@DanVW posted:Can I get away with adding a resistor to the coupler to increase resistance? Possibly measure a Lionel coupler’s impedance and build the MTH to match?
No, the result would be no cooking the triac, and no coupler operation. The MTH couplers require more current to operate than the Lionel couplers as they're lower impedance.
Note that this is for MTH PS/2 couplers. Sometimes with upgrades, I see PS/1 couplers on PS/2 upgrades, those also work for Lionel.
If the MTH coupler has a flat frame with a patent number on it, it's a PS/2 coupler. If it doesn't have the patent number on the bottom, you can use it with TMCC.
@DanVW posted:I wonder if they have a generic articulated board w/o a road number announcement? I’ll have to look into it. Thanks for all of the info.
I don't believe so, I ran across that issue several times. Pretty much all of the RS4 and RS5 engine specific boards had the number in the crewtalk.
@DanVW posted:I’m going to work on the E-6 some more tonight. I’m planning on switching out the marker lights to bicolor red/green LED’s. I’ll wire them up through the front & rear lighting circuits so they change color with direction.
Here's a wiring scheme for directional markers using the front/rear lighting outputs from the R2LC or R4LC.
A couple of notes.
- The number boards were incandescent, and since this engine didn't have smoke, I put them on the smoke output so they were switchable. You can simply omit that circuit if you don't have number boards, or want to light them a different way.
- This design includes the .01uf load capacitors necessary to trigger the R2LC/R4LC triac if you using only LED's. The ERR products already have the caps, so you can omit them.
- The LED's are all common anode, necessary for use with the TMCC lighting outputs as they're negative in respect to frame ground.
- The diode protects all the LED's from reverse polarity in the event the locomotive comes up in conventional mode. Lighting outputs in conventional are full wave track power.
Click on the graphic to expand
