What's Wrong With This Lionel Legacy FEF? (Video Inside)...We'll Never Know...7 MAR 2016 UPDATE....

Don't laugh but I have done it.... did you turn the volume up? Remote and the tender knob.

With remote, increasing/decreasing volume has no effect.

 

Manually changing the volume by turning the knob on the tender corresponds correctly and intensity changes as it should.

 

Aaron

If the extremely loud buzzing I hear in the video is emanating from your loco's tender, there is likely a hardware problem. Please contact Lionel customer service.

 

Rudy Trubitt

Director of Audio

Lionel, LLC

Well, I couldn't have asked for a better answer than that, straight from the Big Guy himself.

 

Thank you, appreciate the input.

86 TA,

 

Me thinks it has ga-farbed itself.

 

Bummer.

 

Ron H.

I believe your Railsounds power board in the tender is bad.  Unplug it off the mother board and put it back.  If you have any Legacy engine with modular boards or any TMCC engine, swap out the board to confirm.  They are the same between Legacy and TMCC.

Yeah Ron, it doesn't sound good!  I'll get her working though!

 

Marty, 

I was hoping you'd chime in here.  Thanks, I'll give it a shot but will probably be Monday before I have time.  A lot of activities this weekend.  I did check to make sure the boards were fully 'seated' but no change.  I have another FEF so I'll swap the boards and report what I found.

 

IF, it's the boards, can I just contact Lionel, send my old ones, and get replacements? This is the first Legacy RS issue I've ever had. 

Your engine is early Legacy and it uses modular boards that are a bit like TMCC.  That engine has the same power board that TMCC uses.  I have seen this before.  I have that engine in my own collection and would never get rid of it.  It is a runner.

 

Your request for help is what they all should be.  You gave the engine number, transformer, operating mode, confirmed what actions you took,  worked the volume pot, and a sound video.  If guys would do this they might get more people to look at the post they made.

Check the speaker and the wiring to it.  If one side is grounded, it would introduce a large hum.

 

I agree with Rudy, there's certainly something amiss there, they don't sound like that as a rule!

 

Check what John stated.  Your pot is working and the speaker is the next step.

GRJ & Marty,

I'll check it out and report the results.  thanks again guys!

BTW, do the original boards work in the other engine?  Just curious...

 

I agree  with John diffidently sounds like 60 cycle hum introduced  or bad grounds

Alan

Your loco has been taken over by the Emergency Alert System. If you leave it on long enough you should be given instrcutions

In case it helps I will mention a similar experience. I had the very same loud buzzing sound from an AT&SF 3000, which I think is the first Vision Line steamer. It turned out to be a hardware defect and in particular something called the TAC 2 sensor, Lionel part number 691-TAC2-A00. For some reason this board was badly overheating; replacing it largely eliminated the buzz and changing the volume pot and IR sensor helped some more.

 

I don't see this part listed for the FEF-3 but I am only too aware of this buzz issue with early Legacy models (I have in my Vision Genset) and I am sure it is hardware/board related. Nonetheless, I would do what Marty suggests and check out the speaker wiring.

 

To give credit where it is due it was Alex "The Great" Mallaie who did the repair on my engine and found the cause of the noise. Happy Memorial Day weekend to him and all.

 

P.S. I did not run to the cost of replacing other boards in my AT&SF's tender but from what you say it does not seem to be the RS power board or the other one (not sure which) you also swapped out. I've had another electronic part - the AC regulator - go bad on my 844 but that caused no sound problem, it just killed the smoke. This noise is a known issue on early Legacy models which I now know had boards similar to TMCC hardware and I suspect only Lionel can or already has diagnosed where the fault is. I have not had this problem on later model Legacy engines where the hardware is very different.

John,

How do I check the speaker?  I've visually checked the wiring at the speaker & verified the 'leads' aren't touching the tender shell.  Also, I looked for a frayed wire or ground.  Nothing.

 

Yes, they did.  So, the 2 vertical boards are good. 

 

Hankcock52, 
Thanks, sure sounds like a similar deal.  I'll keep ya posted on what happens.

Unplug the speaker from the board connection and measure each side to frame ground.  You should read no connection.

 

1.  With the speaker unplugged, I'm showing .1 on each outside pin on the horizontal board.

 

2.  Before I did #1, I noticed I no longer have speaker sound.  Also, there is a constant hum coming from the horizontal board.  I know it's this board because I unplugged the 2 vertical boards.

 

3.  Though I have no sound now, the speaker baffle moves when I trigger an event.  

I'm wondering if you have a speaker lead shorted to something else.  Did you measure the speaker connections at the speaker to frame ground.

John,
I'll recheck them today when I get home.  I just checked the horizontal board pins.  Will try to get a picture up to show you later.

 

It was a long weekend and I forgot to do as you said in the above post.

 

Is the 'hum' I'm hearing on the horizontal board normal?

 

Any hum from the actual circuit boards is NOT normal!  If it's actually emanating from the board and not the speaker, that's a problem.

 

Ok, John or Marty, I need your help.  Not sure I'm checking this correctly.  I know it sounds simple but I've never done this before...so tell me if I did it wrong.

 

Here's what I did, using the 200 Ohm scale.  Did I use the right one?

 

If I touch the black voltmeter lead to any metal on the speaker, I get "0"

 

Below are the outcome of each speaker connection.

 

 

Here's the other side:

 

 

 

Then I checked the speaker "pins' on the board.  All showed "0" without track power.  Should power be on?

 

 

 

Here's a short video of the 'hum' without the 2 vertical RS boards connected.  Even with them plugged in, I have this hum.  The video is just audio for you to hear, may have to turn sound on high.  At the 4 second mark you can hear it.

 

 

You should measure across the speaker coil, one lead on each of the wire attachments.  Next, I wanted to measure from one of the speaker wires to the frame of the speaker.

 

You appear to be putting both leads on one speaker terminal, that should read zero.  If you short the leads together, I'm guessing you still get 7 or 8.

 

I should be in Ohms, correct?

Correct.

Thanks for the help!

 

Are you getting a zero or infinity?  You should not see the display change from the probes unconnected to when you're measuring a coil connection to the speaker frame.

 

 

 

John,
Infinity.
Hang with me, new to this and learning!

I'm running out of ideas without seeing it.

Me too. I'm not sure what to do from here.

 

The hum is still very pronounced.  A few minutes ago I swapped a good speaker into it.  Still no sound and the hum.  Placed original speaker back into it.

 

Probably looking at sending it out to be fixed.  Unless we think of something else.

Remove the pot from the tender housing and try. Keep the pot plugged in. Next

dis-connect the rear coupler and try.

 

Bill

It sure sounds like there's an errant ground somewhere feeding the hum into the audio. 

John, sure appreciate your help.

 

Tonight, I'll unplug items one at a time off the horizontal board.  Hope I can isolate it.

 

I suspect the board is bad, the hum sounds like it's from the board, as far as I can tell.

 

I've traced all the wires going to the board and don't see any chafing or exposed strands.

 

If I can't find something there, I'll probably get an RA and send it out.  Sure hate to do that though.

Since you have isolated that the RS board and Power Supply are good.  Speaker is good?

 

The Mother board is the next logical issue.  I am not sure how you have a hum with no boards installed?  Is the speaker still attached? 

 

Remove the Mother board and check the traces.  You may have one burned up.  They can be repaired by soldering jumpers, but you would need to determine why it became damaged. 

 

Did these original boards work in another engine?  I think John asked that earlier.  G

 

 

The horizontal board is the Mother board.  I don't see how that can hum.

 

Yes you will see burn marks on the coating.  If the RS Boards and Speaker are removed the only other hum could be a coil coupler.  Unplug it.

 

If still humming, check for a short between Pickup roller and chassis ground.  G

 

 

I took everything off the mother board-RS boards, all the connectors, and removed the mother board from the tender frame.  I looked at it and don't see any burnt or loose connections.

 

 

I checked the two wires that mount under the board to the tender frame-they're tight and no frayed wires touching anything.

 

I reinstalled the mother board.  One by one, connected the wires to the board, each time turning on power afterward and listening for the hum.  No hum from the mother board.

 

UNTIL, I got to pin J1, the hum is back!  I checked it 3 times and each time it returned to humming. Here's a picture of the culprit!

 

 

 

So, I guess I need to take the bottom of the tender apart and look for a fault.  

 

I still have no RS sound.  Only the hum.

 

If I have time later, I'm going to use my known good speaker and see what happens.  I wonder if I have more than one thing wrong with the sound?

Took the underside of the tender apart today.  Don't see anything out of the normal.

 

Calling Lionel Monday to get an RA.  

 

Will post what the problem was when it's returned.

 

Thanks for all the help and ideas, I was able to do much more than I ever thought thanks to all of you.

J1 looks like the AC input.  There really is nothing that should hum. Unless it is a transformer humming because of a AC short.

 

If everything is disconnected including all the harness except J1.  (NO boards installed on the mother board) Does it still hum?  If so, I would test that black rectangle on the second picture.  Top of mother board.  That may be a diode/TVS that is shorted and causing a transformer hum.  G