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I have an MTH PS1 Gas Turbine 20-2124-1 that I am converting to ERR Cruise.  I am putting a cruise board in both powered units.  Sound will be in the A unit.  I plan to use the tether to run the rear coupler from the A unit ERR Cruise board.  The conversion has me asking the following questions:

1)  Can the smoke units be wired directly to the ERR Cruise board and not burnout due to excessive voltage - what voltage does the ERR Cruise board provide to the smoke unit?  If it needs a resistor in series what value should I use.

2)  The marker lights and cab light appear to be on a voltage regulator board.  What voltage are these lights - 6 volts and are they incandescent or led?   Can the voltage regulator board be wired to the ERR Cruise board at the light output?  The circuit board was connected directly to track power in the MTH setup.

3)  The PS1 headlight is connected to the motor diver board with a blue and yellow wire.  Is this bulb an led or incandescent?  Is this bulb 1.5 volts?  Can I wire a resistor in series to use this bulb or led with the ERR Cruise board, if so what value of a resistor should I use.

Thanks  in advance for any help given

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Mark Girardi 121016 posted:

I have an MTH PS1 Gas Turbine 20-2124-1 that I am converting to ERR Cruise.  I am putting a cruise board in both powered units.  Sound will be in the A unit.  I plan to use the tether to run the rear coupler from the A unit ERR Cruise board.  The conversion has me asking the following questions:

Why not just run the coupler from the rear Cruise board, you accomplish the same thing without the tether?

1)  Can the smoke units be wired directly to the ERR Cruise board and not burnout due to excessive voltage - what voltage does the ERR Cruise board provide to the smoke unit?  If it needs a resistor in series what value should I use.

The Cruise Commander will support one of those smoke units, but not two.  If you want to control two PS/1 smoke units, you'll need to add a relay to switch the power, the relay will be powered from the Cruise Commander smoke output and it'll switch track power to the smoke units.

2)  The marker lights and cab light appear to be on a voltage regulator board.  What voltage are these lights - 6 volts and are they incandescent or led?   Can the voltage regulator board be wired to the ERR Cruise board at the light output?  The circuit board was connected directly to track power in the MTH setup.

You can wire them directly to the Cruise Commander headlight, or just leave them wired to track power.

3)  The PS1 headlight is connected to the motor diver board with a blue and yellow wire.  Is this bulb an led or incandescent?  Is this bulb 1.5 volts?  Can I wire a resistor in series to use this bulb or led with the ERR Cruise board, if so what value of a resistor should I use.

The bulb is a 1.5V bulb.  I use a standard 3mm flangeless LED with a 470 ohm resistor.  If you plan on running conventional with this, add a diode to the LED circuit.  If you want to just use an incandescent bulb, a 12V bulb is the proper size for the Cruise Commander output.

Thanks  in advance for any help given

 

John,

Thanks for the reply.

I have serviced the smoke unit and it puts out a ton of smoke at 18 volts.  Will the unit be able to withstand having 18 volts applied continuously from the ERR cruise board or will I need an inline resistor?  If I need the resistor, what value should I use?

How do I use the 1.5 volt headlight with the ERR cruise board?  What value resistor should I use?

Thanks Again

Never use resistors for this kind of function, remember a smoke unit is just a resistor with a lot of current going through it!  If you use series resistors, they get hot just like smoke units.   The Smoke output of the ERR Cruise board isn't 18 volts, it's half/wave rectified track power in command mode.  The PS/1 smoke units will run on 18V track power if you use a relay to control multiple units, they have an internal regulator.

I wouldn't bother to try to use the 1.5V bulb, but I'd have to know the current to compute a resistor anyway.  I'd use a warm-white LED, you'll get MUCH better lighting.

Mark Girardi 121016 posted:

I have an MTH PS1 Gas Turbine 20-2124-1 that I am converting to ERR Cruise.  I am putting a cruise board in both powered units.  Sound will be in the A unit.

I have to ask, which ERR TMCC sound set are you using?  Last I checked ERR doesn't have a gas turbine sound set, just the steam turbine.  I have the RK version I want to add TMCC to, but want sounds.

Once again thanks to John for all the help.  I have the A unit just about complete.  I just have to attach the antenna and close it up.  The holiday is slowing the project down, so sorry for the late reply.  The engine works great!  I will be moving on to the B unit later.  As far as sound, I could not find a prototypical sound for it.  ERR makes a dooblebug gas engine board, but I did not like the small gas engine sound.  I know this may annoy some people, but I installed a Dash 9 sound board.  I do have to say the original Protosound board was not so good, that coupled with the lack of command control, had the unit sitting and not being used.  I do have a question about the LED lighting.  The 3 volt LED I acquired works great when attached to a battery, but lights up for a second when the engine starts and stays off.  I wired it with a resistor inline, so I am not sure what the problem is with the setup.

Thanks Again 

I swapped the polarity of the LED and it worked.  Thanks for the help!  I was unable to get the feature post on the ERR board to function with the smoke unit so I wired the smoke unit to track power.  I followed the directions on the feature 8 function numerous times and was unable to get the unit to work.  It smokes now that I have directly wired to track power.  MTH had it wired directly to track power originally.  Do you thing 18 votls will be too much for it in the long run?

For using the feature output, you'll need to put a .01uf capacitor across the feature output to ground, then it will recognize the smoke unit.  The triac won't fire if it doesn't see a load, and the diode drop of the bridge rectifier on the smoke unit fools it into thinking there's no load.  The reason that LED's work on the lighting outputs is that cap is on the Cruise Commander for the light outputs.  If you ever convert a plain TMCC locomotive to LED lighting, you have to add that cap as well.

The reason I'd want the smoke powered that way would be so I could control it from the remote.

John,

Thanks so much for all the help.  I have got everything to work with your instructions.  I ordered .01 uf ceramic disc capacitors to use the feature output on the ERR board.  I wire the capacitor from the feature output to ground and then run the smoke unit hot connection from the feature output as well?  I hope theses basic capacitors are the correct ones?  I also had a question about smoke unit batting.  I serviced the smoke units and used tiki torch wick as batting.  Is this a good batting?

Thanks Again

Yes, if there ever comes around a way to use the PS1 sounds and have TMCC.  The turbine sounds in this and other MTH turbines I have are the only roadblocks to converting them to ERR CC.  Just a thought, is there anyway feasible to provide a variable load to the PS1/QSI board and "fool" it into thinking there is a can motor load and produce the original PS1 turbine sounds?  True, the sounds may not be under control of the cab1/etc..... but to have command control and original turbine sounds "in sync" would make a great difference on many good early MTH turbines.

Jesse   TCA

Mark Girardi 121016 posted:

John,

Thanks so much for all the help.  I have got everything to work with your instructions.  I ordered .01 uf ceramic disc capacitors to use the feature output on the ERR board.  I wire the capacitor from the feature output to ground and then run the smoke unit hot connection from the feature output as well?  I hope theses basic capacitors are the correct ones?  I also had a question about smoke unit batting.  I serviced the smoke units and used tiki torch wick as batting.  Is this a good batting?

Thanks Again

Yep, it's as simple as that.  I've used Tiki torch wick, but I don't like it as much as the braided wick I found on eBay that matches MTH wick.

texastrain posted:

Yes, if there ever comes around a way to use the PS1 sounds and have TMCC.  The turbine sounds in this and other MTH turbines I have are the only roadblocks to converting them to ERR CC.  Just a thought, is there anyway feasible to provide a variable load to the PS1/QSI board and "fool" it into thinking there is a can motor load and produce the original PS1 turbine sounds?  True, the sounds may not be under control of the cab1/etc..... but to have command control and original turbine sounds "in sync" would make a great difference on many good early MTH turbines.

Jesse   TCA

Jesse, it's been done, but not with cruise.  Both TAS and Digital Dynamics had products that interfaced with the PS/1 sound board to use the PS/1 sounds.  There's no easy way now that both of these outfits are defunct.  The problem is getting all the other sounds synchronized with TMCC, horn, bell, etc.  Also, since the voltage is always at maximum, any prime mover control is always looking like it's at notch-8, full throttle.

John,

The conversion to ERR went so well with the Gas Turbine I am looking to do a Coal Turbine MTH 20-2214-1.  This is a Proto1 engine as well.  The only difference is the Coal Turbine has a Mars light and three smoke units.  I assume the headlights are 1.5 volts?  Is the Mars light on the 6 volt constant voltage board with the marker lights and cab light?  How do I used a relay to control the second smoke unit in the B unit?  What make and model of relay do I use?  Do I need to wire a rectifier for the relay?  I assume the feature out on the ERR board will still be connected to a .01 uf capacitor?  I also assume the relay and other smoke unit would be connected to the the feature output?  My understanding is the feature output would provide a signal to the relay and the relay would switch the track power on to the second smoke unit.  I just need to know what parts (relay, rectifier, ect) to buy and the correct wiring?  You made this MTH conversion process so much fun with your assistance.  It allows me to use engines sitting in boxes.

Thanks.

Mark

I believe the MARS light and the headlights are all driven from a constant voltage board, the markers are probably on that as well.

For the smoke units, I'd find a 12V DC relay.  This RELAY GEN PURPOSE SPDT 5A 12V would do the job for three smoke units.  Connect the .01uf cap across the feature output, and then you need a series diode and a 100uf cap across the coil of the relay.  The diode is to make sure the momentary boost AC won't cook the cap.

The relay will be switching track power for all the smoke units.  If desired, since they're cheap, you could use another relay in the second unit and just run the low current coil drive across the tether.

John,

Thanks Again!  Much appreciated!  I have one other question.  What value diode (parts number if you could) and what direction do I wire the diode (cathode goes to what terminal on the relay (I assume the negative terminal).  I also assume the capacitor if it is directional will be wired negative to negative on the relay.  The B unit is the only unit with two smoke units, so I will only need a relay in that unit.  I will wire the A unit smoke unit to the ERR feature output in the ERR board in the A unit.

Thanks,

Mark

Well, the diode is only supplying the relay, so the common 1N4003 is more than sufficient, the cathode faces the relay, the anode goes to the feature output.  The + terminal of the capacitor goes to the cathode of the diode, the negative terminal goes to frame ground.  The relay is wired in parallel with the capacitor. 

Truthfully, I'd wire all the smoke units through relays, that way they will be consistent in operation and you're not putting any demands on the R2LC.

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