Lionchief plus in non-Lionel locos?

You could buy all the boards and parts, but that would be very expensive and a lot of labor.  Obviously, the more painless way is to use the ERR upgrades to do a TMCC model.

One fly in the ointment is that LC+ uses a flywheel encoder similar to Legacy locomotives, so you'd have to properly mount the encoder and flywheel to get that working.  That might be a bridge too far for this project.

For the conversion of any brand conventional power locomotive to wireless control, there is a substantial number of available systems. I have tried most of them and they all work well.

I purchased 2 of the same LionChief DIESEL from Thomas and friends and used the boards in a 2 RMT Beeps.  I can consist them and control them with one remote.

See this OGR thread.

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...ad-mu-lashup-success

Plain Lionchief (not plus) is easy to stick into another engine, it doesn't have any fancy speed control, couplers, or the like.

You didn't say what kind of loco this is, or how many "conventional" locos you eventually want to convert.  I like Ron045's suggestion.  However, if you're not satisfied with the entry-level performance of basic LionChief, another good option might be Ring Engineering's RailPro.  Your investment would be around $330.  I'm also not sure if the RailPro sound decoder is compatible "out of the box" with track power, or if you would have to add additional circuitry to rectify, smooth, and stabilize the AC voltage used on most existing 3-rail layouts.

EDIT:  I found a couple of posts on the Forum from 2020 that strongly suggest that a RailPro decoder would be just fine with AC track power.  The "decoders" (in-loco receivers) are ~$165 each, and are sound-equipped!  If you're planning to convert more than one loco, you would only need to buy one hand-held controller, which also costs about $165.  It's easy to switch between two locos "on the fly," and I'm pretty sure RailPro's motor control is a lot better than starter-set grade LionChief (i.e., at least comparable to LionChief Plus.)  My $.02.

@Ted S posted:

EDIT:  I found a couple of posts on the Forum from 2020 that strongly suggest that a RailPro decoder would be just fine with AC track power.  The "decoders" (in-loco receivers) are ~$165 each, and are sound-equipped!  If you're planning to convert more than one loco, you would only need to buy one hand-held controller, which also costs about $165.  It's easy to switch between two locos "on the fly," and I'm pretty sure RailPro's motor control is a lot better than starter-set grade LionChief (i.e., at least comparable to LionChief Plus.)  My $.02.

Where are you finding RailPro controllers for $165? They list at $299, and the cheapest you can usually find them at retail is around $235.

I'd love to see an article about converting a Williams loco to LionChief in OGR or that other rag .

@Magicland posted:

Where are you finding RailPro controllers for $165? They list at $299, and the cheapest you can usually find them at retail is around $235.

Magicland you're right.  I was thinking of the Airwire T6000 by CVP Products, and even that has gone up in price since the last time I looked!  An AirWire T6000 hand-held controller and G4 decoder combo would cost about $350.  However the G4 definitely needs a helper circuit ahead of it (or a battery on board, which is how the G-scalers do it.)  It definitely won't work on an AC-powered layout "out of the box."  Bottom line, both Airwire and RailPro are a big step up in price compared to buying LionChief parts from Lionel.

The question is, if Lionel gets wind of this thread, how long will they continue to offer them for separate sale? 

@Ted S:

Whoa! Wait a minute. Are you saying that one can purchase the Lionchief "guts" ( the boards, decoder, speaker, etc. ) from Lionel? If that's so, I've done enough electronic "things" in my life to give a conversion of a William's product a go even if I have to stuff the "guts" into a reefer.

Dan

The cheapest way to find the Lionchief boards is typically to find an old Lionchief locomotive and salvage the boards from that.

OK on cheapest but can one purchase them from Lionel?

With my luck it would be the boards that went belly up in an old loco.

Dan

@geepboy posted:

... With my luck it would be the boards that went belly up in an old loco.

Dan,

That would be the conclusion that many people reach because they assume that electronics are fragile and do not last very long.

Unfortunately it's just as likely, especially with the inexpensive sets and engines, that the motor or gearing gives up the ghost first.

This is exacerbated by the tendency of newbies, and most of us when we were newbies, to run these things to death.  Round and round the little loop of track for hours at a time, Halloween, Christmas, or otherwise.

Given this you'll be able to find good electronics that you can pull out of bad mechanicals, overworked, under-designed, or otherwise.

Now, to make sure that you're successful let's hope that you don't have that bad luck you're worried about ...

Mike

The how I got started in just such conversions- TW and others had dirt cheap sales on unsold Lionchief Plus FT B units that were powered. That netted a smoke unit and complete board + motors and trucks. Problem was, B units don't have a speaker, but investigating and plugging an 8 ohm speaker into the board, they had sounds- just also had to jumper the sound switch location in the controls switch group. Another catch22, there are different shapes and sizes of board, so these car body FTs use a large square footprint board that also has vertical riser cards and won't fit a narrow body cab. Another catch22 on B unit boards, the lighting section of the board was not populated (missing tiny SMD transistors and the lighting socket connector).

Example http://www.lionel.com/products...unit-diesel-6-82303/

A lot of the cheap LC boards on Lionel parts are now marked Out Of Stock.  Maybe Vernon can find you one, he's pretty conversant with the LC boards.

Again, pros discussed of going Lionchief- and even more specifically older and thus cheaper Lionchief RF only (pre-Bluetooth).

Con of the other board, it's not bluetooth and thus requires either buying the matching remote for that engine- or buying the universal remote.

The motor driver section is one area of change over time and revisions. Most recently, new LC (Lionchief) 5.0 boards have been coming with much smaller current rating in the H-bridge and have seen failure even just driving stock Lionchief motors that get mechanically jammed. The older boards had a much higher rating and much lower failure rate in my observations.

So- key here is knowing what the loco you intend to put this into draws. Example a typical dual motor Williams- you better be going series on those dual motor and even then might push a new LC 5.0 board to let the magic smoke out.

Example RS3 board I have used https://www.lionelsupport.com/LIONCHIEF-PCB-RS-3 or the other one https://www.lionelsupport.com/...IEF-PCB-PATRIOT-U36B

Power coming in is JST-EH

Motor, speaker, and the sound switch connectors are JST-PH- also red Lighting connector in this diesel.

Sound switch must be closed for full sounds- otherwise, open is signal sounds only.

691-CN20-003 is only used on steam for optical chuff- completely unused on a diesel.

FYI, Patriot remote is only $15 https://www.lionelsupport.com/...-682428-PATRIOT-U36B

So, in theory at least, a $45 board, $15 remote, and a speaker, and a conventional unit gets a remote control? I've got an RDC and a Doodlebug that I'd like to make remote operable, but they aren't worth the current expense of upgrading to TMCC... These run on 18v AC?

Keep in mind that the LC boards have sounds a well, so you'll want to pick one that matches the locomotive you're putting them into.

@Magicland posted:

So, in theory at least, a $45 board, $15 remote, and a speaker, and a conventional unit gets a remote control? I've got an RDC and a Doodlebug that I'd like to make remote operable, but they aren't worth the current expense of upgrading to TMCC... These run on 18v AC?

Yes, 18V AC or DC. Lionchief sets came with 18V DC power packs, but also can be used on 18V AC track too.

8 Ohm speaker

3A motor current "max" to be safe.