J Class Hudson Fan posted:The only thing that I am dissatisfied at the moment about is the Rail Sounds 4. So I did some research on upgraded Lionel Rail Sounds boards for NYC Hudsons and I came across 2 options:
1. The Lionmaster Hudsons #5418, item # (6-38045), and #5422, item # (6-38085). They both have Rail Sounds 4e boards with road number specific dialog.
2. The Century Club 2 separate sale PT tender item # (6-38097) made to go along with the Empire State Express Hudson #5429, item # (6-38000). It has a Rail Sounds 5 board with road number specific dialog.
I actually quite like the separate sale PT tender and am wondering, even though it has Rail Sounds 5 boards, could I put the Lionmaster Rail Sounds 4e board from 5422 in it. Then I would renumber the J3a loco and pt tender to 5422. If I did this, I would most likely get another boiler shell for 5433 so that if I want, I can turn the engine back into 5433.
So does anyone know if putting the 5422 4e board in the 5.0 PT tender will work?If it does work, does anyone know where I can find a Lionmaster 5422 Rail Sounds 4e board from? They do not sell the part at Lionel Support. The part # is (691RS4E031).
What don't you like about the RS4? Upgrading to a RS4e board doesn't change the functionality at all. The main purpose for the "e" -- enhanced -- was to eliminate some of the background hissing that was an artifact of the sound compression. This is mostly visible at rest, and once a locomotive is in motion, you can't really hear any difference over the usual layout sounds.
If you can find a RS5 board and chipset (but not Legacy 5.5 or 6) that you like, this could be added to your RS4 loco. There's one small quirk in doing that, as the transistor that powers the tender back-up light on the RS5 board will be destroyed, but the function will still work because of the AD20 in the tender. This really only becomes a problem if you want to put the RS5 board back into an RS5 loco (and is repairable if you needed it to be).
Lastly, you cannot add a RS4e board to a RS5 tender, as you won't have anything to control the back-up light and rear coupler. This is because an RS4 system uses an AD20 board for those functions. The AD20 was eliminated with RS5, and that functionality was added to the RS5 board. Without either an RS5 audio or an AD20 board in the tender, you lose those functions.
J Class Hudson Fan posted:After doing some searching around on Lionel Support, I found that they had some Rail Sounds 4e generic steam boards (Berkshire/mikado) in stock. Does anyone know how good those are and will it just plug into the 5.0 PT tender?
gunrunnerjohn posted:Yep, plug it in and away you go. However, I have no idea what those boards sound like.
No, for the reasons mentioned above.
TRW
