I took a risk and purchased a Weaver New Haven I-5 that was advertised as untested. The box was marked for an engine with TMCC and railsounds, but the exterior of the shipping carton was modified to read "3 rail w/o sound" instead of "3 rail w/ sound" by writing in the 'o' with a pen. When I powered the engine the lights came on, no movement in either TMCC (with universal address #) or conventional, so I decided to open the tender up and here is what I found:
1. The R2LC08 board was loose inside the tender shell. Nothing shorted when I had the engine powered on the track, so I don't think it was damaged.
2. Two other boards are missing from the tender - I'm not familiar with Train America Studios electronics, but I think I'm missing a sound power board and the board the contains the programed sound set chip, based on what I've seen with stock Lionel boards.
3. Obviously missing a speaker.
4. The headlight and marker light came on when power was applied to the track, and all other wires in the tender appear undisturbed.
At this point, I have no idea what the previous owner was doing.
So here are my questions for the TMCC and TAS experts out there:
1. Is an R2LC08 the appropriate radio receiver for this electronics package?
2. Where does each board get attached to on the TAS motherboard? To start with, I'd like to attach the R2LC08 and see if I can get motor functionality.
3. Are the sound power and programming boards actually the ones I am missing?
4. I have some extra speakers taken from TMCC/ERR upgrades and one speaker from a Legacy engine - are these OK to use with the TAS boards? Which port on the motherboard is for the speaker?
5. I have not opened the engine itself - I know a few people on this forum have performed upgrades on these engines, are there any PCBs in the engine I should be looking at as well? Up to this point I have been assuming all that is in the engine is the motor, smoke unit, lights, and whatever provides the chuff input back to the sound board.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide input - this looks like it will be a fun project on my end.
~Chris
