Squealing brakes with a RW ??

[Train-O]

Bob has helped many of us out and taught us plenty, especially regarding safety, keeping us safe and helping us keep our electrical goodies from frying and burning the house down.

Thanks again Bob,

Sincerely,

Ralph

[lionelsoni]

You're welcome.  Thanks for the kind words.

[Train-O]

Kevin,

I'm still learning and I'm having fun regarding trains, both model railroading and real railroading.

Kalmbach publications and forums are great fun for learning and for sharing experiences.

Ralph

[KRM]

Ralph,

You are so right about Bob.

Although I am fairly new here I have learned a lot from Bob’s answers to posts in the forum from others and myself. Glad there are guys like him and so many others that take the time to help people out on this forum when questions are asked. It is after all toys we are talking about and the more you know the more fun there is to have.

Tks,

Kevin

[Train-O]

Kevin,

Bob knows what he is talking about.

It's all way above my head, too, even though there are two LIonel transformers involved, probably the CW-80 is designed to "Talk" to the sound board unit for various functions. 

Ralph

[KRM]

Bob,

Leave it to you to come up with the most sensible answer. Got to agree with what you say even if some.. humm...... well most of it is over my head.    

I am glad your out there for us.

 I wonder if there is anyone else that has seen this same thing or could try one of the 2005 TrainSounds cars with their RW to see if it works on theirs or not. It could help narrow it down some.

Thanks,

Kevin

[lionelsoni]

The RW puts out a sine wave; the CW-80 puts out a rather different "phase-control" waveform.  The gadget must be sensing the track voltage to know when to do the brake-squealing.  The various ways that it might do that, such as sensing the average rectified voltage, the peak voltage, or some other feature of the voltage waveform all produce a result that is proportional to the root-mean-square voltage if you are using an RW.  But this is not the case with the CW-80.  For example, the CW-80's peak voltage doesn't change at all once you get the control up to about halfway.  So, what might look like an appropriate voltage change for squealing coming from an RW may not be able to evoke a squeal if coming from the CW-80.

This may not be the root of the problem; but it's about the only significant difference between the outputs of the two transformers.

[KRM]

The weird part Ralph is it works perfectly when run on the CW-80 transformer only has issue with the older RW transformer.

Guess I will give them a call.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Train-O]

Kevin,

That, should work at all speeds, loads, or a combination of the same.

Call Lionel, a Lionel 'Authorized Service Repair Center,' or someone who knows and repairs Lionel goods.

I had that problem with an older Lionel engine which needed a load of cars, or had to run at a higher speed.

I had to send it to Lionel for replacement of the radio unit and since I explained all of the engines problems, Lionel's tech. cleared them all up.

Now, the breaks squeal at all speeds, loads and a combination of speeds and loads.

Good luck,

Ralph 

[KRM]

Well I got a TrainSounds boxcar this week with squealing brakes, engine sound, horn, bell, and crew talk. It is the Alaska Boxcar with diesel TrainSounds # 6-26817

I am using it with my RW with a sound activation button and everything works well but….. the squealing brakes. They should come on when you slow the car after running it at a high speed for 10 sec that don’t happen. The only way they work is if you slam it to a stop by changing direction. Then they only squeal after it is stopped.

When I run it on my small loop with the CW-80 transformed everything works just fine including the squealing brakes.

Any ideas what causes this. It has to do with the difference between thew old and new transformers but what is it and can it be cured?

Thanks,

Kevin