Large Scale Central

Bachmann Connie Sound Trigger problem

Electronics Power and Sound
#1

I extended the wires for the Connie’s chuff trigger through the tender for connection to my sound car. At first it seemed to work fine, but after a few minutes running I was getting many double chuffs, and lots of noise from false triggers. It was so bad I went back to the magnet trigger I have on the car wheels. Timing isn’t perfect, but at least it’s regular.

The problem could be the physical connection between the tender and the sound car… I’m using gold computer pin contacts, so they should be good.

Does the Connie’s sound trigger have any known issues?

Thanks -

JR

#2
Jon Radder said:
SNIP Does the Connie's sound trigger have any known issues?

Thanks -

JR


Not that I know of.

You might like to make sure the two wiper contacts are making good contact as the drum revolves.

#3

ah, yeah, sometimes.

It’s a bugger to check.
The “arms” often are not parallel.
This can be important if the “bends” are in different places, and the springing causes the contact point to shift differently on each arm.

I usually remove the circuit board on top of the drivers anyway and cut the tracks (radiated RF from the motors into the rails), and visually make these arms right to begin with.
I also put LGB conductive paste on the bars of the drum on #4 driver axle.

One of mine is fine, one at WOT does cut a bit.

FWIW, I have had issues on 2-8-0, 4-4-0 and 2-6-0 variants with the factory boards in the tender. Sometimes getting solder to actually stick is a trip when putting wires to them.

Once you do, no problem.

E-mail me if that didn’t make sense.

TOC

#4

The wiper type contacts for the chuff on the locomotive is known to cause erratic chuff as TOC states. Actually this seems to be a rather common problem after a while. Sometimes it can be corrected by cleaning the contacts but the best recommendation I’ve seen so far is to place magnets between each of the segments and replace the wipers with a reed switch. (assuming you are using a Phoenix Soundsystem). This will give you the desired 4 chuffs per cycle. If you don’t have enough of the little round magnets, Phoenix sells them separately.

Warren

#5

The reed switch and magnets will also work with the Sierra systems. Nick Jr

#6

Thanks guys.

I’ll look at the wiper and see if it can be tuned up easily, but failing that I thing the magnet / reed switch is the best option. I have extra switches and probably some magnets too.

Nice thing about this loco is that with the outside frame, all the driver guts is wide open from the bottom.

JR

#7

Jon: The wipers are thin and do not hold their spring tention very well especially at speed. I have sometimes had to change them to stiffer material but have also had good luck running a thin bead of solder down the back side of them.

Ralph

#8

Thanks for your tip Ralph. I’ll file that with the others.

Interesting to see this thread pop back up today since I had the Connie on the work bench over the weekend. I went with the simplest fix first, using some Aristo-Yuck conductive grease on the contacts. Seems to have done the trick, at least at low speeds.

Now will that black crap ever come off my fingers???

JR