electric Railroad Cruise Commander M problems

T tjl824OGR Forum Member
Today I purchased a Cruise Commander M board for an older TMCC engine without Odyssey (CSX Dash 9 18283 from 2000). I spoke with the person at Electric Railroad, I think his name is Ken. Very friendly and very helpful. I couldn't get it to respond at all and he pointed out that I needed an R2LC C08 board, mine has a C07 board. So I found another engine of mine that had a C08 board and swapped them. It now runs, except it won't go in reverse.

Also, I put the C07 in the engine I got the C08 board from. It works as normal except the lights don't work at all. I read that this has to do with polarity changes but I'm not sure which wires to change, and everything I read was going from C07 to C08 since no one seems to downgrade these....

I would call them back but I wouldn't imagine being able to get a hold of them until monday.

Thanks!
Trevor
Last edited by tjl824
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G GGGOGR Forum Member

Check the 4 pin connector from mother board to cruise M and also the Serial data line.  IF the R2LC C08 worked in the other engine, the Cruise M may be faulty.

 

Check all connectors to the cruise M and do you Engine Rest.

 

As far as the other engine, it must have LEDs?  If you trace the wires from your lights to where they plug into the mother board connector.  Those would be the wires to switch.  Bulbs should be no problem, but the polarity change won't work with LEDs.

 

One is ground and the other is AC signal from the R2LC.  For Code 8 it is the bottom half of the sine wave, so the ground is actually hi or + as far as an LED is concerned.

 

If these are bulbs that are off, make sure AUX2 not pressed turning lights off.  G

N NortonOGR Forum Member

The four pin connector G refers to has the direction signals. The instructions say to use the connector ERR provides but you can also use the 4 pin connector that came with the TMCC engine. As I recall one has three wires and the other all four but either will work. That will rule out a problem with the wires. If you still have a problem it could very well be the Cruise M. I had the same problem and thought I had found a bad solder joint. It worked for a while after resoldering all of the solder pads at the connector and surrounding pads but later failed again. Boxcar Bill swapped it out for me and no problems since.

 

Pete

G GGGOGR Forum Member

Unless Cruise M board is modified, I don't see how a 3 wire harness would work.  The Motor drivers from Lionel have independent 5V inputs.  If both 5V signals not present it would not work in one direction.  I have jumped the 5V on Lionel motor driver products, but without it you won't get both directions without a 4 wire harness.  G

BB Boxcar BillOGR Forum Member MEMORIALIZED MEMBER

The C07 will not work with CCM. I would do reprogram, not a re-set. Are you locked in forward only. Check your connectors. And it will run with only three wires for direction control. One for forward, one for reverse and one for the 5v DC power. As Pete pointed out, you can use the three wire supplied in the kit. If you are still having problems, give me a call latter this evening.

 

Bill

T tjl824OGR Forum Member
Thanks for all the help!

I found another of my engines with the C08 board (dash 9) and put the other board back in the engine it came from (SD40-2). Both the dash 9 (now with C07 board) and SD40 run fine. So that problem is resolved.

The engine with the ERR board also doesn't run in reverse with the R2LC from the other dash 9. So it's definitely an issue somewhere else. I did reset and reprogram it and that didn't work. I'll check all the connections and see what I find.

Trevor
T tjl824OGR Forum Member
It's probably an issue with the board then. I'll take it up with them as soon as I can get a hold of them.

How well does the nudge feature work? That's the reason why I bought the board, so that I could run it with my other engines. So far the one with the ERR board runs way faster than my odyssey engines and I can't slow it down (noticably at least) with the nudge feature, unless I'm doing it wrong. When I hold the brake button in the engine stops entirely and then the speed can be changed with the boost and brake button, but once saved it makes no difference.

Trevor
N NortonOGR Forum Member

The manual shows the pin orientation on J1, the four pin connector. You should read zero ohms between pin 1 and Pin 3. Depending on if and how the board is mounted you should read ~5 volts on both those pins when connected to the R2LC and powered up even when using the 3 wire version of the 4 pin connector.

 

Pete

T tjl824OGR Forum Member
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXsf4QKTuk

Here's a video of the engine. The CSX has the ERR board, and the UP has Odyssey. A half turn of the knob gets the CSX flying. It does crawl nice but I think UP still runs nicer. I have another Odyssey engine, an SD70MAC, that runs at exactly the same speed as the UP. I bought the board to make the CSX run with the other two engines. Can that be achieved? Currently they're no where near close to each other.
T tjl824OGR Forum Member
I did some work with the lights (they hung down in the cab and didn't light up the numberboards so I moved them up top) and put the engine entirely back together. Apparently it decided it runs backwards now......

So that problem resolved itself miraculously. Now the only problem I have is unrelated. The smoke unit won't work, and I believe it has to do with when I changed the radio from C07 to C08. Should I flip the wires around on the smoke unit?

I guess the only other thing with the ERR board has to do with lashups. Does anyone else have an engine with the cruise commander and one with Odyssey that run the same? I'm very impressed with how smooth this engine runs now, but still a little disappointed that I can't run it with my other engines.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Trevor
G GGGOGR Forum Member

Did you turn the smoke switch on and turn on smoke via Remote Aux 1 9.  It is very easy for these leco wire connectors to push out when installed on the motherboard.

 

Worth tracing wires from the smoke unit to the switch and MB.  Hate to say remove shell again, but watch smoke unit when turned on and see if fan impeller turning and smoke unit getting warm.  Lots of different things can be wrong.  G

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