Need Info on 691-ISND-CSW Sound board from Lionel's 6-14170 Amusement Park Swing Ride

FWIW, @stan2004 posted this https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...28#58164985216135228

and yes, I own one of these and had it apart, our club has one too so I was familiar with the components- just do not have a wiring diagram or "schematic"

So to your question, the sound board definitely appears to be closely related to the typical "trainsounds" style board.

You'll note that unlike a diesel, electric, or steam trainsounds board- this has less pins and connectors because there is no speed sensor plug.

Now granted, I'm going off of everything I know and can be wrong, but seeing a 2 pin connector and a 4 pin connector, the 2 pin is likely power input, and the 4 pin, 2 are for speaker, and 2 are for volume pot (just using a pot as a variable resistor- 2 legs wiper and one end of the resistance trace).

Edit- got that above completely wrong. The 2 pin connector is DC power. The 4 pin connector, only 2 pins used, yellow is speaker+ and speaker minus is common to black DC input. Orange wire is a trigger wire to change between the 2 songs and reset when ride stops.

Again, we know the controller has a volume pot- so that makes sense, it's the bare minimum of connections.

Last, I'm hoping if you flip the board over, on the backside Lionel was putting tiny silkscreen labels near the pins. Again, I do not have a board in front of me to validate, but if you can, take a high resolution photo of the backside of yours.

@GeoPeg posted:

Does anybody have info on this board, specifically pin functions?I can guess the pinout but hoping there is silkscreen on the backside of the board near the pins with labeled pin function.

I know the board provides sound, but I'm curious what other functions, if any, it may be providing. No other function I can see. The motor is controlled by the OTHER board and regulator.

George

Again, in this photo, the left most board is what ramps up the motor speed, then slows it back down periodically to control the motion of the ride. The large transistor regulator is part of that motor control. The middle board is the sound board and based on pin count- only provides sound.

Well, good thing I checked and dug out my swing ride and took the bottom cover off, this really needs documented.

More to follow.

Again, sorry for being convoluted and multiple replies but trying to get the most accurate and full information.

@GeoPeg posted:

I know the board provides sound,

but I'm curious what other functions, if any, it may be providing.  Answer- no other functions confirmed- only sound.

#1 while the wiring is slightly different than what I expected, but I can confirm, you can unplug the sound card and everything else still works as expected, the motor ramps up and down, the LEDs blink as expected. Again, confirmed that the sound board is not the source of a command or sync signal for the motor.

#2 Lionel has the wiring harness labeled wrong IMO. The one actually plugging into the sound board is labeled for the motherboard?? Again, look at the naming, it's backwards

This is the harness side that plugs into the sound card.

#3 The sound card is getting DC power on the red + and black GND wires. This does not appear to be regulated and varies with the incomming voltage to the ride from accessory power. In other words, as I varied the input power, the voltage ranged from about 5V to 18+V so it is unregulated.

#4 The yellow wire is the sound output wire. The orange wire is NOT volume- I got that guess wrong. The speaker again is yellow wire and the other side is to DC GND- the black wire. They are using a volume rheostat in series with the speaker.

#5 The orange wire is a "trigger".  If on the controller, the motor switch is off, then the orange line is sitting at about 0.5V, essentially ground and a different song plays. When you turn on the motor switch, the orange line drops to about 0.444V per my meter, then as the motor ramps up the voltage rises, to a maximum of 3.4V, then ramps back down until the motor stops and the cycle keeps repeating. This line is what resets and changes what song plays. Voltage was measured DC compared to the black GND wire of the sound card (DC ground).

Then I started labeling the mainboard

More pictures:

Again, this is nowhere near as nice as I have seen others make diagrams, but it gives you a fighting chance if trying to repair or understand one of these.

Thank you Vernon, for all the effort you went to, to document this little gem. I had only a quick chance to look inside mine due to family matters at hand. I did not even have a chance to remove the main pcb from the plastic base last night. But I thought about it as I was tending to other matters today. And the one thing I feared the most, the dreaded black blob, a chip-on-a--board is what you have revealed. You have also confirmed that the sound card serves no other function than sound.

I'll take a run at it tonight, pursuing the low voltage theory, but at this point I think it unlikely to be the cause. More on that after tonight's work.

One other item, I believe you theorized that the LM317K was used in the motor speed control circuit. This IC is a 3 terminal voltage regulator, so I'm wondering if the LM317K is the main regulator for most all voltages across the board, and the onboard D882 NPN transistor (rated 3 amps C to E) is the device being pulsed in a PWM circuit to drive the motor? Again, more to check out this eve. Thanks, man, I appreciate it!!!

George

@GeoPeg posted:

you theorized that the LM317K was used in the motor speed control circuit.

This IC is a 3 terminal voltage regulator, so I'm wondering if the LM317K is the main regulator for most all voltages across the board- NO, this adjustable voltage regulator is NOT providing regulated voltage for other parts of the board.

the onboard D882 NPN transistor (rated 3 amps C to E) is the device being pulsed in a PWM circuit to drive the motor? Yes, correct, you can literally follow the traces between the motor connector and this transistor.

Sorry, I don't know why the forum sometimes rotates large high resolution pictures. I tried both PNG and JPEG formats.

Again, one note is that the PWM signal that is coming from the larger blob chip on the mainboard, that trace not only drives the transistor for the motor D822 and another transistor, but then runs around near the edge of the board, there is a diode and then that trace leads to the orange wire going to the sound board.

So what I am thinking is, if you have a bad failure of the sound board, that could affect the output of the blob chip driving the motor driver section. FWIW, during testing, I could unplug the sound card and the motor driver section worked and ramped up and down as expected.

Further, if I removed the orange wire from the connector at the sound board and had a working sound board- the system would play the non-motion version of the song in a loop. I'm just saying, if you suspect a problem you can isolate and disconnect only the orange wire, and the system hopefully works- just the sound is not "triggered" and changes based on motion or motion off state.

@Vernon Barry based on experience this past winter, the sound board has some level of interaction with the motor control and cycling of the unit-

Here was the symptom on ours at the RFC Train Garden: power on, and the ride would operate as expected for one full cycle. Upon the switch to the "in motion" music, the ride on its second cycle would begin to ramp up speed, then the music would cycle to the "at rest" calliope too soon, and the motor would immediately lock up and bring the ride to a halt. This would then keep the ride locked in a non-moving circumstance the rest of the time power was applied.

I pulled the ride off our layout and was able to isolate the issue to the sound board. Ride would operate per normal with the sound board unplugged, and would immediately fall back into that cycle (one full run cycle, locking on the second) when the board was plugged back in.

In the end, the issue was corrected rather accidentally by abruptly cycling power a few times at various points prior to the lockup condition.

Can't say why that corrected the issue, but the bigger point here is that presence of the sound board had a direct impact upon the function of the motor/board operating the motor.

@Andrew B. posted:

@Vernon Barry based on experience this past winter, the sound board has some level of interaction with the motor control and cycling of the unit-

Here was the symptom on ours at the RFC Train Garden: power on, and the ride would operate as expected for one full cycle. Upon the switch to the "in motion" music, the ride on its second cycle would begin to ramp up speed, then the music would cycle to the "at rest" calliope too soon, and the motor would immediately lock up and bring the ride to a halt. This would then keep the ride locked in a non-moving circumstance the rest of the time power was applied.

I pulled the ride off our layout and was able to isolate the issue to the sound board. Ride would operate per normal with the sound board unplugged, and would immediately fall back into that cycle (one full run cycle, locking on the second) when the board was plugged back in.

In the end, the issue was corrected rather accidentally by abruptly cycling power a few times at various points prior to the lockup condition.

Can't say why that corrected the issue, but the bigger point here is that presence of the sound board had a direct impact upon the function of the motor/board operating the motor.

And again, it's NOT supposed to by design. The sound board is not intended to be controlling the system under NORMAL operation.

That said, because now that we have traced the electrical circuit board path- the same PWM signal is both controlling the motor drive and providing an input signal into the soundcard- it's POSSIBLE a defective or failing sound card loads down the PWM signal bus preventing operation of the motor- at least that's the theory.

This is easy enough to prove- simply disconnect the ORANGE wire at the sound card connector and insulate it.

You simply use a razor blade or other object to unlock the crimped terminal and wire from the connector by lifting up slightly the plastic white tab of the connector shell.

If you do this and the motor now operates, you can run the system with that orange wire unplugged, it just plays a different "song" and does not reset the sound sequence with the motor stopping for new riders. Again, the yellow wire is the sound output, the orange wire is the "trigger" wire that changes modes or songs.

Note while bench testing, I was using a Zcontroller and Z500 brick for power. If I had the throttle at about 1/2 as the voltage source, I did see where loading the motor could cause a voltage sag in the board and the system did reset- but that was a condition of low source power.

So yes, this accessory is picky on voltage, and there is a definite minimum voltage and below that, operation can get wonky.

Well the problem has been solved, and my swing set is up and running. First the gory details of the troubleshooting.

I unplugged the sound board as you had suggested, and it made no difference – still just the groaning of the motor during the accelerate/decelerate cycling, with occasional slight movement.

Then I plugged the sound board back in but with the Orange wire removed. Still had the same exact issues including the low volume, fuzzy sound.

I whipped out the trusty old B&K transistor checker and checked all transistors on the main pcb. All good.

Then I read and re-read all that you had written to see what other possibilities might exist. That’s when I finally saw it…the Operator Directions. Had I done this first instead of simply assuming that it runs on 12vac like nearly all other Lionel accessories, I would have solved the problem on my own, much earlier. As instructed, I raised the AC voltage on my ZW from 12.5 volts to 17.0 volts. Boom! The ride started doing exactly as it was supposed to. The music even changed as the ride started, and again as it stopped. In fact everything worked except for the crappy sound. Even though this sound board was available for purchase, I thought it would be fairly simple to troubleshoot and save the $$ for other train things. So again I checked the transistors – all good. I assume the socketed 8 pin chip was a PIC and would be impossible to test or obtain, so I checked what else I could – results was that everything actually appeared to be working normally. Then I thought to do what I should have done first – check the speaker – it was clearly bad. So I installed a new one and BOOM! Great sound!

In short, the root cause of this dilemma was operator error (Read the Instructions first, not as a last resort!). And secondarily, a defective part (the speaker) which should have been checked early on, as one of the “easier” things to eliminate.

Thank you Vernon and all others who contributed! At least the device is now better documented, and all newly acquired info is stored on my PC for future needs.

George