Bill, I'm not familiar with this engine but assumed Nick was getting communication between the engine and tender already. Maybe he will clear this up.
Pete
Pete
If it was mine I would change to a three wire. Also I might go with a Lionel mother board, R2LC and a cruise M
Sorry guys, was tending to other business.
First off, the locomotive and tender combo. They work absolutely fine together with no modifications. The trick was to put the locomotive through a factory reset using the code 74 for modern steamers with wireless tethers. Tender produces all sounds and chatter normally, and even abides by the one chuff which sounds pretty funny coming from such a modern item.
Secondly, Ken got back to me with the final word. They have a prototype locomotive that's been configured identically to what I want here. Cruise Commander with puff and chuff and wireless tether. He did specify indeed the reed switch would need to be set up on the trailing truck of the locomotive so all custom wiring will be happening in the locomotive with no hard wires whatsoever running between engine and tender. I can never remember clearly what the specifics of the connections were but he said he's made up a special diagram for me on what I need to do. Final cost for Cruise Commander and puff n' chuff was $160.
Sounds like you're on your way. 
Called Frank today and updated him on the changes to the original work we discussed. I asked him what a rough estimate on all the work would be (new motor with old drive adapted, MTH smoke unit adapted to boiler, magnets and reed switch on trailing truck), and he said figure about $125. There were also several parts that turned up unavailable for the Vision Hudson so I've adjusted project cost figures below:
Engine + PT Tender final cost: $550
ERR Cruise Commander + Puff N' Chuff: $160
Frank Timko Upgrades:~$125
Vision Hudson Detail Parts: ~$20
Totalling all this up, the tentative final cost for the project will be $855. Probably sticker shock to some but well worth it to me to have a fully featured and detailed engine no one else does. It's also half the cost of a Vision Hudson while still having most of the features 
The final product should be similar to this one done by JDS Limited, with the obvious difference being my cosmetic upgrades and having retained and upgraded TMCC and RailSounds with ERR Cruise instead of a complete DCS conversion:
In its present state though, the engine represents 5344 undergoing a major backshop overhaul... 
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Nick I would *definitely* like to see photos of what the motor installation looks like when finished. Thanks for sharing! -Ted
Bob Karas had posted a photo of the Timko motor in his 18056 conversion. Surprisingly, the cab backhead still fit fine even though it looked like the motor stuck out pretty far. Don't know where that photo has gone now 
Yep, that one. Looks like you went the route the others mentioned with building your own TMCC and then using the Cruise Commander M.
My own ERR components arrived today. That was some lightning fast shipping. Here is Ken's diagram with his special note (in red) on how to adapt a wireless tether to the Cruise Commander (we will be using the bottom diagram). The only deviation from this diagram as we discussed on the phone will be that the reed switch will be on the engine trailing truck as opposed to the tender. That way the wireless tether is retained with no hard wires between engine and tender.
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Here's where I'll be stopping until I get the boiler and motor back from Timko. Not much, just mounted the Cruise Commander and wired the tether and AC hot. Am holding off until I see where everything will fit space-wise before I do more wiring. I also thoroughly compared the old L2RU assembly to the new Cruise Commander and it turns out the Cruise Commander actually occupies a slightly smaller footprint. It is much shorter than the L2RU in length, the same in width, and the L2RU was a bit taller at the heat sink. All continues to look good and will patiently wait for the components back from Timko. There were some threads recently that mentioned he does have a lot of work and takes his time.
Here's a few shots for those that were curious about how Lionel offered wireless tethers back in 1997. It's actually pretty clever.
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Actually, a couple of months for custom stuff like that seems pretty reasonable, I've heard of a lot longer delays.
I was most impressed with the price. Frank did all this great custom work for only $125 just like he quoted. I was expecting more 
I've heard he's very reasonable, I'm queuing up a couple of projects where I'll find out. I have a Phantom locomotive and cars that I'd like to have a DC motor and cruise control in, that seems like a perfect project for one of his motors.
The real question is, does the shell still fit over the boards??? 
Wouldn't have gotten this far if I wasn't checking shell clearance every 30 minutes 
I figured that, but it was begging to be asked.
Truth be told these upgrades did take up just about every last bit of space inside that boiler. The smoke unit, the boards, and the Timko motor all clear by just millimeters. The Timko motor especially, it clears the cab backhead by the thinnest sliver
Looking forward to video of the finished product.
I could tell from the picture that it had to be pretty close, but as long as it fits...
Almost there guys. Had it all buttoned up then got no communication through the tether on the first try. Opened it back up to find the R2LC board had worked loose. Re-secured that then tested it while holding the shell in my hand. There is now communication through the tether and everything is working, although I need to reverse the motor polarity to match the backup light. I also noticed it was chuffing very rapidly at slow speed. How many magnets are supposed to be on the trailing truck for 4-chuffs? Timko installed 4 magnets, which to me almost seems like it's creating 8-chuffs per revolution.
As always it's looking like there's a few bugs I'll have to chase around. Mainly the chuffs are intermittent. I thought it was because there were too many magnets for the reed switch to handle, but after removing two of them the chuffs still cut in and out. Seems to happen mainly on curves, must have loose connections somewhere.
The motor is also having a bit of trouble. It powers the locomotive fine for a few laps but then has a sharp drop-off in power and gets very hot. I recall a few posters mentioning this with Timko motors. Tomorrow I will put new grease in the gearbox and give my track a long-overdue cleaning to see if that helps. Any ideas otherwise?
You should have two magnets for 4 chuffs, I'm guessing the circumference of the trailing truck wheels is probably about 1/2 the circumference of the drivers, right?
Originally Posted by PC9850:
As always it's looking like there's a few bugs I'll have to chase around. Mainly the chuffs are intermittent. I thought it was because there were too many magnets for the reed switch to handle, but after removing two of them the chuffs still cut in and out. Seems to happen mainly on curves, must have loose connections somewhere.
The spacing between the magnets and the reed switch is important. Too much distance and the reed switch won't close and you'll hear no chuffing. If there is side-to-side play in the axle the magnets are mounted to then the spacing will vary on curves to the left or right. The solution is to add some washers between the wheels and truck sideframes to reduce or eliminate the side-to-side play.
I've also noticed that all reed switches are not created equal. I bought a batch from Digikey, only to find out they needed too strong a magnetic field to activate, thus needed very close spacing. I went back and got the more expensive (and lower magnetic requirement) types, and all is well.
Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
You should have two magnets for 4 chuffs, I'm guessing the circumference of the trailing truck wheels is probably about 1/2 the circumference of the drivers, right?
Correct. I was probably getting 8 chuffs with 4 magnets on that little wheel, which is just chaotic sounding at speed. Took two of them off for 4 chuffs, and still working on getting the spacing right. This is my first project involving a reed switch so didn't know about the spacing issue.
Nick, If the magnets are mounted on the trailing truck you only want two. 4 magnets would be used on the drivers for 4 chuffs. Using trailing truck wheels or tender wheels 2 magnets will give a simulated 4 chuffs as they are typically half the diameter of the drivers, thus turning twice for every driver rotation. Simulated because the diameter is not likely exactly half and rarely in sync with the valve gear.
Pete
Nobody but a died in the wool rivet counter will notice they're not synched with the drivers.
Finally got around to opening up that gearbox. I think I can safely assume this was why the motor was getting hot. Poor thing was trying to power through some serious 16 year old sludge. I also went ahead and re-did the magnets on the trailing truck. Timko had installed them with a generous amount of hot glue, which could be seen through the open spokes and possibly interfere with the magnetic field? So I removed all the glue and attached them to the spokes with Loctite. More to come.
Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
Nobody but a died in the wool rivet counter will notice they're not synched with the drivers.
That would be me wearing one of my many hats.
Pete
The new grease eliminated the hot motor issue. After a good testing session it ran very well and only got up to 95 degrees on the temperature gun. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe I read somewhere that 130 was the safe limit on can motors.
I also just discovered why the chuffs were cutting out on curves. The trailing truck wheel is lifting off the rails! Duh. Will have to get either some weights or a spring to keep that wheel planted.
95F I hope, 95C would be way too hot!
Had this all done, and on the final assembly I lost power to the smoke unit fan. It gets power from the Puff N' Chuff board so I tested a 5V light bulb across the connections. At the power in it lights up, but at the fan port there's no power. Looks like another one of those triacs got stuck closed and Ken at ERR concurred. New board is on the way, waiting in anticipation so I can call this one done!
Looks good, how does she run?
Runs and smokes perfect, trailing truck wheel still wants to lift up on curves and interrupt the chuffs though. I am now devising a tire to make for it since the wheel set is riveted in there and non-removable.
Video uploaded terribly - lost the HD quality in the transfer so will make a new one soon.
