Large Scale Central

Help identifying sound card

Electronics Power and Sound
#21

Curmudgeon mcneely said:

And he cannot. Period. That’s what I said twice or three times.

Let me start over:

Battery input to Sierra (either the stupid little plug OR pins 2 and 4) can run all day, all night, all week, all month and more on 12VDC.

14.4V, not so much. 16.8V be prepared. 18 is smoke.

Got it?

I can do it again if you want.

TOC

This is where we are having a falling out.

I’m talking about putting 6 volts on the White Plug in the form of a gel battery, or using supercaps in this location. The motor voltage goes to pins 7 and 8 and, just like a track setup, charges the gel battery or supercap from the motor’s supply source. When the motor stops or gets below a certain voltage, it ain’t charging and it runs off the gel battery or supercaps until they run out.

In essence, I’m talking about wiring it identically to a track powered set-up, except instead of picking up at the wheels, it picks up at the motor leads. No it’s not perfect, but what’s not to understand?

So have the last word and tell us why that can’t work, or give it a thumbs up.

Thanks

#22

Gee, so the battery input _could_be 12 volts, even though the board from the “factory” comes with a 6 volt battery. I know when charging the battery from the board, the voltage going to the battery exceeds 7 volts (I forget the exact value at the moment). Ok, I get that. So do the step down resistors go in the positive lead (common negative) or the negative lead (common positive)?

#23

Absolutely. IF you are runni8ng radio with on-board battery, oh, 19.6V, you just need the specified dropping resistors (three 5 watt, ten ohm)…and if Rat Shack still has them, I’ll get you the number off one package tomorrow.

Eliminates the gel cell, cheaper, all works perfectly, and you don’t need the little battery plug, no need for a separate on/off and/or charge jack to kill the battery so it doesn’t drain. Charge your main battery, turn the main power switch on, and you’re done.

I’ve been doing this since Sierras came out. I still get units in that have Sierra on track power, I just change it over, pitch the dead gel cell, and we’re off and chuffing.

TOC

#24

Todd Brody said:

This is where we are having a falling out.

I’m talking about putting 6 volts on the White Plug in the form of a gel battery, or using supercaps in this location. The motor voltage goes to pins 7 and 8 and, just like a track setup, charges the gel battery or supercap from the motor’s supply source. When the motor stops or gets below a certain voltage, it ain’t charging and it runs off the gel battery or supercaps until they run out.

In essence, I’m talking about wiring it identically to a track powered set-up, except instead of picking up at the wheels, it picks up at the motor leads. No it’s not perfect, but what’s not to understand?

So have the last word and tell us why that can’t work, or give it a thumbs up.

Thanks

And that is, well, silly. Run off the traction batteries through dropping resistors, no super caps, doesn’t die off (well, it will anyway with no motor voltage…it’s supposed to).

Adding super caps is cost, and space.

Adding another gel cell that will die sooner than you would expect is cost, and space.

What are three resistors going to cost? Heck, I’ve probably got a 15 ohm carbon resistor or two in my junk bins.

What did Walsham used to say it…Easy Peasey?

What does a set of super caps cost? Last 6V gel cell we had to get was fifteen bucks.

Resistors will cost what, 2-3 bucks tops?

TOC

#25

Curmudgeon mcneely said:
The warnings are there for a reason…and probably legal. Like the new motor homes…placard on the dash…“Do not leave the driver’s seat while coach is in motion”. One guess as to why that is there. TOC

But I have cruise control!

#26

John Caughey said:

Curmudgeon mcneely said:
The warnings are there for a reason…and probably legal. Like the new motor homes…placard on the dash…“Do not leave the driver’s seat while coach is in motion”. One guess as to why that is there. TOC

But I have cruise control!

Ah! So that was YOU!

TOC

#27

Removed post.

#28

Well I had no idea that this would turn out to be such a controversial request! Any way I’ve now had it out and found the label - it is a v1.1 K-36 card.

I am sorry that Tony has removed his post because he was the one person that I was hoping could have reminded us all about why you need an RCS SSI card to interface a RCS or Railboss ESC to the Sierra Sound.

Although it starts up OK with a 6v battery, the sounds aren’t:

Chuff trigger 11/12: Nothing

Bell trigger: 12/13: OK

Whistle trigger: 12/14: Starts for 1-2 secs then rapid machine gun fire continues until turned off

Hiss trigger: 12/15: Ditto

Klank: 12/16 Ditto

Is it shot? Too much track voltage?

#29

Sorry people.

The SSI board is sold out and will not be made again. No use for track powered DC sound anyway.

#30

Sounds like the battery is weak. And the chuffs could be set to voltage control.

#31

Michael Turner said:

Although it starts up OK with a 6v battery, the sounds aren’t:

Chuff trigger 11/12: Nothing

Bell trigger: 12/13: OK

Whistle trigger: 12/14: Starts for 1-2 secs then rapid machine gun fire continues until turned off

Hiss trigger: 12/15: Ditto

Klank: 12/16 Ditto

Is it shot? Too much track voltage?

This is commonly referred to as “motor boating” and is most often cause by a bad battery. It can also be caused by using a 4-6 ohm speaker where an 8 ohm is specified.

If you just want to check on the health of the board without buying a new gel battery or supercaps, you can simply replace the battery with a pack of 4 AAs (6 volts) and that will power up the board.

In fact, if you run supercaps, it is best to leave a jack connected in parallel that you can plug in the 6 volts of AAs for programming the board.

#32

Motorboating is simply dead backup battery. On-board battery power, you’ll never see that. Loco will stop running before power gets too low.

Do you not have the manual for Sierra?

The board is programmable. Buttons are paralleled to volume switch, so with Sierra you ONLY click the switch up or down or you enter program mode.

Hint:
If you forget, hold volume, and get a “toot”, let go immediately, do not click the other way, cycle power to reset.

FIRST hit on programming is chuff, sets to auto chuff or trigger.

If you have nothing on chuff, then either PO had set it to auto chuff, or somebody played with the volume control.

You can check battery voltage pin 4 +, pin 2 -. It will tell you.

I’ve had Apollo 13 batteries before on Sierras…voltage, no current. Had 6.0 volts, motorboat, zero current. Shot.

I used to have a .pdf of the manual. Jim Carter scanned it. You might ask him if he’s still around.

I can probably scan a page or two of program setup.

TOC

#33

Thank you Todd and David. You were of course right about the battery and the voltage control of chuffs. So yes it seems to work.

But I don’t particularly like it (having been spoilt by Phoenix P8s) and particularly the background crackle. And Tony’s news is disastrous. I was only looking at this board as a cheaper means of installing an R/C whistle. And without the SSI board I don’t get my R/C whistle.

Anyone want to buy it? I’m in UK.

#34

Tony Walsham said:

Sorry people.

The SSI board is sold out and will not be made again. No use for track powered DC sound anyway.

I think I can guess what is going on with this, as well as the deleted post.

It goes to the effect that when the supply batteries are used for the back-up voltage, there become a path through ground where even a low throttle setting sets up full voltage to the board and the board thinks it should be at max speed…, or something to this effect.

I’m also thinking that maybe Tony didn’t want to discredit the Curmundgeon’s resistor idea or its ramifications, so pulled the post, especially when the SSI boards aren’t even available any longer, so this serves no purpose.

The purpose of the SSI was an inteface where the motor was coupled to the sierra board optically using an LED/optic sensor. The LED was wired to the motor and the sensor used the brighness of the LED to determine the speed basically “de-coupling” the two systems at this point.

This also takes care of any pulse width systems because the LED doesn’t change intensity based on the max rise of the pulse width, but the average of what the motor sees…, or something to this effect.

These bulletins came out after the boards were in use.

When I suggested that the board be set up just as a track powered system, to include either the gel battery or supercaps, this also de-couples the supply batteries from the back-up voltage, and should take care of the ground path problem. If a pulse width system causes undue false triggering of the warning horn, sensitivity settings in the board can reduce this, probably/usually to acceptable levels.

Also, when these board were first released, people were lined up way deep to purchase several at a time at The Big Train Show on the Queen Mary. The box included the gel battery, and I would bet dollars to donuts, (or is that now donuts to dollars), that lots of boards were installed in LocoLink (and the like) systems that were available were on the market back then, and the battery was installed as a matter of recourse and the board took its power off the motor.

Like I’ve said all along, it’s not perfect, but if it lets you use the board…

#35

Todd Brody said:

Tony Walsham said:

Sorry people.

The SSI board is sold out and will not be made again. No use for track powered DC sound anyway.

I think I can guess what is going on with this, as well as the deleted post.

It goes to the effect that when the supply batteries are used for the back-up voltage, there become a path through ground where even a low throttle setting sets up full voltage to the board and the board thinks it should be at max speed…, or something to this effect.

I’m also thinking that maybe Tony didn’t want to discredit the Curmundgeon’s resistor idea or its ramifications, so pulled the post, especially when the SSI boards aren’t even available any longer, so this serves no purpose.

The purpose of the SSI was an inteface where the motor was coupled to the sierra board optically using an LED/optic sensor. The LED was wired to the motor and the sensor used the brighness of the LED to determine the speed basically “de-coupling” the two systems at this point.

This also takes care of any pulse width systems because the LED doesn’t change intensity based on the max rise of the pulse width, but the average of what the motor sees…, or something to this effect.

These bulletins came out after the boards were in use.

When I suggested that the board be set up just as a track powered system, to include either the gel battery or supercaps, this also de-couples the supply batteries from the back-up voltage, and should take care of the ground path problem. If a pulse width system causes undue false triggering of the warning horn, sensitivity settings in the board can reduce this, probably/usually to acceptable levels.

Also, when these board were first released, people were lined up way deep to purchase several at a time at The Big Train Show on the Queen Mary. The box included the gel battery, and I would bet dollars to donuts, (or is that now donuts to dollars), that lots of boards were installed in LocoLink (and the like) systems that were available were on the market back then, and the battery was installed as a matter of recourse and the board took its power off the motor.

Like I’ve said all along, it’s not perfect, but if it lets you use the board…

Oh, geez.

“or something like that”? Really?

It isn’t a grounding issue.

Do you just post so you can see your name in print?

I could not only tell you what the issues are, the idiocy at Throttle Up! that could have fixed this “but we won’t do it because nobody uses radio/battery”, the way to build the circuits yourself, right off Technical Bulletin #6 from Soundtraxx…

But then I’d get arguments and more gross stupidity…so I’m done.

Anybody needs TB-6, e-mail me I’ll make a copy and mail it to you.

Even without the SSI it works. On steam units, with no auto chuff, you don’t need any optos. Period.

Those came in with diseasemal boards…and then could be used with auto chuff.

Just stop confusing the issue.

De-coupling has zero to do with anything at all, never has on a Sierra. You don’t have a common ground, your sound triggers won’t ever work unless you buy a bunch of relays and that’s even more money.

If the original poster doesn’t want the Sierra, mail it to me, it will be in service without any optos, radio/battery, inside of half a day.

TOC

#36

From Tony on MyLargeScale:

"I can’t comment about the Revolution but I can tell you about the H Bridge motor driver I use. On the LMD18200T both output legs are always full traction battery voltage. It works by taking one leg to ground depending on what direction is selected.

If the Sierra is connected to the traction batteries and then powered by the ESC motor driver output, the Sierra will always have an internal sneak path back to ground and will think it is seeing full voltage from the ESC even though the system has no voltage going to the motors."

I don’t make this stuff up.

#37

Todd Brody said:

From Tony on MyLargeScale:

"I can’t comment about the Revolution but I can tell you about the H Bridge motor driver I use. On the LMD18200T both output legs are always full traction battery voltage. It works by taking one leg to ground depending on what direction is selected.

If the Sierra is connected to the traction batteries and then powered by the ESC motor driver output, the Sierra will always have an internal sneak path back to ground and will think it is seeing full voltage from the ESC even though the system has no voltage going to the motors."

I don’t make this stuff up.

Absolutely. You still don’t get it.

This is STEAM. Unless you are using auto chuff, it makes absolutely no difference.

Okay.

Hard part.

It is no a sneak path, internal or otherwise.

Remember the quote from Steve Dominguez at Throttle UP? “We could fix that with a quick software change, but we’re not going to do it because nobody uses radio battery”?

Here is the issue, laid out plain:

Sierra compares each motor leg input (pins 7 and 8) INDIVIDUALLY to ground. They do NOT compare pin 7 to 8. Steve said a simple software change, and I would believe the designer.

H-Bridges have full battery voltage on each output leg. They move one leg towards zero (or ground) to give a differential in potential to make the motors run. The motors don’t care.

On steam, without auto chuff, makes absolutely no difference at all.

On auto chuff, it will go full tilt, right now, on diseasemals it will go wide open on Run 8, right now.

The reason I still have the 10 ohm resistors here from Rat Shack is because that is what we used before the Sierra Diseasemal sounds came out, that REQUIRED and opto-isolator.

Read the first post in this thread. It’s STEAM.

Pin 7 and 8 motor input is also keep-alive, so the sound system doesn’t go to sleep.

In TB-6, is states, if you have no motor input, connect a wire from pin 4 (positive battery) to pin 8 (one leg of motor).

Aristo took a slightly different TB-6 schematic.

If you still use LocoStink, Lord help you, as their triggers are inverted, and you need an opto for each sound trigger.

DO NOT keep arguing this…you have no idea.

I’ve spelled it out, you don’t believe it, you quote all sorts of stuff…my offer still stands. If the original poster doesn’t want it, send it to me.

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

TOC

#38

David Maynard said:

Gee, so the battery input _could_be 12 volts, even though the board from the “factory” comes with a 6 volt battery. I know when charging the battery from the board, the voltage going to the battery exceeds 7 volts (I forget the exact value at the moment). Ok, I get that. So do the step down resistors go in the positive lead (common negative) or the negative lead (common positive)?

Old Rat Shack part number is 271-132 for the resistors

TOC

#39

Curmudgeon mcneely said:

David Russell said:

So it is confirmed that it is a Soundtraxx card then?

It has all the parts in the same location as a Sierra by Soundtraxx. Underneath is an IC that is removable for reprogramming to a similarly powered locomotive (steam for steam, diseasemal for diseasemal).

That little square black thing on the left near pins 7 & 8 is what burns when you overdrive the input (remember these were designed and built before “slot trains” were invented, and the 24V power supplies to run said slot trains.

When it goes it usually takes the board and tracks with it, leaving a big deep burn mark where it was.

Makes it non-repairable.

TOC

So that makes it a positive confirmation that it truly is a Soundtraxx card then?

#40

Yea Rooster. But TOC still hasn’t said if the resistors go in the positive or negative battery lead. He just gave me the Shack’s part number for them.

Edit, again for fat finger syndrome