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I am looking for some guidance here with doing this upgrade. I have installed the r2lc board in the loco, moved the jumper, programmed the loco, and then plugged in the ground green wire on the tender tether and added the electrocoupler and moved the jumper on the tender sounds board. The signal sounds board does not respond to commands and now the installed electrocoupler on the tender triggers everytime the engine and tender when the wire tether is plugged in fires the coupler open. This happends with or without the signal sounds board installed. The coupler responds to the remote command to open fine. The tender rolled through the same turnout by itself or not tethered to the locomotive does not fire the coupler with track power on.

Help!

Suggestions?

Thank you in advance.

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Nothing from anyone? No other engine that I have does this. I installed a DC commander into an old Williams PA unit today and it works perfect. I then went and installed a Beep Commander v2today into AEC Beep that I picked up last year. I originally was going to install it into another Beep but I remember that the AE unit had sound and it turned out to be a sound commander v2 so I got all of that to work great. So, the misfiring coupler has got me confused......yeah, I have some time on my hands since I severely sprained my ankle on Wednesday...

"The signal sounds board does not respond to commands and now the installed electrocoupler on the tender triggers everytime the engine and tender when the wire tether is plugged in fires the coupler open."

 

Hi Jeff, I read your post a while ago and was confused on what the exact problem is.  The thread title says the coupler opens on turnouts but the sentence above says the coupler fires when the engine and tender are plugged in.  To me that means that as soon as you plug them together, the coupler fires.  If that is the case and your signal sounds also doesn't respond, I'd say something is wired wrong or a jumper isn't in the right place.  I don't have any signal sounds locos so I can't help with that.

 

If the problem really is that the coupler opens when the loco/tender combination crosses a turnout then I can help.  The impulse to open the coupler comes from the locomotive so you can roll the tender by itself over turnouts and nothing will happen to the coupler.  To fix the problem, install a 1 microfarad, 35 to 50 volt NON-POLARIZED capacitor across the two wires to the coupler.  The capacitor can be installed anywhere along the wires.  It will look like you're creating a dead short, but you're not.  Radio Shack stocks these in a 50-volt version.  They look like a little blue can with a wire coming out of each end. 

 

Be sure and use a non-polarized capacitor.  A regular capacitor is built for DC and can explode in our AC environment.

Originally Posted by Bob:

"The signal sounds board does not respond to commands and now the installed electrocoupler on the tender triggers everytime the engine and tender when the wire tether is plugged in fires the coupler open."

 

Hi Jeff, I read your post a while ago and was confused on what the exact problem is.  The thread title says the coupler opens on turnouts but the sentence above says the coupler fires when the engine and tender are plugged in.  To me that means that as soon as you plug them together, the coupler fires.  If that is the case and your signal sounds also doesn't respond, I'd say something is wired wrong or a jumper isn't in the right place.  I don't have any signal sounds locos so I can't help with that.

 

If the problem really is that the coupler opens when the loco/tender combination crosses a turnout then I can help.  The impulse to open the coupler comes from the locomotive so you can roll the tender by itself over turnouts and nothing will happen to the coupler.  To fix the problem, install a 1 microfarad, 35 to 50 volt NON-POLARIZED capacitor across the two wires to the coupler.  The capacitor can be installed anywhere along the wires.  It will look like you're creating a dead short, but you're not.  Radio Shack stocks these in a 50-volt version.  They look like a little blue can with a wire coming out of each end. 

 

Be sure and use a non-polarized capacitor.  A regular capacitor is built for DC and can explode in our AC environment.

Thanks as it is the second reason. Sorry for the confusion since I was trying to mention the issue and not forget any details. The couple only fires when the tender is connected to the engine and then only going through turnouts and I have been able to reproduce the probelm consistently. I am assuming some sort of signal variance is causing the coupler to fire?

Thanks again!

The very short interruption of power when the pickup rollers cross the turnout causes some kind of voltage impulse through the board to the coupler, causing it to open.  This happens with some locomotives but not with others.  The capacitor always fixes it.  Once I needed two of the capacitors in parallel across the coupler wires but that was only once out of over 35 locomotives I've converted.  Lionel has designed the capacitors directly into their Legacy boards so Legacy locos should not ever have this problem.

 

Okay, this engine is giving me fits. I installed the railsounds sound board and railsounds power supply and all was well for about a minute and then the powerboard went up in smoke before I could get the power shut down. I have checked everything and there were no loose wires or any other visible short so I called Lionel and I am shipping it to them. I have installed 3 different ElectricRR TMCC upgrades this past weekend in a Williams PA, a BEEP that also had an old sound commander 2 previously installed which now works great, and an MPC era PA 2 pullmor unit those all work perfect. I asked the tech to please tell me what he finds so I can learn. Just when I think I am understand this wiring andTMCC install stuff I am humbled again......

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