Improving the Lionel Phantom Locomotive

Great project John!  I've been slowly working on customizing a Phantom for some time but had let it get pushed to the back burner recently.  This thread has given me some great ideas and incentive to get back on it.  I really like the laser idea - I was going to use a high intensity red LED but the laser is much better!

 

I picked up a cheap, unpainted Phantom shell and an F3 frame from Ebay a few years back and bought the Phantom 3 sound boards from Lionel.  I am using a single DC power truck with traction tires I picked up in a box of junker parts at a swap meet. It's an odd power truck with the biggest DC can motor I've ever seen in an O-gauge train but it fits perfectly in the chassis and runs fine with the ERR CC board. I've never figured out what it actually came from.

 

For lighting effects I've also been thinking of adding colored EL wire in place of the steel rails (which were missing from this shell anyway). 

 

Cheers,

Jim

You never know what you're capable of unless you try.   I initially thought that the motor addition would be a real PITA, but it turned out to be quite simple, far easier than I imagined.

 

 

 Sounds great Jim, I like the idea of the colored EL wire, that should really make it look wild!  I may have to "borrow" that idea, never thought of that!

I thought you might like that.

And thanks on the links John, but my winter budget is still in effect for about a month. 3 dogs going in and out too often (by 2 19yr olds that don't shut doors), has been killing me a phantom a month extra this year.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a red/yellow one, only silver, or blue & black

(or is it "white dress" blue , I saw both color sets hours apart, different light) 

 

Are there any other colors? Green would be very "Martian".

 

Gramps had a ton of twin powered Pulmors. I would have definitely added the extra motor if I it had been kicking about, too.

There were four runs of the Phantom sets.

 

Green is possible...

 

 

Silver?  No problem.

 

 

Red?  Yep, we can do that!

 

 

And, of course, basic gray or whatever color mine is.

 

 

John is there a way to do some down lighting from underneath the skirts and trucks to kinda flood the rail with light and maybe adding some smoke to making it appear to be floating above the rails

There's certainly room to add some LED's under the skirts I would imagine.  Smoke may be a challenge, once I filled up the back with the motor, there's not much space left in there.  I still have a lighting controller to add for my planned lighting upgrades, so that will consume some space as well.

 

Is that a PRR T-1? How about a "T-100" (Terminator#2=T-1000)

 

Yep..green..that's the ticket John. Good to know the needle is even in the haystack to begin with.

 With a green shell, a red shell roof, and yellow "stripes". After some cutting, I could have "the ideal" Marvin the Martian color scheme. Paint is more likely.

Seeing this in green, why isn't the red, or even yellow, a metallic too?

Bright cherry metallic, and a yellow/gold metallic should have happened too.

  

If the EL is too fat(?) for the horizontal trim channels & holes, some fiber optic strands could deliver a glow. Though not really made for it, they do let soft light out the sidewalls some too. The sharp bends might not work out. Greatly oblonging the holes to recess the ends more might be needed.

Hi again

 

What is your best guess estimate how much this project set up  back? I just want to know if I take this project how much I have to budget for it down the road.  Next project after the LED is the PTC and TVS install on all the engines and that will take a least a 3 months. And once you do that then you might as well replace this and that comes into play.

Well, my price would be different than most, as I had the parts on hand and the motor was free.  If you change the mounting for the existing electronics to fit between the motor, all you need is the old GP-9 (or similar) chassis and truck with motor.  If you look around, $35-30 I'd imagine.  I'll bet there's more than a couple of folks in the forum that have old engines that would like a new home.

I've saw the green one running on Lionel's layout at the Phoenix TCA convention a few years back.  In fact, I went and bought my used Phantom from a dealer there a few minutes later but it's the original gunmetal grey one. Of the Phantoms I've seen, the green is  probably my favorite color.  I've been trying to decide what color to paint my unpainted shell - a metallic green is high on the list.

 

The EL wire I've bought  is the 1.2mm Angel Hair wire from Cool Neon. It can deal with a fairly tight bend radius.  Using a small drill, I sloped the holes in the shell to help dress in the wire with less tight bends and plan to glue the wire with hot melt glue on the inside of the shell.

 

One word of caution. I've used EL wire and sheet around my layout and in a couple other trains. Some of the inverters can cause interference with the 455HKz TMCC track signal. The worst offender was the inverter design Lionel used in their TMCC Aquarium car - one of those was so bad I had to bypass it and use a tiny Cool Neon inverter in its place. With the original design, the whole train would stop responding as soon as you commanded the car's backlight on.

 

Cheers,

Jim

Well done.  This is a cool project.

Thanks Keith, it's a work in progress, but the motor mod worked out well, so now it needs some "dressing up".  I have some of the EL wire and drives on order, looks like interesting stuff to tinker with.

 

Jim, I note your concerns, I've got inverters from two different sources coming, so I'll see how it works out.  I did consider that could be an issue, we'll see...  There may be some sort of filter in my future to minimize the interference if it's a problem.

I love to see this bad boy running on your layout. When do you think you could post the video?

John,  I think it's just that the frequency they run at and the harmonics produced are all over the map (even among the same model). The simplest (which are easiest in our application anyway)  are just transistor chopper circuits that could probably be re-tuned by changing R/C values. They are so cheap I just bought a few extras and swapped out the one or two that caused problems.

 

The Sipex chip in that Lionel Aquarium car used an internal ring oscillator and couldn't be retuned. The one I had seemed to be running exactly half the 455KHz TMCC freq. I assume the 2nd harmonic was the  problem.  Watching the output of the RF chip on an R2LC board with a scope, you could see the signal go completely to garbage as soon as the inverter chip powered up.

 

Some filters and/or simple foil shielding would probably help a lot.

 

Jim

I'm thinking a low-pass filter on the output might just stomp on the higher harmonics, and shielding is a good idea as well.

 

Kris, I'm taking this with me Monday to the club, hopefully I can post a video from that run.  I was kinda' hoping to get the 5th passenger car I bought on eBay, but I haven't seen it yet.

 

 

Have fun and enjoy the passenger cars with the set. Can not wait to see video when it is running on the layout. I like these off the wall type of engines.  What other passenger car would look nice with this set?

I just watched a video with the sounds. Ha Ha that is great stuff!

Normally that dial is off, but I'm a sound fan in this case.

Smoke pouring out the bottom, at start and during shut down would be neat.

 While running I don't think its needed.

 

http://youtu.be/F3Rv_3zA15A?t=2m58s

Almost any streamliner set would compliment well Id think.

A match in height & size of the Phantoms stripe, and the cars trim would be something to consider too. 

Aluminum dome cars, or a custom painted Fleet of Modernism come to mind.

FoM because an observation car would be a must for me.

A beaver tail car would be really cool too.

WOW YUZ GUYZ are really making this engine to be a home run.  This should be in the next catalog with all the improvements, with the proposed lighting that you have done it is a smash!!!!  Love reading this thread, very entertaining.  Thank you!!!

It doesn't sound like your typical model train.   I may have to add some other sounds to one of the cars at some point, that would be pretty cool.

Dear Ardriatic

 

Thanks for the video really neat.  Also thanks for the tips on the passenger cars. Would the 1950's Sanfe Aluminum Cars or similar type be the right height? Also what is a FoM observation car and what is a beaver tail car?

Your welcome.

I don't know how the Foghorn Leghorn link ended up there. But it is the toy train one.

I cut and pasted the Phantom url, then the Phantom embed code. I did both incase the embedding didn't work. I had watched that cartoon. But earlier that day. ????

I don't have the Phantom to make a comparison with.

I do have a FoM* BL** by K-line with the observation car(night picture, bottom)

I can measure the stripe, and windows heights later if you like.

 

It is the "bullet shaped" observation car that I think would look good.

There is more than one version of everything I mention here below (Including NYC 20th Cent Lmt)  

 

PRR *Fleet of Modernism = FoM.

  They were the Raymond Loewy streamlined cars they ran on the **Broadway Limited behind the GG-1s (his design too).

 

I guess the NYC 20 century limited & others have a similar egg shape really.

 

Bullet shape         

          Squared off but back lit 

 

 

 

 

My K-line. Old photos. Dark, but all I have.

 

 

 

Beavertails were on the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha's 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you think you could add this?  Sure to get a laugh at a train show…don’t you think?
Pull it up and park it by a spectator  and let her go…lol
Maybe they would sell?  What do you think?   Might be able to Sell It to the Shark Tank Investors…lol
That is…If you think you can get it to fit in H O stuff also…lol




K.C.

I'm thinking that's a bit too far out for my locomotive.  Now, I could consider adding it to someone else's consist!

 

You’re Right..besides it might work better in a box car..lol

Thanks…
K.C.

John, TCA's convention car in 1995 was a shortened, 15" version of the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha Skytop lounge observation car.  They can be had for ~$50 on Ebay; and they have an interior with the lounge and some little people "under glass" and a light at the end.

 

 

 

I disassembled my car this week-end to get the shell ready for paint.  Very unique interior and incandescent lighting.  I'll take some pics.  Masking the skylight should be fun, not.  I'm not sure if I'll replace the OEM lighting with LED's; that would require some modification to the interior.  But I would like to replace the rear end incandescent bulb and red lens with a drumhead; we'll see.

 

You know what this is? 

 

 

A delivery, to our futuristic methane fuel source!

 

 

Ahhh Come on! It's a little funny isn't it.

 I didn't think it stunk that bad.

With paint, lighting & sound effects, a lot of cars would probably look cool with the Phantom.  I was considering using mine with  the many alien / space themed cars I have. Lionel has come up with a lot of interesting fantasy themed cars over the years - Aliens, Space, Disney, Halloween, etc.. Unfortunately, they usually seem to pull them with a standard, comparatively boring engine with an extra colored stripe or decal on it.  The Phantom design (or some variation) seems like it would be a better choice for the more exotic themed trains but so far they've haven't done it.

 

Jim

Now you all have me trying to think of how to integrate a fart machine (and maybe a synchronized smoke unit) into something!

 

Jim

John

 

Any video of it running on the layout?

Harry took a video with his iPad, but I haven't gotten it from him yet.  I did get one more car, so I have five cars.  If I see another cheap one, I may pick up a sixth.  It had no problem at all running around the whole layout without traction issues, the extra motor really makes a difference.  The weight in the back probably didn't hurt either.

Hi John

 

Love the see all the cars you have pulled by the Phantom on video.

I never did get the video off Harry's iPad, I'll see if I can get it.

 

Here's the video, it's pretty low quality, I can't get to the original file to get a higher resolution copy right now.

 

It looks like it's gliding like a mag-lev or something.

 

Are you going to do the car lights?

Very cool GUNNER!!!  Gonna look really cool with all the LEDs, and other surprises.

If the locomotive was low on pulling power before; it sure isn't now!!!

 

Very cool train; can't wait to see what more you do with it, grj.

Thanks guys.  It does run very smoothly and no sweat pulling cars now.  I'm waiting on my lasers to come and I'll see if I can figure out how to put them in.  I did get some EL wire, waiting on the driver bricks to test them out.

 

It looks much better as a longer train too.

I cant think of what it was from yet, but seeing it here, longer, it smacks of a repeated scene from "something" sci-fi I've seen.

You need to get it a run on a level El.