@gunrunnerjohn posted:It could be done with a fairly simple circuit, but I never figured the short delay was all that annoying, and I have tons of other pressing projects. A relay driven from the turbine smoke unit could switch from the internal smoke controller (on the motherboard) to a fixed supply that would just pre-warm the heater, much like whistle steam smoke units are handled in Legacy. It would not be enough heat to produce smoke, but when the rear smoke unit smoke controller was switched back into the circuit, it would have a head-start to produce smoke immediately.
I had the MTH version as well, but IMO, they didn't do as good a job on it. The smoke units ran continuously, I like the way that the Lionel model switches them prototypically with sounds to match. I sold the MTH version and kept the Lionel one.
the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking it might be wise to just disconnect and drive both units heaters off a single buck converter, together in parallel, separate from the boards, since I won’t want to mess with turning those off via tmcc anyway and would rather give my irreplaceable driver board a greater chance at longevity without heaters being driven off of it and just leave it to do its job with the fans and the proper sequencing.
perhaps I could run a relay off the output that currently drives the middle heater (since it is independently controllable via tmcc) and then run the newly proposed buck converter driven powered heater circuits, controlled by the relay circuit, so they only draw from the easily replaceable buck converter but do not put a load on the original board, thus I can turn off both heaters via remote, or each fan via remote using all original commands and when I do run the heaters - both are warm and ready to go and produce good smoke with no delay. To me, this makes more sense than the original design anyway - seeing as how you have to leave the turbine unit heater on at all times anyway before it kicks in. Why not have both heaters warm and ready to go??
now to find the right drop-in relay that will fit...
*Re-reading your response here gunrunnerjohn - I think this is exactly what you’ve proposed, no?
