railsounds problem: help needed

[colonialdrive]

I have a problem with my railsounds system in two of my lionel trains.

I have the basic 4-4-2 Lionel steam train as well as the basic Berkshire steam train. They are the ones that are found in many of the entry level train sets Lionel sells. Now I have had both trains in storage for a while and took them out today and found the railsounds were not working properly.

The bell and whistle dont sound when i press the button on my CW 80 transformer. The whistle strangely sounds when i press the direction button and seems to go off just as I power off. The whistle seems to go off sparadically as well. All the other railsounds work fine such as the crew talk, shut down sequence and the chuff rate is fine. It is just the bell and whistle dont seem to work when i press the button.

The only thing I think i am doing differently than when i ran my trains before is that i am using the lionel accessory power wire to connect the transformer to the rail. I seem to have lost the wire with the spade endings that came with the sets.

I was wondering if any one can help me with this, as I am not that knowledgable about model trains. I also live in Ireland and there is no store here that sells Lionel at all.

Thanks

[rtraincollector]

Lets try this one step at a time first make sure you have one wire going from the red post for track on the transformer to the center rail on the track then another from black track side again to one of the outer rails on your track. and see whats happening then. it really don't matter if you have the wire that came with the set or not as long as its good wire and is wired like I said above. now if it works but the bell rings when you hit whistle and the whistle works when you hit bell just switch the wires around on the transformer as I might of tod you wrong. Also heres where we get out of my knowalege but this might be a issue to are you using a step down on electric to take it from 220 to 110 and is it 50 or 60cycles

[colonialdrive]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I wired the track just as you said and I use a step down transformer as well just as you said. The step down transformer has worked fine for me in the past.

[lionelsoni]

Were you in Ireland when you last used the CW-80?  What kind of power source is it plugged into?  It couldn't last very long at all on Ireland's 230 volts.  And I have heard that it works properly only on 60 hertz, not the 50 hertz that you have in Ireland. 

[colonialdrive]

I am pretty sure its not the step down transformer as another lionel diesel railsounds train i have works fine for some strange reason. so i dont understand why it is just my steam trains. I have used my step down transformer without any problrem for many years whether using it for model trains or my guitar amp i bought in the USA.

[lionelsoni]

You were answering my questions as I was posting them.  No, the voltage is clearly not the problem; it's the frequency.  Running a 60-hertz transformer on 115 volts, 50 hertz, is equivalent to increasing the voltage to 138 volts, which will make it run hotter than it should, but is tolerable, especially for smaller transformers that can get rid of the heat more easily.  But the real problem here is the phase-control technique that the CW-80 uses to control the voltage put out to the train.  It is the same trick that is used in dimmers for lighting.  A triac switch turns the output on suddenly part-way through each half-cycle of the voltage from the actual transformer inside the box.  The earlier it turns on in each half-cycle, the more voltage the train sees.  Since the half-cycle of Irish voltage lasts 10 milliseconds instead of the 8 1/3 milliseconds of American voltage, the CW-80 is liable to get confused about just when to switch on.  It is possible that it was able to synchronize its switching with the longer Irish half-cycles at one time, but probably just barely, and work more or less as it was designed to.  But a slight drift in component values over time may have sent it over the edge.  I have actually never heard of one's working on 50 hertz in the first place.

There are forum members in 50-hertz countries who have been able to use CW-80s and other new-fangled "transformers", but only with rather expensive frequency-converting equipment.  Maybe one of them can advise you in this.