I tested the third engine. This one had a battery in it that read 9.05 volts on my meter. Surely that should be enough to operate a system that requires a 9 volt battery, it did not.
I then tried the battery that read 9.66 volts and the system worked again. This tells me that this system has a design problem. 3 different engines that would not work with a battery that was close or over the normal supply voltage.
I then tested the system under load just to see how much it drops off and it would pull the battery down about .5 volts when in engine shutdown mode.
I too tried a new board on the previous Sante Fe diesel and it didnt help. I havent used any of Lionels current RS engines but I hope they have addressed this issue with their currrent offerings.
That's what I thought.
I replaced one just to see if that corrected the problem. It did not.
I was an electronics tech for a long time so I decided to see if I could figure this out.
I checked the voltage again at the source and it read 8.76 volts at the source. I tried another battery which read 9 volts. Neither gave any results. The replacement I used had been sitting awhile so I went and purchased some new ones which read over 9 volts.
I could not believe that this corrected the problem.
Could Lionel have made the parameters so tight that the system would not operate when the system was not OVER 9 volts???
I checked another of my Legacy locos and the same thing happened. It would not work with the 8.76 volt output and did work when it was a little over 9 volts. This is ridiculous in my opinion.
I have had devices that used a 9v battery and they still worked when the voltage was down by 20%. It is hard to believe that these systems will not work when they are down by less than 3%.
I will test a 3rd engine and see if the same thing occurs.
Sounds like a bad RS power board.
Bill
I have had this problem with all my Legacy and TMCC engines except for one.
I currently have 3 Legacy locos and 2 of them have this problem.
I have had 3 others, 2 TMCC models from 04 and one legacy from 08, in the past all of which had this problem.
It is not the battery as I certainly have tried that and also checked the voltage where it goes into the module just to see if there was a bad connection in the plug or wires.
None of the control switches have any effect on this problem.
The one that operates properly, a 4006 big boy, will go thru it's shutdown process after you shut the power off. None of the others will do this.
Ive also tried numerous new 9volt alkiline batteries with the same result. Im not able to check loco at this time but im gonna check the switdh setting when I get home.
BigAl 956 Offhand I would say the battery is the culprit but you have changed that. With a fresh known good alkaline? Not a rechargeable battery. The Lionel sound system does not charge batteries. I'm wondering if the Railsounds/signalsounds switch is set right. Can you turn the locomotive over and look for the switch settings on the bottom. There should be a sound selector switch and a program run switch. Try changing the sound switch from full to RS or visa versa. See if that does anything.
Offhand I would say the battery is the culprit but you have changed that. With a fresh known good alkaline? Not a rechargeable battery. The Lionel sound system does not charge batteries.
I'm wondering if the Railsounds/signalsounds switch is set right. Can you turn the locomotive over and look for the switch settings on the bottom. There should be a sound selector switch and a program run switch. Try changing the sound switch from full to RS or visa versa. See if that does anything.
I've tried several fresh Duracell regular 9V batteries with no improvement.
Jim
I've got a 2426RS Railsounds tender from 1997 that does the same thing. It has me stumped.
Hello. I have a question on Lionel Railsounds. I have no idea which version it is but I assume it is one of the orginal versions. The loco is about 10 years old. It actually is a Kline steam engine with lionel railsounds. I have what I feel is a unique situation. 10 years ago I had a Lionel Sante fe deisel (F3 i believe) and had trouble with the railsounds dropping out upon direction change and throttle down. Tried new battery and worked for a few minutes and as soon as the batter dranined slightly the railsounds would start dropping out again. I go a replacement engine (3 in fact) and even one new soundboard, and they all did the same thing so I finally returned it and bought a MTH/Railking Sante Fe F3. Works great! Fast forward to present- I had bought a Kline engine with railsounds at the same time, about 10 years ago, and at that time the same thing happened with that engine. It dropped the RS upon throttle down and direction change. I was in the prosses of moving, so in a box it went and never thought about it again. Now after a long time away from the hobby I finally got a layout going and pullled out the kline steamer. Works flawlessly but the RS stlll drops out regardless of battery strength etc. Is this something that was common back when RS first came out? Is there any fix? I had posted on this forum back then abouty my original Sante Fe F3 deisel and was told maybe it was my layout? Now this is a different layout, all new and I stlll have the problem. I and running conventional block wiring (no TMCC/DCS etc) Any suggestions? Seems weird that I had two different engines, two different layouts and the same probems..
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