Is it possible or has anyone downgraded a locosound steam engine to a conventional reverse unit with an electronic whistle made by Williams or Lionel?
Kev
Can't stop working on the railroad!
Those have DC motors, don't they? Either Ac or DC, I'd be calling up Dallee Electronics and ordering an ACRU (for AC) or a DCRU (for DC).
When we gut out DCS stuff, that's what we use in them.
Dave
Can I put it in the tender like the original Proto boards?
These are just reversing units. They would go in the locomotive, near to the actual motor. Your choice of sound is....your choice of sound. That can go in the tender.
"Is it possible or has anyone downgraded a locosound steam engine to a conventional reverse unit with an electronic whistle made by Williams or Lionel?"
In the old days of "conventional", motor driven, relay controlled whistle, or battery fed horn, with a mechanical E-units was the norm.
With DC motors, not so.
DCRU to sequentially cycle motor direction, then find a sound system for tender.
I don't do sound in 3-rail. Most of the horns/whistles have been removed or isolated.
I downgraded all 6 of my MTH locos (1 p1 and 5 early p2's) all the way. I run them now on DC off an AristoCraft Train Pack 7000 and use the pack's polarity switch to change directions. I got tired of having 6 $500 engines sitting in boxes because they couldn't get along with my MRC Dual Power O27 power supply. I get my whistles from a Lionel 125 whistle shack and if I want a bell sound I ring a small brass bell. Of course, then everybody thinks it's dinner time!
I was using the one proto1 board I had from an N&W 0-8-0 to get 2 engines running. I had removed the sound chip which burned out (along with the smoke unit fan) and the tether harness fit my Dreyfuss 20th Century hudson's plug. Of course I had to keep unscrewing tender shells all the time and it didn't fit any of the other 4 (Bantam Daylight, Crescent, non-streamlined Hiawatha & Santa Fe 2-6-0). So they're DC now along with 2 Lionel engines in my collection (Chessie 4-4-2 and James Gang general) and now it's my AC powered locos that are in the minority.
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
You can install an electromechanical e-unit downstream of the rectifier and regain directional control--I've done it with two MTH locomotives. You may need to mount the e-unit horizontally in an MTH steam locomotive. Lionel made special ones, the 671-50 and the 726-51, with internal springs, for those locomotives where the e-unit was mounted horizontally. You can also modify a vertical e-unit by inserting a suitable spring above the slug. Another possibility is to use an American Flyer reversing unit (e-unit), which is both smaller and horizontal.
The electrical return is through the e-unit's frame; so that frame needs to be isolated from the locomotive frame. One side of the rectifier output should connect to the e-unit's frame and to the green wire (which would go to the field winding if there were one). The other side should connect to the red wire. The blue and yellow wires go to the motor.
Bob Nelson
I found a work around to get rid of the locosound. I installled a True Blast II in the tender. I removed the speaker wires from the PCB in the locomotive. I then ran a wire from the possitive lead and negative lead, threw the wire cap back on them. I then soldered them to the PCB where the speaker used to be connected. Hook up was then simple the yellow and red wires in the tender where now my power supply. I connected the wires up to power and then speaker and like magic I had reverse and a whistle and bell. The annoying locosounds are gone so are my headaches from listening to it. I think some locosound boards are in the tender but this method will still work. Thanks to all for the iunput.
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