Kline Problem

Do both units have its own K-Line Cruise board? This is unlike K-Line which typically uses one motor driver to drive 4 motors. To answer your question if both units have K-Line Cruise I doubt ERR Cruise will work with the good one. They have different speed curves.

Pete

I'd put a CC-M in each of them if they're independent. 

Norton posted:

Do both units have its own K-Line Cruise board? This is unlike K-Line which typically uses one motor driver to drive 4 motors. To answer your question if both units have K-Line Cruise I doubt ERR Cruise will work with the good one. They have different speed curves.

Pete

Hi Pete,

Yes,  they both have Kline cruise boards.  The secondary A unit is tethered to the primary for data signal I believe.  I don’t see a r2lc in the secondary A unit.  I prop both units up on a small block of wood,  connect the tether and the primary A sputters while the secondary A runs smoothly.  If I disconnect the tether, the secondary A will stop running.  

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'd put a CC-M in each of them if they're independent. 

Thanks John!

I just wanted to make sure before I place my order for 2 CC M boards.  If I didn’t necessarily have to get two boards,  I wasn’t until the secondary board played out.  As Pete suggested,  the ERR cruise M and Kline probably would play well together anyway.  

Two Cruise Ms is best but you could try powering the four motors off the good K-Line board. Thats how K-Line did it with most of their F3s. Thats how my NYC F3s are wired.

Pete

Norton posted:

Two Cruise Ms is best but you could try powering the four motors off the good K-Line board. Thats how K-Line did it with most of their F3s. Thats how my NYC F3s are wired.

Pete

Thanks Pete!

I may take a look at that option and see if that’s within my skill set.  

Blake

I have the reading version and when my board failed, I converted to DCS (master and slave). To retain TMCC, I would go with two ERR boards and MU the units.

winrose46 posted:

I have the reading version and when my board failed, I converted to DCS (master and slave). To retain TMCC, I would go with two ERR boards and MU the units.

Thank you sir!

Blake

I think you may need a Cruise M for the lead unit, and a Cruise Commander for the trailing (tethered) unit.

That's what I did with my K-Line SP F-7 AAs (K-25881).

Professor, I have used a single R2LC to drive two Cruise Ms in my K-Line AA E6s. Wiring was involved though and maybe not for the faint of heart as both the serial data line and direction lines had to be fed through the tether to the second Cruise M. Works great though and no buffering was required for any of the signals.

Pete

That would work, but with a regular Cruise Commander in the trailing unit you can get rid of the tethers altogether.  

I guess the question is whether that’s worth the extra $30 for a Cruise Commander over a second Cruise M.

I upgrade a KL F-3 AA and it had the two cruise boards but different revs, and the trail was wired to signals from the lead unit.  So it was not 4 motors off one board.  G

I'd go with the full Cruise Commander and dispense with the tether.  This also allows you to run them truly independently if desired, or a different configuration.

Fellas,  this is this innards if these Kline units.  Both are powered with the primary A unit having the whole TMCC guts installed.  The secondary A unit is powered, but only uses a cruise command board and smoke unit.  It pulls its instructions from the primary unit with the R2LC board.  My question to you professionals is this.  Is this wiring harness a genuine Kline tether or has this thing been gerry rigged?  

Thanks,

Blake

That looks like a pretty standard K-Line wiring harness.  That sucker is sure packed!

The tether certainly looks professional. If it wasn't K-Line, then it was done by someone who knows what he is doing. If the wireing is already done to drive both motor drivers from a single R2LC then you could in fact replace both k-Line boards with Cruise Ms. 

Pete

Ok and thanks guys!

Blake

OK, so I pulled a KLine cruise board out of a K3304-1523CC ACL Pacific steamer.   I installed a cruise commander M steam kit.  It runs beautifully,  but there is one issue that I hope is minor.  When running forward,  the rear tender light comes on, but when running in reverse,  it goes out.  

Can someone give a suggestion on what needs to be checked?  This was installed just like the instructions said.

Thanks,

Blake

The Cruise M itself doesn't control lights. Its the R2/4LC. Did you reset the feature code? In program mode, after setting engine ID, Set, hit the AUX1 key followed by 4. Then go back to run mode.

One other thought. Did this engine have K-Line Cruise? Does the engine now start out in reverse? If so you have to reverse the wires to the motor. For some reason K-Line Cruise runs with opposite polarity of most other TMCC engines.

Pete

Norton posted:

The Cruise M itself doesn't control lights. Its the R2/4LC. Did you reset the feature code? In program mode, after setting engine ID, Set, hit the AUX1 key followed by 4. Then go back to run mode.

One other thought. Did this engine have K-Line Cruise? Does the engine now start out in reverse? If so you have to reverse the wires to the motor. For some reason K-Line Cruise runs with opposite polarity of most other TMCC engines.

Pete

Hi Pete,

I did the reprogramming as recommended, but no changes noticed,  but your last statement is correct.  It does start out in reverse.  I will reverse the wiring on the motor.  I wonder why this issue is not documented in the commander M manual?  I appreciate your help sir.

Thanks,

Blake

Blake, the reason its not mentioned in the Cruise M manual is because its really a problem with K-Line Cruise boards. They are the oddball. If you put a Cruise M in any other TMCC engine it will start out in forward. Conversely if you put a K-Line Cruise board in a K-Line non Cruise engine it will start in reverse.

Pete

Norton posted:

Blake, the reason its not mentioned in the Cruise M manual is because its really a problem with K-Line Cruise boards. They are the oddball. If you put a Cruise M in any other TMCC engine it will start out in forward. Conversely if you put a K-Line Cruise board in a K-Line non Cruise engine it will start in reverse.

Pete

Thanks for the tip Pete!   Just something else to confuse the already confused.

Blake

Blake Morris posted:

Norton posted:

Blake, the reason its not mentioned in the Cruise M manual is because its really a problem with K-Line Cruise boards. They are the oddball. If you put a Cruise M in any other TMCC engine it will start out in forward. Conversely if you put a K-Line Cruise board in a K-Line non Cruise engine it will start in reverse.

Pete

Thanks for the tip Pete!   Just something else to confuse the already confused.

Blake

Hi Pete,

Just spoke with ERR and was told that the Cruise Commander M will not work in this particular locomotive.  It has a version 2 board.  This is what was told to me:

The K-line mdk-090 is one of those odd boards that k-line made it predates ERR but designed by the same guy who founded ERR. I Have been looking through the archive and found 1 reference of this board. Unfortunately this is one of those boards that can't use the cruse commander M the way the MDK-090 was made it takes a different power requirements then the cruse commander M. the cruse commander M is designed for the Lionel Redesigned board system Later on in k-line product's line. the main board provides a serial signal and a board voltage the the commander needs to run.  The only way to put control in that locomotive is to use the cruse Commander Upgrade kit not the cruse commander M kit.

Does any of this make sense to you?

Thanks,

Blake

Not really Blake unless you have to get another R2LC. ERR recommends a C08 version. Can you see if there is a version marked on your radio board? Maybe take a picture of what you have.

Pete

Norton posted:

Not really Blake unless you have to get another R2LC. ERR recommends a C08 version. Can you see if there is a version marked on your radio board? Maybe take a picture of what you have.

Pete

Hi Pete,

Its a CO8.  Problem is,  I got a new Cruise M from ERR and installed it.  It ran all of 10 seconds before dying.  The loco stopped and the headlight dimmed followed by the transformer breaker tripping.  I unplugged the 4 pin Molex and the short cleared.  I plugged it back in and the short returned.  The board was bad.  I contacted ERR for a replacement and they said the Cruise M wouldn’t work with this type of locomotive and needed to strip it all out and buy a whole commander kit and sound boards.  I pulled commander M out of a recent Lionel E6 upgrade and installed it in this Kline.  It worked beautifully.  I don’t know what they’re talking about and was wondering if it made sense to you.

Blake

I think they're thinking you're running more than two motors with it.  Other than that, I can't imagine why you can't put it in there.  The worst thing is you'll have to swap the motor leads if it runs backwards.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I think they're thinking you're running more than two motors with it.  Other than that, I can't imagine why you can't put it in there.  The worst thing is you'll have to swap the motor leads if it runs backwards.

You’re right John,  it did start running backwards and i reversed the leads.  Evidently, They’re thinking that I wired it up wrong for it to short out like that.  That was not the case.  I put in a board from an E6 and it ran fine.  They are suppose to warrant these boards I thought.  I just wanted. Replacement board instead going through all of this.

Blake

I forgot Ken is no longer in the picture. The fact that another board worked points to the first Cruise M as being bad. Have you tried the bad Cruise M in the E6? Look closely at the connections at the motor, maybe a bit of solder is shorting to the case.

Pete

Norton posted:

I forgot Ken is no longer in the picture. The fact that another board worked points to the first Cruise M as being bad. Have you tried the bad Cruise M in the E6? Look closely at the connections at the motor, maybe a bit of solder is shorting to the case.

Pete

Pete,  actually I did put it in the E6 and had the same results as stated above.  I feel it’s the board as well but couldn’t understand why they would say it wouldn’t work in this Kline.

Blake

So I received a new Cruise Commander M today and installed it in this Kline ACL Pacific K3304-1523CC.  Train runs great,  but now after running a few minutes,  it takes off like a bat out of hell.  I replaced the R2LC board with a new one and programmed everything accordingly and I still have the same issue.  Any idea on what it could be?  I’ve change everything but the mother board and motor. 

Thanks,

Blake

You are experiencing the symptoms of overloading the serial data signal.  The cure is typically to buffer the serial data going to the RailSounds package with a simple transistor buffer.  For the K-Line Pacific, you just buffer the serial data going to the tender, job done.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

You are experiencing the symptoms of overloading the serial data signal.  The cure is typically to buffer the serial data going to the RailSounds package with a simple transistor buffer.  For the K-Line Pacific, you just buffer the serial data going to the tender, job done.

Hi John,

Is there anyway that you can show me how to do this?  I understand the concept but never had to do this type of electronics work.

Blake

gunrunnerjohn posted:

You are experiencing the symptoms of overloading the serial data signal.  The cure is typically to buffer the serial data going to the RailSounds package with a simple transistor buffer.  For the K-Line Pacific, you just buffer the serial data going to the tender, job done.

 

Seems like a lot of folks are experiencing issues with the Cruise M. I wonder if Scott was given the information on the older Cruise M, not the latest ones ERR was was producing that didn't require a buffer?

Pete

Norton posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

You are experiencing the symptoms of overloading the serial data signal.  The cure is typically to buffer the serial data going to the RailSounds package with a simple transistor buffer.  For the K-Line Pacific, you just buffer the serial data going to the tender, job done.

 

Seems like a lot of folks are experiencing issues with the Cruise M. I wonder if Scott was given the information on the older Cruise M, not the latest ones ERR was was producing that didn't require a buffer?

Pete

Hey Pete,

The information that John gave me is something that I can do, but I will need clearer instructions on how to do it.  I don’t want to short anything out.  Never had the opportunity to do this before,  but would like to learn.

Blake