Wiring Diagram for LM-3S-G with Phoenix Sound board

[JRad]

I have had requests for help connecting Phoenix Sound boards to RailPro LM-3S-G to utilize their superior steam sounds. This diagram is specific to a Phoenix P8, but connections to other model Phoenix boards would be similar.

When configuring the Hand Controller buttons for Phoenix Sounds, set the button as a Light and select the wire color that corresponds to the trigger input for that sound on the Phoenix board.

I have not tested this yet, but I am pretty confident that it will work.

NOTE:  Crossing wires without a dot ARE NOT connected.  Speaker connection on LM-3S-G is not required. If desired, a second speaker may be connected for additional sounds.

[mickey]

I’m in the middle of doing this exact thing.  Just for clarification, when connecting the wire to the sound function on the Phoenix, no resistors are required, correct?  That’s just a led light issue when going from the engine board (Bachmann in my case) to the ring board.  Also, my understanding is you still need to get the motor connections so the P8 knows the speed.  But I may be wrong.

[JRad]

Hi Mickey.

Direct connection to the sound triggers is correct. No resistors or anything else needed.  The LM light output is supplying a ground (or current sink) to the Phoenix to trigger the sound. Current flow is tiny.

If you are running diesel, then a motor to phoenix connection is used as shown in my diagram. The Speed Trigger shown is not used. For steam, you don't need that and trigger the chuff with the loco's chuff trigger or a reed switch connected to Speed Trigger..

[mickey]

I am clearly missing something here.  I have the RP set up on battery and get the Climax to go forward and reverse.  I am getting sound out of the P8 but it is random sounds like it’s idling, then after couple minutes the horn just starts blowing and won’t stop til I kill the power.   I have the Phoenix set up like you show.  I have gone into the loco setup and have the horn button (lower left) set to the whistle picture, type is light, action is momentary, Name is On/Off and output wire is black (output 6) which is hooked up to the P8 white wire and saved it. I go back in and verify those setting. But when I press the whistle button, I get no sound. What am I missing?

[JRad]

I'm out of town for the next few days, so I don't have access to my hardware to test. If you still haven't figured it out by Wednesday next week, I'll hook it up on the bench and confirm my drawing is correct.

In the mean time, does the P8 blow the whistle and make other sounds (like chuff) if you jump from trigger ground to the sound trigger for a test?  It should. If not, the P8 might have a bad sound file load. Do you have the programming cable for the P8?

The "horn" blowing indicates that this P8 may not be properly programmed. For a Climax sound load it should be a whistle, or did you just mistype that?  Sounding all by itself and not stopping is pretty odd. Will it do that if you disconnect the trigger wires?

One thing that could be going on, if this is a used P8, is that the wire color assignments have been changed from the default. That is done in the Phoenix software with a programming cable. Without the cable/software, the only way to tell if it has, is to use jumpers to fire each trigger wire and see what the p8 does.

[mickey]

I too am away til next Wednesday.  So I can’t check things til then.  But in answer to your questions, yes, I miss typed and meant whistle.  I said horn button as that is what it was before I changed the pic and title.  I started with this climax since I knew the sound was working prefect under the prior install of LocoLinc which is what I’m converting from.  I did not manually test as I’m not sure if Phoenix is trigger wire is ground or has voltage and I didn’t want to blow anything.  Yes it was doing the same before I attached the trigger wires to the RP.  The one thing I have different is I have the P8 chuff wire hooked to the Climax chuff wire.

[JRad]

OK.  First we should disconnect the P8 from RailPro and the climax and do the Basic Bench Test as outlined on Page 6 of the Phoenix P8 Manual which can be downloaded from: http://www.phoenixsound.com/pdf/P8_Handbook.pdf

Once you get the Steam Idle sounds, try the Trigger Check Out on Page 7.

Triggers fire when grounded. Run a jumper from C2 Pin 1 (trigger ground) and touch it to each of the trigger terminal pins 2,3,4,5 and 6. You should get a chuff on pin 2, Whistle on Pin 3 , Bell on pin 4, Blow down on pin 5 and station announcement on pin 6.  This assumes it's never been changed from factory default.

Does the Climax Chuff have two wires?  If only one it might be an optical circuit and the board will need 5V to drive it. Phoenix P8 C2 Pin 7 is +5V for this purpose.

[gregeusa]

I may have missed it, but old or new climax, makes a huge difference re:chuff... old has actual chuff switch, 2 contacts, isolated.

New has pulses coming from the circuit board, which must be powered, and not sure if Bachmann copied their original mistake on the K27 to this loco... so would be good to debug that output first with a meter.

Greg

[mickey]

it is the newer Climax.  So how exactly would I hook up the meter to test.  One to chuff and other to ground or power?

[gregeusa]

so, you should check the chuff output pin, do you have the wiring diagram and/or schematic?

Greg

[JRad]

I'm with Greg.  On a recent model, if the internal circuit is not being powered, you will get nothing on the chuff wire.  I had to deal with this when I gutted the tender electronics from my C-19's.

Early optical chuff circuits produced a  +V pules that needed to be converted to a ground pulse with a transistor for use with Pheonix and most other sound boards. Later models, like the C-19, changed to a ground pulse which sound boards are happy with. But in order to get either, the optical circuit needs to be powered.