K-Line Mike with Signal Sounds

There is a RS/SS switch somewhere on the tender, if it's in Signal Sounds, you only get whistle/bell.  Try switching it to RailSounds.

and it doesn't need a battery except to have sounds when track power is off.

Bob K3680-9628W came with a digital whistle (catalog didn't mention bell but was probably added later before delivery). K3680-9628S came with Real Sounds (K-Lines sound system before TMCC & Railsounds). It was a $75 difference between the two in the catalog.

Depending on what Whistle or Signal Sounds board they used it might be an easy upgrade, otherwise a new tender sound unit completely to get RS.  Can you post a picture of tender internals?  G

Thanks for the replies.

John, The switch does make a difference but not for any chuffing, etc. In SS it's a manual control the whistle/bell; in RS when the loco starts forward the whistle gives the forward sequence and in reverse the bell turns on. Oh, and I did finally find a pot under the rear truck on the tender.

Chuck, Does that mean that a weak battery poses no problem to the boards?

Steve, The supplied instruction sheet doesn't mention Real Sounds; only Rail Sounds and Signal Sounds.

GGG, I'll get a picture this evening; or tomorrow morning.

If it mentioned RailSounds and Signal Sounds, then it's likely that swapping the Signal Sounds board for the two RailSounds board would give you the running sounds.

This may be a K-Line specific sound board, as I don't know of any standard Lionel product that would automatically do the whistles and bells like that.

Its probably a MDK 089 sound board.

Bill

Yes. The battery may be left out, the only difference will be the sound going off as track power is removed. I guess the battery was there for the purpose of running the engine in conventional mode so that when track power goes to zero in normal operation, the sounds don't drop out.

I went and checked my catalogs again. Yours was in 2000 First Edition. TMCC & Railsounds didn't show in K-Line catalogs until 2000 Second Edition. Many things from the first edition catalog got TMCC and Railsounds as a bonus. I know that the club exclusive Rock Island E units received TMCC & Railsounds though they were never advertised with them.

Sorry for the delay.

I took the pictures last week; but just getting back to this.

It has a Signal Sounds board in it, and it should be upgradable to full RailSounds by adding the RailSounds Audio and Power supply boards.  There shouldn't be any other changes, plug-n-play.

It appears the motherboard will accept the two Railsounds audio/audio power boards as well as an R2LC. IF the motor driver mounted over the speaker says DCDR you could upgrade to TMCC by getting the required boards. Lionel did have a generic steam RS4 board for sale as well as an enhanced steam board for a Mikado (I think). The enhanced (RS4E) board has dyna chuff and nicer whistle than the generic steam board.

Pete

It's 99% certain that that's a standard DCDR, they were used with the conventional reverse unit plug-in board as well as TMCC.

I just had my semi scale Mike apart a few days ago to install a cruise M and noticed the same layout (fits no problem BTW) . You have couple of options if you wanted to install Railsounds including boards from Lionel and ERR. Lionel boards would plug right in. ERR would fit after some modification to the motherboard. 

The part number for the RS4 Enhanced generic steam is 691RS4E046.

Pete

That is why pictures are so great.  Dave, it is easy as others have noted to install the RS PS board in the current open pin set.  Than pull the board with all the capacitors and install the Steam RS board.  The other board is the conventional Reverse unit, so as others said you can pull it an add a R2LC C08.  There may be a jumper or 2 on the Motherboard that require to be moved when you go to Railsounds and R2LC.   I have some boards if you want to upgrade, and not wait for Lionel Parts to reopen.  G