Greg Elmassian said:
I see the owner says the lights are low priority, but their non-working may be a clue to other problems, especially since the G2 appears working.
Greg
Greg, I agree…I told the owner we are going to work on the lights first. Chase that down and then move onto the sound. He was fine with that.
Bob
Check the battery voltage first thing! P8 will not work with less than 9V. The G2 will work at 10v, but not well.
If the Airwire was reset, as stated earlier, would that reset how the lights work? I am asking, because I don’t know, would the light functions need to be reprogrammed?
David, After a successful G2 reset, CV60 (headlamp mode) will be set to the default of 0, which is auto reverse. Forward = front on, reverse = rear on. That is provided 0 has been pushed to turn them on.
Paul should David also check and make sure that the throttle is in speed step 24 after reset of G2 for control of lights?
Richard
I don’t have the loco. I was merely asking out of curiosity. So if function 0 wasn’t pressed, then the light would not come on. So should Bob try pressing the 0 before he trys troubleshooting the lights not on issue?
David,
Pushing 0 will turn the lights on or off in a properly working loco.
Yes. So if the lights are off, it just my be a simple matter of pressing 0.
As I stated before, the owner took apart the tender and now has access to the P8. He says he was getting 15v at the P8 board. He did some more work on it without me since I cant get out there for another week or so. I did ask him to power up the unit and press the 0 button and see if the lights come on. He said he got nothing. Still, the bulbs could be burned out. Does it make sense that the throttle would work, but no other functions?
We did check the volume switch for the P8, tried the volume all the way up and down and no sound either way.
The owner made up this sheet with notes from what we have found. Take a look if interested.
Thanks again for all the help
Bob you say he got 15v on the p8 board does that mean on the 2 green wires and the gray and orange wires. If he has power on the gray and orange wires have him carefully unplug the sound toggle switch and just push 7 on the transmitter.
Richard
Bob
Pictures and diagrams help see the installation. Looks like NiMh battery packs.
Michael
Bob, Michael started to bring up a good point why did Alan post a pic. of a diagram of a P9 not the same as a P8. But the P8 does look wired right. IMO
Richard
Hi Bob, I noticed from the photo the speaker is a .5 watt. That is a very low wattage to handle the P8. Did you check to see if the speaker is blown? The standard round 3" Phoenix is rated 1-2 watt at 8 ohms.
To test the speaker use only a 1.5V battery and connect wires from each end and touch the wires at the speaker contacts. You should hear a momentary buzz sound. If you do, then you will know the speaker is receiving a signal.
Did you try calling Kevin? If not, Kevin will be in my shop all day tomorrow so call him. We are working on an AirWire install.
Don
Richard Beverly said:
Bob you say he got 15v on the p8 board does that mean on the 2 green wires and the gray and orange wires. If he has power on the gray and orange wires have him carefully unplug the sound toggle switch and just push 7 on the transmitter.
Richard
I believe on the green, not sure if he tried the orange and gray wires. I hope to get over there next week and will try what you have suggested. I believe he posted the P9 as that was only one that had a diagram connected to a G2.
Thank You
Don Sweet said:
Hi Bob, I noticed from the photo the speaker is a .5 watt. That is a very low wattage to handle the P8. Did you check to see if the speaker is blown? The standard round 3" Phoenix is rated 1-2 watt at 8 ohms.
To test the speaker use only a 1.5V battery and connect wires from each end and touch the wires at the speaker contacts. You should hear a momentary buzz sound. If you do, then you will know the speaker is receiving a signal.
Did you try calling Kevin? If not, Kevin will be in my shop all day tomorrow so call him. We are working on an AirWire install.
Don
I have not checked for a blown speaker yet. That was the speaker the installer put in at the time. I have a 3 inch 2w 8ohm speaker that I will connect up and see if that is the problem. I have not called Kevin as I dont have the loco in front of me. When I do, I can call him then.
Thank You
Bob when you do this, it is just between gray and orange wire pin 1 and 2 need some kind of power to work even if real low I checked mine i had 1/4 volt. if no power do a reset of the G2 like Paul said. and while you are there check for voltage between pin 5 and 7 or 8 if no lights hooked up or burnedout could be as high as 10 volts but if hooked up and good should be 0 volts till you hit 0 on controller. You could do this to pin 6 also.
Richard
I verified this on my G2
Update 9/11/17
I was able to spend an hour or so with the owner this morning trying a few of the suggestions you all listed previously. I took an old speaker I had laying around to test. I hooked it up to the P8 and I got static, we started the throttle and we got chuff, we pressed 1 and got the bell and pressed 2 and got the whistle. WooHoo!!! It turns out the speaker was bad…order new speaker…check! I did notice that the momentary volume switch did not seem to be working as I tried in both directions and the volume didnt change. I think the volume switch is bad and that may have blown the .05w speaker the owner had in there. Order new momentary volume switch…check!
Lights…still dont work. We were getting 10v on both the front and rear light terminals on the G2 board. We did get access to the front headlight bulb and it appears to be burned out. We did get a 10v reading at the socket. Owner wants to upgrade to LED lights at this point. A strange thing happened, when the loco was running on the rollers, when I pressed the 0, there seemed to be a voltage drop as the loco wheels slowed down until I pressed 0 again.
Anyway…we are making progress and the owner is very happy.
To be continued…
Progress is always a good thing. Glad to read that things are moving in the right direction.
Maybe the lights are set to full or dim as opposed to full or off… Not real familiar with the G2 lighting options.
Greg
Hi Bob good to know the G2 is good the 10 volts you got, means nothing other then both lights are burnt out when you hook up a good bulb it will go to 0 volts. until you turn it on and don’t forget you will get full battery voltage for you lights so if you use lgb lights use 15 volt or if you use led’s use a resistor for 15 volts. Now for the sound good to know it was the speaker was bad. for volume the toggle switch is not momentary you must hold it and it works slow. Did you try pushing 7 ? 7 should increases the sound faster then the toggle. 8 lowers sound. I myself do not put the toggle in. Keep us up dated.
Richard