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Hello All

I recently smoked my engine due to a unfortunate derailment. Since then, I updated all the circuit breakers on the layout.

I found a cap C10 blew on the Bell coil drive PCB. Since I do not have Schematics or diagrams, I am left to black box theory. I have a bell driver on order and have a radio board from a earlier purchase. I tested the tender on another engine and everything is good there. The radio board responds to open the rear coupler only nothing else. If I had drawings or schematics I could poke around with my scope or volt meter to get a clue to what else is damaged. Any ideas would be thoughtfully considered also.

Regards

John

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I have a bell control board in the mail, when I get it I'll take a look.  I'm sure you understand that I'm not inclined to take apart one of my CC2s locomotives just to see what part it is!

Pretty sure that L718 would be the date code, in this case 2007 the 18th week.  I can't find a 66RC anywhere, so I don't know what that is.  I'd guess a FET, but that's just a guess.

My feelings exactly I do not want to have two of these apart at the same time. I just purchased the other one, on eBay last week. I’m hoping to double head them with a very large consist. 

Does TMCC allow two engines assigned the same ID? I’m hoping so that when I use the bell or steam effect they both do the same effect. If I lash them only front engine whistles and rings the bell.

You can use the same ID, though I think they typically work better in an MU configuration.

For Legacy, you can configure an MU so that both locomotives whistle and ring the bell, but only one will have crew talk.  Also, the lighting usually works better configured as an MU, though since the CC2s is early Legacy, it may not be perfect.

FWIW, I just picked up a second one, I think they'll be really boss running together.  I'll have to figure out how to renumber one of them, though all the lighted number boards will be a challenge.

It may be a bell board. I have one thats similar though not exact. I assume there were changes along the way.

Before installing a new or repaired board make sure you check the bell coil. It should read about 100 ohms. Yours may be shorted. I got three bell coils and two had their leads ripped out. The coil is wound with wire thinner than your hair so reattaching them took a bit of effort. The way they are assembled (read poorly) its possible the two leads got shorted under the tape.

If your coil does read shorted you may be able to fix it after removing the tape. 

BTW on my board the cap is labeled C3 but in the same location. Its a 10uf, 106C.

Pete

Last edited by Norton

imageimageThis is the I am using. They are different. One thing I noticed is yours seems to use   outside rail ground while mine has both outside rail and signal common. My bell board does not respond if Legacy common from the RCDR is not connected to this  board. Makes me wonder if your board will work directly with a TMCC signal vs Legacy.

Pete

 

 

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 Yes,The bell controller is fixed. The motor controller is still giving me issues.  I also replaced the motor encoder that was really easy and worked well. I sent two defective  Motor controllers back to Lionel that took about six weeks for them to turn them around. I tested them without installing them completely they seem to work fine then once I put the engine all together and installed them all the way, when I put it on the layout it started having issues not communicating well. so back to the bench and she runs ok at low speeds but when I increase to speed 5 or 6 she comes to a stop. If I roll the knob down a few steps she starts to run again. I’m thinking about throwing in the towel and asking Lionel to repair it.  I’m not sure if this is a motor control issue or a radio controller or radio circuit board issue. I’m bad enough at Electronics but without any type of schematics or block diagrams It’s almost darn impossible!

I’m really almost to embarrassed to post since I never got it all the way fixed. I have another Cc2s engine that runs just fine. I repaired the smoke unit on the whistle and it’s putting out smoke great. Thanks for asking!

I have a friend who is  trying to work out some details on the tender wiring:  Background, I got an engine in pieces without tender, was able to get the matching engine shell and tender shell, but do not have the rest of the tender. I have on the way from Lionel the matching tender railsounds mainboard, already bought the matching sound card, have on hand a RS power board, and the matching IR drawbar receiver assembly. Lionel doesn't have the frame or both trucks so I'm going to have to be creative.

Here is the crux of the problem- the tender shell with the rear light, marker lights, volume pot, and RS/SS switch terminates in a 9 pin connector.
Easy enough to trace the wires and so forth, but the point is, the mainboard does not have this matching connector. I don't have an example tender nor wiring diagram. Here is a picture of the connector from the top shell of the tender.
IMG_1617.JPG
 
Here is a picture from Lionel parts of the mainboard. Notice no single connector has that many pins.

image.png
Then there is this TACHII board, that might be for the IR legacy transmitter facing downward. It too appears to only be an 8 pin connector, not 9.
 
image.png
Gunrunnerjohn was kind enough to share this quick picture of his tender confirming the oddball "TACHII" board, but he was unable to trace the wiring.
kdoccjpiombbamcc.png
 
I really need a wiring diagram, but lacking that, just an understanding, is there some plug free floating in the harness that 9 pin connector plugs into? Or is it to one of these boards directly? Or possibly, like some MTH tenders where there is a mounted circuit board termination point for easy assembly?
Lionel doesn't sell the harness, nor can I find a wiring diagram.
Also, if anyone has a spare tender frame and trucks?
 

The stuff that's connected to the 9-pin connector will mostly go to the RailSounds card via the motherboard.  One only has to break out the ohmmeter when you get the motherboard.  you'll see the pot connections, coupler and rear light ground (hot is track power), etc.  Something that's not on this diagram happens to be the RS/SS switch, it was omitted for some reason.  However, it's in the same place as on the RS4 boards, so just use that diagram, also provided.  I'm sure all of those end up on motherboard connections.

As I said previously, the only thing I can imagine that "tach" board is doing is perhaps providing the interface for the IR transmitter for LCS, I can't imagine any other function.  There is no tach or sensor on the trucks, so it ain't doing the function that it sounds like it would be.   The same board is also in the 2010 VL Challenger tender, which lends credence to my idea that it's a kludge to run the IR transmitter.

Note that the RS 5.5 board in this locomotive is the RS 5.0 hardware, just has the first generation Legacy sound chips.  The sound motherboard is a generic one that's used in other similar vintage locomotives.

RS5 Connections

RS4 Connections

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  • RS5 Connections
  • RS4 Connections
Last edited by gunrunnerjohn

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