I have just finished installing the Aristo Revolution in my shay with success. I have decided to put in a Phoenix P8 sound card with it and it sounds great when sitting there idle but I have no sound when in motion other than idle. I have hooked up the wires with the chuff sensor in the engine behind the cylinders like they say but i get nothing. I hooked up the dark blue and orange wires with them like they said in the manual. Is this a common problem?
The phoenix is probly set to chuff from voltage, not the chuff contacts. You need to find someone with the phoenix programmer and change it.
if it is set at track voltage you will get sound when you apply voltage. it usually comes set for chuff trigger. make sure you have the correct two wires one goes to chuff pin the other goes to ground pin
Mike
I have checked the chuff sensor on several of the Shays. As far as I can tell, they do not open/close contacts and that is what is needed on the Phoenix sound systems. I don’t think the P-8 is the correct sound system. It is intended to be used on a DCC system. You need a PB9. It can respond to the changing power that is applied to the motor.
The Shays have three open and close contacts. One on the top of each cylinder. The contacts are closed by a push rod on the top of each piston pressing a brass strip up onto another brass contact that is the common for all three cylinders.
Usually they work just fine but there could be a few problems.
1). The contacts have closed up and there the is no make or break sequence. The solution is to bend the movable bottom brass strips down a bit and put a slight upward bend on the end of each one.
2). The contacts are not actually making contact. Bend the top brass bit down and put an upward bend on each of the lower contacts.
3). The wires connecting the contact strips to the loco loom may have broken where they solder to the brass strips.
The Phoenix P8 is the correct sound card for the Revolution system. It has power wires for constant track power and it has motor wires to pick up motor voltage IF you want to set the chuff or speed to voltage control.
A PB9 is designed for vairable track power and has a battery to power the card when you reduce power to stop a loco.