Lionel Universal Remote and a powered B unit

Something I've never tried.  However, the Universal Remote almost has to control it, there is no tether.  The only way that unit could move would be to receive commands from the remote.

Just tried it on these and the universal remote worked fine.  B unit also worked by itself but there is no sound to recognize the connection with no related A unit

6-82303 ACL B unit, 6-82293 A unit

Good point about the sound, I wonder if the board has sound if you plug a speaker in?

I believe a LionChief Plus or LionChief Plus 2.0 locomotive must have Bluetooth in order for the orange LionChief Universal Remote hand held device to work.

Arnold

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Good point about the sound, I wonder if the board has sound if you plug a speaker in?

got me curious, i am no expert but it appears it needs a sound card too.

LionChief Plus (and LionChief Plus 2.0 if applicable) without Bluetooth should respond to the Universal Remote, as will pretty much every LionChief loco made.  The Universal Remote communicates by radio frequency (LionChief system) with all these locos whether they have Bluetooth or not.  Bluetooth is a relatively recent addition compared to the original LionChief and LionChief Plus equipped locos.  The original Universal Remote was designed for LionChief and Bluetooth then was added to both the Remote and all subsequent Legacy, LionChief and LionChief Plus 2.0 locos as I recall.

It is only the Legacy locos without Bluetooth that will not respond to the Universal Remote, I believe, and older locos, like TMCC, which have neither the LionChief electronics nor Bluetooth.

Universal Remote Compatibility Web Page from Lionel.

@hokie71 posted:

got me curious, i am no expert but it appears it needs a sound card too.

Why do you say that.  The sound card is the vertical board the speaker is mounted on.  There is no separate sound card for LC+.

To clarify:

LionChief/LionChief Plus RF: Any engine will respond by itself including B-units. The only exception is the very first LC Thomas.

LionChief/LionChief Plus Bluetooth: A B-unit requires its "master" A-unit to be controlled from the LionChief APP or Universal Remote.

RF was a single direction system, so it would just shout its command out there and the engines would listen. Bluetooth is a 2-way paired system requiring sub-types of engines to be able to pair more than one to a single channel.

thanks….  i’ll pass on buying it.   The sound was important,  my granddaughter luvs the bell and horns and listens for the talk.

thanks to all for the input,  I decided to pass on buying the unit.  Then as luck would have it,  a used Lionel Lionchief RioGande loco came on the market and I bought it.   It was in unciruculated shape.