Railsounds Troubleshooting - Lost All Sound

Well, first step would be to find out why the board(s) died, it seems apparent from what you say that one of them did.

I can fix it for you, and I have the spare boards if needed, send me an email to my profile address if interested.

Message sent.  I may shoot some photos of the engine and tender with their shells off.  I'd like to know what each board is/does, and it can serve as a reference for others who look at this thread.  Identifying these boards and how to test them is something I couldn't find on line.  Just having a parts breakdown for my engine, something that wasn't in the instruction manual, would be a help.

The boards are pretty easy, this would be a pretty standard layout.

Are you SURE you didn't get the boards on the pins one set of pins off?  I did that once, and I got smoke and fire!  OOPS!

I thought about having gotten it put on one set of pins over, but I don't think I did that.  I didn't lift either board very high off of its pins, and then just put it back down.  The one thing I did differently was that I seated both boards fully down so that the pins were not visible.  I don't know how that would have cause the problem, but that's the only change that I know of.

I routinely do that if they're walking off the pins, it's never been an issue.

Here's a photo of the innards.  I'd like to identify what each board is, or the names of any I didn't identify.  What are the boards I've labeled E1, E2, T1 and T2?

Well, I see I didn't upload the photo correctly.  I'll try again.  What are the names / functions of each of these boards?

T1 is the RailSounds audio board.

T2 is the RailSounds power supply board.

E1 is the R2LC TMCC receiver and lamp/smoke drivers.

E2 is the DCDR motor driver board.

This is a pretty bog standard TMCC installation from what I see.

OK.  Here's an updated photo layout of the boards in the tender and engine for anyone who's troubleshooting.

Since the loss of sound, the rear coupler also no longer works.  When I push the uncouple button on my CAB-1 I can hear a sound at the coupler, but it doesn't open.  It doesn't seem to have the oomph it used to have.  Is that related to the audio power supply board? 

Before the complete loss of all audio, I thought it might be the green cherry switch in the engine that wasn't working.  Are there pins to check continuity of this switch?

Let's address one thing at a time.  If you have no audio and don't have coupler function, that isn't the cherry switch. 

My very first step would be to test the two RS boards.  Before putting any new boards into the tender, I'd also inspect the wiring VERY carefully.

For this engine the tether moves track power from the engine to the tender.  You also have serial data from the engine R2LC go to the tender and the signal for the rear coupler.  I would remove tender from engine, place engine on the track and reprogram it with the instructions.  This will reset the R2LC.  The engine can be tested by it self for motion, smoke and headlight control.

Check the rear PCB and make sure the solder joints are all good.  Then plug in the tender and check continuity through the harness.  If good move to placing tender on track by it self.  Do you get any sounds?

Because you had smoke I would remove the tender boards, and inspect the mother board for a burned trace.  If that looks good inspect both boards.  At this point you need to swap boards to test further.  Do you know where the smoke was coming from?  Might help with the selection of which board to swap first.  Any RS 4 boards can be used in the swap.  I would also check speaker for ohms.  Should read 8 or 16 ohms.   Probably marked on the top of speaker.  G

RS4 speakers are all 8 ohms, never saw a 16 ohm one.

Motion, smoke and front headlamp all work correctly.  It will take time to do the other tests.  The engine was reprogrammed with the tender connected before I took the Christmas trains apart, and the CAB-1 setup is packed up.  Would it do anything to reprogram the engine without the tender connected?

The smoke seemed to come from the vicinity of the two large capacitors on the audio power supply board in the tender, although I couldn't say it was a capacitor that smoked.  Neither capacitor looks bulged to my eye.  Those two capacitors and the shielded coil near them were warm when I touched the board to lift it off and reseat it, thinking that pressing it completely onto the pins had caused the short.  Although I didn't think that I moved over a row of pins when I seated it the first time, that is the most likely scenario since it smoked right after I put the board back on, yet I don't believe I had a row misplaced.  Photos of the offending board below.

The tender doesn't have any stored programming, so reprogramming the locomotive without the tender is the same as doing it with the tender. 

http://www.lionel.com/Customer...899-B1155DB40E6E18AC

Bill, those are used in pairs to result in an 8 ohm impedance.  His tender has one speaker, so it's not going to be anything but an 8 ohm speaker.

I know that his speaker is 8 ohm's and I know the 16's are used together. You said you never saw one, so I thought I would show you one or two. 

Wiseguy!   I should have been more specific.

If the Serial data was being effected by the damaged tender component it "might" affect the reset.  Reason I recommended doing engine alone.

I would check the MB for damage and swap out Power Supplies with another engine.  Just make sure no short from wires or MB damage.  The derail may have damaged the board.  G

Is the motherboard, the board in the tender with the male pins that the audio board and the audio power supply board connect to?  What would the damage look like on the motherboard?

Yes, There are traces of copper that carry the current between pins.  The coating would be burned off and the trace exposed and opened.  G

I measured the speaker at 8.6 ohms.  I pulled all the boards and put on a magnifier.  I see no burn marks - the traces are covered by plastic, so unless it would burn through, I'm not sure if a burned trace could be seen..  The audio power board has a funny smell like residual burned plastic that the other two don't have, but I can't spot any burned areas. 

Where does the numbering on the 24 pins on each of the two sides of the tender motherboard start, and which ones should show continuity with each other, or with the tender?

Try just replacing the PS with another from any engine.  The PS are all the same.  G

I made the 3 hr trip to Gunnerjohn on Tuesday.  It was worthwhile since I got to watch and get a feel for how to troubleshoot one of these.  John's a "retired" electrical engineer, so he's built some of his own test equipment as seen in the first photo.  It's where he tests individual boards to see which one(s) work.

It looks like I most likely reseated the audio sound board over by one set of pins and wiped that out.  The fix for the chuff sound was to spray contact cleaner into it, and bend a little more arc into the lever on the switch.  The K4 was never a good smoker and he fixed that too by installing a 22 ohm resistor which he modified to expose the wire coils to the smoke fluid.

The stumper was trying to figure out why the rear coupler no longer worked.  It buzzed but wouldn't open.  A couple of replacement couplers wouldn't either.  The electrical path to the coupler from the engine back to the coupler itself seemed not to be impaired.  In the end, we swapped couplers from his inventory until he found one that worked.  Checking all the points where the wiring to the coupler could have failed took at least an hour. Now that I have seen how to gain access to the chuff switch, I could do that part of the repair and the upgrade to the smoke unit myself.  The cost was very reasonable, particularly since I got three hours of education on top of the parts that needed to be replaced.  The last photo is the engine set up on a test track in my cellar, smoking better than it ever did.  Thanks John.

It's good that it works, because the warranty expires when it leaves the premises!

Glad to see all is well.