Lionel's "Electronic Mighty Sound Of Steam" - Early Electronic Train Sounds
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 เม.ย. 2021
- Episode 80: Throughout the MPC era (1970-86), Lionel produced steam locomotives both large and small equipped with the "Electronic Mighty Sound Of Steam".
What is it? How does it work? And what (if anything) can be done to repair it?
Enjoy!
Amazing. American Flyer/Gilbert got it right in 1946!
Mike - I want to say thank you. I bought a collection that had 2 MPC engines with MSOS. Your warning about the insulating tape prevented me from blowing up both boards, as the existing foam was rotted away. Thank you for the good advice!
Great timing! Thanks for watching!
Great, informative video! And watch your speed, Casey Jones!
Lionel trains have Warp Drive! :-)
I have a MPC 659 Red Passenger train. I removed the sound of steam since I couldn't stand it, but kept the whistle. The kids really like the whistle.
It's an acquired taste. I had several in my youth, and so its a nostalgic sound for me!
My childhood set was the green Southern engine with the rolling drum mechanical chugging sound system,
The "Mechanical Sound of Steam "! th-cam.com/video/UHXmBVpnP-4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=IL_ZUQ_dgdMVD5OS
I love The Mighty Sound of Steam. The Marx version is wonderful also!
My first Lionel set was the Silver Star, still have it and it's near and dear to me! I replaced the foam and the 3 large capacitors and it works great. When these boards go bad, it's most likely the three large capacitors, especially the early boards that used low quality capacitors where the electrolyte has leaked from them. Replacing those usually brings these boards back to life. Replace them with same value capacitors rated at 25volts min. The Marx SOP tenders are nicely synchronized to the loco (by the speed of the train like the early railsounds tenders) and are louder than Lionel's, the huge advantage is you can use the Marx tender with any locomotive and it will work and the chugging will be in sync. Lionel's early rail sounds tenders are similar in that the goodies are all in the tender and not dependent on a specific loco to make them work. One other note, the sound of steam boards will work in Marx tenders and vise-versa so if you have a sound O power tender board go bad, you can pop in a working Lionel board and it will work as a replacement
Thanks for the tips! My Silver Star 8141 still runs great!
@@ToyTrainTipsAndTricks Mine does too and using mega-steam smoke fluid makes it smoke great, much better than the traditional Lionel fluid I used as a kid! Here's a link to one I repaired by adding new capacitors and mega steam smoke fluid: th-cam.com/video/KAwtbuJd3Zk/w-d-xo.html
I use double sided foam tape for the boards. Works great. Great video, I have also collected many new old stock all variations of the different boards over the years Lionel made. , and I actually know a gentleman that can repair all of the different boards.
Wonderful!
Hi, can you please tell me the contact info for the gentleman who can fix these boards? Thanks!
@@eddiemerribakerwhats your email?
@@eddiemerribaker You can contact me through facebook.
We had the Lionel Southern Crescent for ten years, the engine ran and pulled well, but the cars had trouble going through 022 switches and constantly suffered from “ coupler” droop
We sold it for money to buy a set of postwar Irvington cars
My childhood Southern Crescent also had coupler droop problems. We eventually discovered that the mounting plate where the coupler attached to the truck was too loose. We figured out a way to tighten it and my cars have been fine ever since.
Great job 👏
Thank you!
Transistors= NPN, 2N3866. Electrolytic Capacitor, Values marked on device. Easy to repair.
Thank you! As I said in the video: "Someone who is better at electronics than I am." ;-)
The 8204 is louder and not as nice might be because the capacitors are going bad also some engine with the sos only have a 220 ohm resistor to keep power to the board between chuffs, and the other sos/w will not work quite right with those engines. I have repaired about 8 to 10 of these recently and will hopefully be building some from parts for the sos type systems. The rest of the parts should be here this week.
Thanks for the input. I will check it out!
How much better it would have been if MPC just copied the American Flyer smoke and choo choo unit. Sounds SOOOOOOOO much better.
The electronic system was probably cheaper to produce.
@@ToyTrainTipsAndTricks yes, but nowhere near as authentic sounding as the Gilbert system. I live about 8 miles from the Gilbert factory and had many family members on both sides that worked there. As kids (I'm 74) my brother and I had both Lionel and American Flyer. Each had advantages.
@@ronalddevine9587 Switching to the Flyer system would have required retooling of the Lionel boiler shells, whereas the electronic system fit snugly with existing smoke unit tooling.
If one of your tender trucks has a center roller then the circuit would have included the whistle. And if no center roller, it is just the steam sound.
Correct. And I should have known that!
It is, however, entirely possible to find a Lionel whistle tender with no steam sound, just the whistle.
I keep all my MTH volumes really low and the Lionel one disconnected.Just too much noise for this old geazer
I understand completely. But sometimes, you just want the world to go away and you can turn up the trains! :-)
The 8204 sound is of a later unit , not ll 8204s were whistle equipped as the set lost it's whistle after 72 .
Thanks for the info!
Oy...... How about some hot glue and a block of either urethane or extruded Styrofoam? I did this and you can even peel the hot glue off if you need to change something. Mine in the Southern Crescent has also got tinny, like an annoying metallic echo. Any idea what might cause that?
Good idea on the Styrofoam. I don't know a great deal about the actual circuit, but I understand that the values of the various capacitors on the boards control the overall pitch. Perhaps one or more of them has become "leaky"? Just a guess.
I have the tender with the magical beans in it
That would be this one: th-cam.com/video/UHXmBVpnP-4/w-d-xo.html
The thing that I don't like about the sound of steam tenders is that most of them don't weigh anything. The postwar whistle added quite a bit of weight to the tenders. Non-whistle tenders were super light as well, but you could easily add weight to them. With the speaker and circuit board in the sound of steam tender it is more difficult to add weight.
I'm not big on sound systems in my trains anyway...I'm more into the postwar stuff where if something is "true to prototype" it's as much an accident as it was design. I do prefer the units with adjustable volume over the ones where you're stuck with the sound level. A volume knob can make the difference between letting the sound keep running or shutting it off completely.
Agreed. Running a plastic SOS tender behind a die cast 4-6-4 is kinda silly.
@@ToyTrainTipsAndTricks Lionel made lots of plastic tenders behind their diecast locomotives. Williams reproduced these locomotives and I wish instead of the plastic tenders that they had had diecast tenders to go with them but because Lionel had plastic that's what they make. I wish all of the companies that made replicas of Lionel products made them at their best like with cash frames instead of Sheet Metal Frames. It's a shame that all of the Lionel diesels have plastic shells diecast shells would give them so much extra weight for traction effort. I love a diecast locomotive hauling diecast cars and a diecast caboose that's a real steel train and you pull a train of diecast cars that's a heavy bastard. But even on my 12x16 layout a dozen cars and two locomotives is all that looks proper you don't want the Caboose right in front of your locomotive.
Baby oil works
I have one of these locos, but can’t determine whether or not it also has the ability to whistle. Can you advise me at your earliest convenience?
By the way, I learn a LOT of Lionel/Marx facts from you Thanks for BOTH! 😊
The easiest way to tell whether the tender has whistling ability is to look for a center rail pickup roller. No roller, no whistle.
As a child the sound of steam would be wonderful but as an adult when you run for trains you don't want to listen to them blowing for The Crossings every 20 seconds as they go around the layout and the engine noise gets to be annoying and to smoke puffing out well sometimes it'll set off the smoke detector. When the circuit boards in my Williams locomotives go bad I have them hardwired and I run them on straight DC just like the HO trains I grew up with. No horns no Bells no whistles no sounds they make enough sound just running around the track.
Is there a modern, more realistic sound system that can be put into these locomotives?
There used to be some aftermarket sound systems (Ott Machine Services, for example) but they haven't been produced in years. The only way I know of today would be a full conversion to Lionel TMCC - and for the cost of conversion, you'd be better off buying a new locomotive. OR Lionel made some tenders with RailSounds in the 1990s and early 2000s. If you can find one of these and have a RailSounds-compatible transformer, you can get SOME sounds, but they won't be synchronized to the wheels.
Is there a wiring diagram somewhere? The circuit seems not that complicated.
I've never seen a diagram. There were several different boards used during the course of production.
I own an 8206 Hudson from the MPC era. Does anybody know where the cable that comes out from the engine should be soldered to? Thanks in advance!
If it comes out of the back of the cab, it shouldn't be soldered to anything. There should be a quick connect tab to a corresponding wire in the tender. That's for the Electronic Sound of Steam.
@@ToyTrainTipsAndTricks I truly appreciate the help on this. Just to make sure, the cable that goes through the small hole in the cab to the inside of the locomotive is not soldered nor connected to anything? No danger of shorting out?
@@78Rudys The other end of the wire attaches to a switch on the bellows of the smoke unit. When the side rod pushes forward it completes the connection and sends power from the center rail to the sound board in the tender. Unless you touch the wire to the outside rails or a grounded frame, it will not short out.