Super-Chuffer Rev. 2

Hi John can this super chuffer board be used with dcs mth or is it only for lionel tmcc?

Alan

John

 

Awesome. 

 Thanks Marty, just an incremental improvement, but everything counts.

 

Alan, it's strictly for original TMCC or TMCC upgrades.  It would work in a Legacy locomotive, but most of them have many/all of the features anyway.  It's not for MTH, they already have synchronized smoke, smoke at idle, and they also do the dynamic braking of the fan like I do for better appearing chuffs.

 

I think Henning's is just about out of the older boards, so if you order one a few weeks from now, it should be the new board.  Nothing wrong with the original, this just eliminates the need for that extra component.

Thanks John.  The headlight made me nuts (more nuts? ) for a couple of nights until I finally got it right.  This should help some future upgraders.

 

The Super Chuffer and a new fan driven smoke unit made my old Lionel puffer like a new engine.  Thanks for your creativity.

 

Looking forward to your creations to interface with the sensor track.

I haven't really launched into the sensor track, I'm looking at some other projects however.

 

Is one of those projects a diesel smoke unit board to ramp up smoke with RPM speeds? I've come across more than s couple time where I wanted something like that to add smoke to s tmcc diesel

My thinking for a diesel board is to have two levels.  An "idle" level with low smoke production, and a "running" level with full smoke production.  I'd also add a MARS light output, ditch light outputs, cab light control, and maybe power for marker lights.

 

I'm trying to assemble any other ideas to see what could be provided at a reasonable cost. 

Certainly a wonderful product that has received rave reviews. With this change, it just keeps getting better.

 

Ground lights are a possibility.  For those I'd have to detect the motor speed and turn them off when we are moving faster.  I have thought about adding those.  I'd need an opto isolator that gives me an output voltage based on the input current, I'll have to look to see what I can find.

 

yeah I think I purchased all of them at York.  How many people have had this issue?  I've only done one install and I'm on my second with no problems.  Is it a noise issue or loading problem causing the headlight problem.

Neither, the headlight problem is just the design of the R2LC headlight circuit.  The triac needs a load to fire, and the input circuit on the S-C (or an LED headlight) isn't enough to give reliable operation.  That's what the load resistor or capacitor is for.  The circuit on the R2LC was designed with incandescent bulbs in mind, so this topic never came up until LED lighting starting being used.  My input circuit mimics an LED headlight, and so suffered the same issue.  Since it wasn't that hard to fix it, I added the fix.  FWIW, the ERR TMCC products have the same fix for LED lighting, but the Cruise Commander Lite currently does not.  With the new S-C version, this ceases to be a consideration, the headlight should always work if connected.

 

There is one caveat with the headlight operation with older locomotives which showed up recently.  The old LCRU, LCRU2, and any R2LC version prior to C08 have a reversed light output polarity.  This is a problem for the Super-Chuffer, and the headlight doesn't function properly.  The fix would be to change the input circuit to accept either polarity, but that's a more significant change than adding the cap, so that didn't happen this time.  The work-around is to connect the headlight input directly to the track voltage.  This enables the headlight output, and the Rule-17 lighting functions.  The only thing you lose is the ability to control the headlight from the remote.

John, I'll all for the diesel board and if it's all like the steam board I've got a slew of engines that could use it. Looking forward to what happens next.

I'm trying to gather ideas for what might be included in a diesel board.  Obviously, I'd like to fit as many functions as I can without making it so expensive that nobody can afford it.

 

We're thinking of putting the Super Chuffer in the earlier Legacy FEF (I think about 2009) which has synchronized smoke and adjustable smoke output. Any issues with this application? We'd like the idle smoke which it, the FEF, does not do.

Thanks, Chuck

I don't know if it's possible within price constraints but a Mars light function would be useful, at least for those non-Lionel TMCC engines that don't have a good lighting board. A lot of past 3rd Rail diesels just have a blinking LED. Scott Mann's now using the Ngineering Mars light simulator board but this is a relatively recent improvement.

 

I have thought about this too but the FEF3 you mention is Legacy equipped, not TMCC, although it's an early version of Legacy. I looked at the control boards in mine and although they appear very similar to TMCC boards I could not figure out the pins and in any event it's clearly using a different code. Over to GRJ to say whether you could get the smoke function at idle using a Superchuffer board in this model.

The only issue I see is the chuff switch.  If this is the 6-11116 Legacy FEF, it has a standard chuff switch and the installation would be the same as for a TMCC locomotive.  From the user's manual, it uses incandescent bulbs, so you may want the Rule-17 LED headlight, and possibly the cab light control if it's not already handled by the Legacy electronics.

 

As far as the MARS light, I did consider that, and I even have a working  prototype MARS light model.  I just don't have an extra pin on the uP, and I'm not ready to spend the money to retool and use a higher pin count uP.  I'd also have to add a programming jack as any more pins would dictate I use a SMT part, so I wouldn't be able to program them before installation.  Of course, I'd also have to add more connector pins.

 

FWIW, I use the Ngineering MARS simulator when I need one, they're great.

 

Well, I for one would be in the market for a diesel board like this, at least to get the kind of smoke and ditch/cab light controls you mention, which is not present on many non-Lionel TMCC engines.

 

I don't know whether you could include on this some kind of DC output for the Ngineering Mars light simulator. I've ended up wiring mine to one of the motors - not an elegant solution but (a) the board needs a DC current supply and (b) I prefer the light to be off when the engine is not in motion.  

 

P.S. Thanks for the advice on the 6-11116 Legacy FEF3. The Rule 17 lighting and the cab light on this model are already controlled by the Legacy system and they work fine on mine. The lack of smoke at idle is the only real issue.

Since you just need smoke at idle, you can simply wire the track power to the Super-Chuffer on pins 1 & 2.  Wire the ungrounded side of the chuff switch to pin 5, the chuff input.  That will be in parallel to it's connection to the motherboard.  One side of the chuff switch is grounded, the other one is the actual chuff input to the R4LC.  Wire the smoke motor to pins 6 & 9, with pin 9 being the positive lead to the motor.  So, with five wires, you'll have the smoke at idle, should be pretty simple.  Obviously, you disconnect the smoke motor from the existing connection!

 

Directions much appreciated John. 

No problem, let us know how it turns out.  I haven't put one into a Legacy yet, but if I could fit it into my Lindbergh Atlantic, I'd use it there.  That one doesn't have idle smoke, and it's very annoying!  The board is just a bit too big, the Atlantic with whistle smoke has NO room anywhere inside!