Railsounds for a tender?

For almost all steam that comes with RailSounds the sounds are in the tender and not the locomotive, 99.9% of the time.  There are exceptions, including the high-end Legacy stuff which can have sounds in both, but there are very few of these models in the line-up.

Also however in a very small number of cases, alternative tenders have been offered, in addition to the one that shipped with the loco, for an optional look.  I believe that's what the PT you mentioned (using 691RS50020) is for.  If I recall correctly it's used as an alternative to a traditional tender (using 691RS5001A) with the Century Club (CC) Empire State Hudson.  Two different tenders, two different boards, neither are in the loco.

Mike

And they both have all the normal Hudson Steam sounds, whistle, bell, etc as well as Crew Talk and Tower Talk?

I'm sure the separate sale one would have normal steam sounds.  There must be something different about the crew talk to make it a separate sale item, don't know what it is.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm sure the separate sale one would have normal steam sounds.  There must be something different about the crew talk to make it a separate sale item, don't know what it is.

Either that, or in Lionel’s infinite wisdom, it’s the same part with a superseded part number,…..😉

seen that more than once!..

Pat  

@harmonyards posted:

Either that, or in Lionel’s infinite wisdom, it’s the same part with a superseded part number,…..😉

seen that more than once!..

Pat  

Well, there's always that as well.

I ordered the Railsounds 5.0 / NYC PT Tender (Sep Sale) #5429 - 691RS50020. Installed it on a TAS EOB board. No sound and it heated up quite a bit.   Looking closely at the sound board it has a diode soldered across two of the pins of the 24 pin socket.   Being the adventurous type I took off the diode and still no sound and it still heats up.   That's enough experimentation.  I'll leave well enough alone. At least for now.

Thanks

Ward

I have no idea what happened there, I've installed lots of RS5 boards into RS4 sockets.

The RS4 and RS5 boards should be plug compatible.  The only difference is the addition of the coupler and backup light outputs on the RS5 board on previously unused pins.

I checked a TAS EOB board, and in a fit of stupidity, they connected pins 7-8 together and also wired them to pins 7-8 of the RailSounds power board!  I have no idea what they thought that accomplished, but in order to use an RS5 board in the EOB motherboard, you need to lop off pins 7 and 8 from the Railsounds socket.  Since pins 7 & 8 were unused on the RS4  boards, I can't imagine why they connected them to anything, it was just a waste of time!

@Ward H posted:

I ordered the Railsounds 5.0 / NYC PT Tender (Sep Sale) #5429 - 691RS50020. Installed it on a TAS EOB board. No sound and it heated up quite a bit.   Looking closely at the sound board it has a diode soldered across two of the pins of the 24 pin socket.   Being the adventurous type I took off the diode and still no sound and it still heats up.   That's enough experimentation.  I'll leave well enough alone. At least for now.

Thanks

Ward

I had the same experience with that same PT tender board. I even took out the chips and put them into a good RS4 board and nothing. I think the chips are bad in them.

Well iguanaman3, hopefully in this case GRJ has the fix.  I'll try his fix later tonight and report back.  Nothing to  lose.

Many Thanks

Ward

Hard to say Ward, if the board is already toasted, it may be a moot point.

Well, that didn't work.  I did as GRJ suggested and snipped pins 8 & 7.  A different RS5 board sounds fine.   This PT Tender RS5 sound board still has no sound and heats up.    

I'm sure John is right, it's toasted.   Also, strange that Lionel sent to me in what appears to be a used bag and it contains a small screw.   ?????????

Oh Well,

Ward

I'm guessing that board may be toast.  It may or may not have been the extra connections, one would think based on how the RS5 board works, that at most those triacs would be cooked with bad wiring on their outputs.

@iguanaman3 posted:

I had the same experience with that same PT tender board. I even took out the chips and put them into a good RS4 board and nothing. I think the chips are bad in them.

FYI... putting RS5 chips into a RS4 board will NOT work.

TRW

@PaperTRW posted:

FYI... putting RS5 chips into a RS4 board will NOT work.

Possibly true, I've never done that.  However, I've put tons of RS5 boards into older locomotives replacing RS4 boards without any issues, this is the first time I've heard of such an issue.  I confess, I never put an RS5 board into any of the TAS stuff, just Lionel and K-Line.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Possibly true, I've never done that.  However, I've put tons of RS5 boards into older locomotives replacing RS4 boards without any issues, this is the first time I've heard of such an issue.  I confess, I never put an RS5 board into any of the TAS stuff, just Lionel and K-Line.

A lot changed between the RS4 and RS5/5.5 audio boards, which is why their chipsets aren't compatible.

And installing a RS5 board into a RS4 system is fine with one known exception. If you put the RS5 board in a RS4 tender with an AD20 board in it for the IR tether, now you have two boards trying to control the back-up light. The result is that the 2N5551 transistor on the RS5 board gets fried. But that's only a problem if you put that RS5 board back into a true RS5 tender -- you'll be wondering why the back-up light works funny.  The same is probably true for the ElectroCoupler on the tender, but honestly I didn't get that far.

TRW

The board I had in this particular loco with TAS EOB was a RS4 Generic Steam.   I have a NYC Mikado Jr with RS5 and love the improved sound quality and Talk of the RS5 so I bought the same board and put it in this loco, a MTH RK Commodore Vanderbilt w/ no cab #. It sounds so much better than the RS4.  

I bought this Railsounds 5.0 / NYC PT Tender (Sep Sale) #5429 - 691RS50020 thinking I might use it in another loco with TAS EOB but tested it in this CV loco since I knew it worked well with a RS5 board already.

Maybe the shipped already toasted? Maybe it being a "Tender" board it isn't the same/compatible as a regular RS5 board which for the same loco was out of stock?

From TWS's comments, it sounds like, maybe, a loco RS5 board paired with a tender RS5 board are different animals and may not work as stand alone RS5 boards.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

Ward

Actually, an RS5 board is an RS5 board, there's something else afoot about the failure of that particular board. Being in a tender or a locomotive makes no difference.  Obviously, in a locomotive, the coupler and backup light provisions on the tender would probably not be used.

FWIW, TWS is indeed correct, an RS5 chipset won't function in an RS4 board.  I had never tried it and was curious, and gave it a go.  I'm pretty sure it's due to the additional address space for the RS5 chips.  It doesn't damage them, but they just don't work.  Yes, I tried it with a set I didn't care about.