When did TMCC/ERR come 'stock' in 3rd rail engines? Was it engines manufactured in a certain year & moving forward? Or was it phased in?
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Early 3rd Rail locomotives came with QSI conventional reversing boards. Later, QSI sound boards were added. A few (like the PRR E6s 4-4-2) came with Ott sound boards. Everything was conventional (forward-neutral-reverse-neutral-forward, etc.).
The next step was providing TMCC via TrainAmerica Studios SAW boards with RailSounds. SAW stands for Sunset Atlas Weaver and those boards were standard in TMCC locomotives from those manufacturers for a while. Next, the SAW boards were replaced with TrainAmerica EOB (Engineer on Board) cruise control boards, with RailSounds. Finally, the change was made to ERR boards for TMCC control. I'm not sure of the exact year when each of these changeovers happened.
I think they changed over to ERR around 2012, maybe a little earlier?
My Y6b has EOB while the L1 has ERR:
The chips used on these boards are no longer available so the supply is hard limited. As automotive manufacturers have found, the chip manufacturers have no interest in making more. The technology has moved on and the equipment used to make them no longer exists.
Thank you all for the feedback - I am asking hoping to get a sense for my 3rd Rail Sunset PRR P5a...
I was speaking with someone (I can't remember their name) at the TCA National Convention over the weekend who said he believes those came with TMCC... I can't find any evidence either way. Does anyone know?
Of course I could put it on the track for it to scan for a signal, but don't want to hurt any existing electronics it does have if it's not the case.
If you have the engine look at the bottom of the tender for switches. Likely two, one for programming and the other to turn sound on and off.
TMCC was added around 2001-2002 with TAS SAW boards.
Pete
@Prr7688 posted:Thank you all for the feedback - I am asking hoping to get a sense for my 3rd Rail Sunset PRR P5a...
I was speaking with someone (I can't remember their name) at the TCA National Convention over the weekend who said he believes those came with TMCC... I can't find any evidence either way. Does anyone know?
Of course I could put it on the track for it to scan for a signal, but don't want to hurt any existing electronics it does have if it's not the case.
The P5a did not come with TMCC. The model was released before 2001.
@Bob and Norm, I appreciate that you took the time to answer the original poster's question. This thread total will become a good reference resource. I even have one to add-- my 3rd Rail C&O Greenbrier circa 2007 that came from the factory with EOB.
Fast forward about 20 years and if you really want to add Lionel command control to your P5a, ERR is about the only game in town. Depending on what features you want, it could be a challenging installation. Hope this helps!
@Ted S posted:Fast forward about 20 years and if you really want to add Lionel command control to your P5a, ERR is about the only game in town. Depending on what features you want, it could be a challenging installation. Hope this helps!
Not really. I've upgraded a number of diesels to Legacy control, it's a bit harder than ERR, but not that bad. You can buy many of the smaller connector sets all crimped with wire to ease the labor.
@Ted S posted:@Bob and Norm, I appreciate that you took the time to answer the original poster's question. This thread will become a good reference resource. I even have one to add-- my 3rd Rail C&O Greenbrier circa 2007 that came from the factory with EOB.
Fast forward about 20 years and if you really want to add Lionel command control to your P5a, ERR is about the only game in town. Depending on what features you want, it could be a challenging installation. Hope this helps!
It pains me to to see the aftermarket ERR TMCC tech fading off into the sunset. Their cruise worked great in drivetrains like 3rd Rail's. Legacy upgrades are cool and all but you're dealing with Lionel and they are not going to give you support if they catch on to what you're doing.
I have several 3rd Rails with EOB and my approach is to run them until a catastrophic failure then change them over to ERR while their stuff is still available. BTW if you have anything with EOB and it still works, you may want to take a look at the power wiring to the board. If it's still coming in on the power connector only (a small JST header), you may want to solder some track power jumpers to the AC input on the bridge rectifier. The power input traces on those boards were always on the light side.
@Norm Charbonneau posted:It pains me to to see the aftermarket ERR TMCC tech fading off into the sunset. Their cruise worked great in drivetrains like 3rd Rail's. Legacy upgrades are cool and all but you're dealing with Lionel and they are not going to give you support if they catch on to what you're doing.
Probably true, it's just that the ERR upgrades have really rocketed up in price in the last few years, it's getting harder and harder to justify the costs. The other issue is I can get more variety in sound with what's still available with Legacy components.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Probably true, it's just that the ERR upgrades have really rocketed up in price in the last few years, it's getting harder and harder to justify the costs. The other issue is I can get more variety in sound with what's still available with Legacy components.
I know it would just be speculation, but is there any path forward with the "Cab3" that Lionel would ever let the customers overwrite the stock sounds with custom sounds?
@Prr7688 posted:I know it would just be speculation, but is there any path forward with the "Cab3" that Lionel would ever let the customers overwrite the stock sounds with custom sounds?
They would have to redesign the hardware to do that. MTH makes theirs writable, Soundtraxx just includes scores of choices you can pick from. Lionel has touched upon the latter by giving you 5 whistles or horns to choose from. Maybe in the future they could include more choices.
Pete
@Prr7688 posted:I know it would just be speculation, but is there any path forward with the "Cab3" that Lionel would ever let the customers overwrite the stock sounds with custom sounds?
Not a chance. There's no "over the air" way to reload the existing boards, only at the factory.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Not a chance. There's no "over the air" way to reload the existing boards, only at the factory.
This is and has been by far my primary complaint about Lionel's platform, with the absence of new hardware controller options a close second (and no, Cab 1 doesn't count).
@BlueFeather posted:This is and has been by far my primary complaint about Lionel's platform, with the absence of new hardware controller options a close second (and no, Cab 1 doesn't count).
Well, to be fair to Lionel, they have one more hardware controller option than the other O-scale command system now...
