# SOS (Sound Of Steam) Tender



## T-Man

Yeah, I found a project at the train show. It has a speaker and a sound board. It's an 1130 tender with Pennsylvania markings. The back says made by Lionel with 8060T marking. The production is 1978 to1982 about. I found the print in the Lionel section 1-9 . The board is 8142T-35 The tender body is an 8141-8 or 8203t-8.

I'm asking what engine went with it.
What does the sound board do? Make a chug?Whistle? or play something that is feed to it?
A circuit diagram would make my day.
I will post pictures of my new dilemma. Coming soon.


----------



## T-Man

*Saved*

I saved myself. The set is from the 70's.
It's a chugger board. The engine is 8141 like the part number. Found the set on E bay. Glad they don't charge for the information.


----------



## T-Man

*All set*

I found the diagram too and tested the board. So here is my newest video. I left the radio on in the workshed but just listen. It probably hasn't worked in thirty years.









The switch is a cam on the engine and it jumps a 220k ohm resistor make beautiful music. I used my hand and some clips. Originally powered off AC track.


----------



## Boston&Maine

Is that supposed to be a locomotive "chug" sound?


----------



## T-Man

Yeah, maybe it's the sound distortion of the camera. I had to film with my left hand . The camera was upside down. The technology preceeds your birth. Plus I really haven't heard too much rail sound.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Hrm, any chance you can read the values off of the transistors so a guy might be able to duplicate this sucker? Also are all the caps electrolytic or are there ceramic disc caps in there as well? Thanks!

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

The blue Peter Thorne book has the information or you can find one at a train show. A tag search for sound of sream will give you two more threads to read . Ceramic caps are all the smaller values.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

ChopperCharles said:


> Hrm, any chance you can read the values off of the transistors so a guy might be able to duplicate this sucker? Also are all the caps electrolytic or are there ceramic disc caps in there as well? Thanks!
> 
> Charles.


I suspect you could get away with almost any small signal transistor for those. I'd probably start with 2N2222A for the NPN transistors and the 2N2907 for the PNP one to start.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Yeah, this circuit might be simple and dumb, but it sounds pretty good from the video, and it would be easy to add this to the cheap 21160 I picked up for $15 off of eBay. it still won't have smoke, but when I'm done with it, it will have sound and a headlight and a digital e-unit.

Charles.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

You need a chuff switch to actuate the SOS board. You could do the reed switch trick on a tender wheel with a small magnet to do it. The actual SOS trainsets had a wire from the locomotive and a chuff switch activated by the same linkage as they use for smoke.


----------



## BigAl56

It's an old fashioned, "sound of steam" circuit board. The crude transistor circuit created electronic static one could imagine as a steam chuff sound. Over time the capacitors will fail. If the board no longer sounds right replace the capacitors.

Long obsolete with no replacements, repairing this board would have to be a labor of love for a hobbiest. Good luck and enjoy.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Yes, I've seen the reed switch thing before, that was my plan!

Charles.


----------



## ChopperCharles

areizman, I don't plan to repair one. I plan to build one from scratch.

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

The article is small but it has the diagram which is shown.No part list was given. I can show the board again for parts clarification. All the resistor values are on the diagram.


----------



## ChopperCharles

I said "transistor", not resistor  But I will try gunrunnerjohn's suggestions. 

Charles.


----------



## NIMT

ChopperCharles, You know you can get a digital sound chip that is recordable for about $2.50, With control inputs to trigger the sound! 
I love nastalgic items like old O and S trains but if your going to kit bash go all out!


----------



## ChopperCharles

No, I did not know that. Is there a kit somewhere? I'm finding DCC solutions that cost out the ***, or a whole lot of nothing. This looked like the first reasonably priced sound option - under $20 in parts. I don't want command control. I like my AC setup. I just want to add sound - chuff and a whistle. I can scrounge whistle tenders on ebay, so that's something. 

Charles.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

NIMT said:


> ChopperCharles, You know you can get a digital sound chip that is recordable for about $2.50, With control inputs to trigger the sound!
> I love nastalgic items like old O and S trains but if your going to kit bash go all out!


An actual part number and a source would be handy here.


----------



## NIMT

I find them on ebay all the time...I'll look.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

I haven't noticed those, they would be handy for a couple of things here. Gosh, I might consider seeing if I could come up with a compact board to add whistle/bell to TMCC locos where you can't fit the full RailSounds set in them.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Heh, and what I'm trying to do is find an inexpensive way to add sounds to a loco and keep it running on AC. 

Charles.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

Well, the AF whistle control works just like the Lionel one, it introduces a DC offset onto the track. You can probably use a Lionel electronic whistle if you just want that. If you want full sound like chuff, whistle, bell, etc. that's different.


----------



## ChopperCharles

The AF diesel horn generator does not work that way. Found a little more info on it, very odd little thing. In lionel trains, they have a real horn (like you'd have in your car) activated by a relay inside the locomotive. For AF, there's a speaker in the locomotive, and the little can plugged into the diesel horn generator button does the buzzing. It has little contacts that make and break connection very quickly, and that buzzing is the sound the locomotive makes through the speaker. (my loco is a GP7, mid to late 50's I think). 

All I think I could possibly do is control how rapidly the buzzing noise is made, the speaker is either on or off. 

I don't have an air chime tender, but the whistle generator looks identical to the diesel generator, so I would assume it operates the same as the diesel generator.

Charles.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

I'm assuming since they impress DC on the track, there's still a horn relay to trigger this kludge you're speaking of?


----------



## T-Man

Please excuse the transistor/resistor error. I took pictures of the board but the transistors have no indications on them. What I have now is a post on all about circuits that has a diagram and parts list. 

ALL About Circuits post number 7

Link to a Popular Electronics article. You may want to print it.

Hope this helps but it provides another option.


----------



## T-Man

Just to confuse the entire issue, an E how article on making an electronic steam sound. This uses a 556 timer IC,


----------



## T-Man

if you have 14 bucks there is the MK134 steam kit

Quality Kits a Canadian company has a minimum 15 dollar order!!!!!!!!!:thumbsdown::laugh:

You can tell I am interested in vintage sound systems. Finding these has helped me also. The Peter Thorne books are also a treasure for circuits. They are not all outdated yet and are available through Amazon if anyone is interested.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Hrm, if there was a way to activate the steam whistle from a lionel pushbutton... I wonder if there's a schematic around...

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

Don't you wish!

You keep asking questions like that you will end up with some sort of DCC setup. You need a reed switch or IR to activate or shut off. Ho discusses most of it. Such as it is. Electronic signal? Get a train sounds tender. If you get the idea, it gets complicated fast. The next step is buying project books if you keep your heading. 

It would be nice to replace the postwar relay with an electronic board. Then you could activate it with the whistle button. When you build one let me know.


----------



## ChopperCharles

pfft, if I start building stuff like that, I'll make a kiling on eBay 

Somehow I think I'll lose interest once it gets hard 

Charles.


----------



## old464

T-Man said:


> if you have 14 bucks there is the MK134 steam kit
> 
> Quality Kits a Canadian company has a minimum 15 dollar order!!!!!!!!!:thumbsdown::laugh:
> 
> You can tell I am interested in vintage sound systems. Finding these has helped me also. The Peter Thorne books are also a treasure for circuits. They are not all outdated yet and are available through Amazon if anyone is interested.


T-man. Great find. if this device has a switch, just take the jumper wire from the switch and attach this to the Engine feed? Just like the old setups. This is cheap if you can just swap out the old stuff for this new improved design. 

Chris


----------



## T-Man

I never had the 8141 engine.

They are cheeper at Amazon.
Steam sound

MK134


.


----------



## T-Man

The only transistor has 1038-22

The big grey cap is 470uf
The left black cap is 47uf
The right black cap is 100uf not even on the diagram
The green are m50 .50pf? or 1m50 or .1m50 .1 I thought was a J but it is .1 1m50 is 1.5pf but .1m50???
The letter normall shows the decimal point The type of letter is the percentage o fthe capacitor.
The brown is 02Z 2 pf? 
The transistor with the leg removed is on the left the pnp type.
I see two switching diodes and a small round thing to the left.

The left resistor is 6.8k 
The right is 3.3k Orange orange red.
Behind the left is a 470k Yellow violet yellow
Without a good parts list and the diagram appears different it looks hard. Iwould go with another option.




















Bottom right picture, right resistor is 1 m Brown Black green
Left is 15k Brown green orange
out of site behind the left resistor is 82k grey red orange
The board is annotated rev 2.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

That is one UGLY board!


----------



## T-Man

Sweet! The ugly Duckling!


It matches the diagram with some differences. The board gets complicated around the transistors and I am not sure if I can trace it out. I a going to have to find another one of these puppies. Figuring out an actuator to run it would be neat. I need a good picture of the modified smoke unit of the 8141 or equivalent.


----------



## ChopperCharles

well... i just found this: http://www.electricrr.com/SoundCommander.htm

That seems like a much better solution. It works on AC. It works with a Lionel horn and whistle button. It's small and solid state. No TMCC required. And best of all, it's fiddy bux. 

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

Let us know how It works out. The pictures are on photobucket.

This is the home page.

They offer plans for a solid state horn relay circuit. I am not sure if it is dcc activator or a horn button.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

ChopperCharles said:


> well... i just found this: http://www.electricrr.com/SoundCommander.htm
> 
> That seems like a much better solution. It works on AC. It works with a Lionel horn and whistle button. It's small and solid state. No TMCC required. And best of all, it's fiddy bux.
> 
> Charles.


Nice find, are you ready for disappointment? The Sound Commander is no longer offered, it's been out of production for several years. Yes, Lionel keeps putting it into the catalog, but when you talk directly to ERR, you'll find out it's no longer available. I wanted a couple of these a year ago, they were already out of production. hwell:

If you're willing to go for something like this, you can buy a Lionel or Williams whistle and/or bell board. I have a couple of Lionel whistle boards, diesel and steam that are for conventional operation.


----------



## queensny

well i think you can buy the sos board here 
http://www.northlimatrainworks.com/Full-Inventory-List.html
6908215T15 CKT BRD W/SOS & WHSTL K4 - u5


----------



## T-Man

I am not crazy about stores with no prices. It's not worth the time.

After looking at the board most of it matches the diagram. The difference I believe is the 100uf preplaces the 22uf and the .001uf. At this point it remains to be trested.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Well, I just picked up the lionel loco and SOS tender for $20 off of eBay. I will probably reproduce the board to put in my 21160, which has no chuff sound. I may make a few if anyone else wants one. Now to source a whistle...

Charles.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Well, my loco and tender came in today. I must say... I'm disappointed. The SOS tender doesn't sound anything like the youtube video I've seen... it sounds like something being electrocuted, not like a chuff at all. I'm going to try replacing all of the capacitors and see if that makes a difference. 

Ah well.

Also, this lionel loco is 3/16 scale more or less. It's 3/16 scale height, but artificially wide to fit over the drivers. So it looks odd sitting next to American Flyer locos, even though it's the correct height.

Charles.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Well, my board looks nothing like the one pictured here. I think I may have the original version that matches the schematic. Trying to trace through and see. 

Already ordered new electrolytic caps... but sourcing a 100v .1uf ceramic disc appears to be somewhat difficult. Wondering if I need the 100v rating on that...

Also, there are two different types of diodes on mine. Both are glass diodes with a colored core. There are two green diodes, marked with three pairs of characters "10" "1F" and what looks like either "YR" or "TR". One red diode marked with "000" "24", and one number I cannot see. (and I'm not 100% sure on the 000 either). 

What would I use for these?

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

Here is the code for ceramic capacitors

.1uf is code 104 on the disc 10, and 4 times 10 or four decimal places.
Actually 500,000 pf (corrected 100,000 pf)

101 is 100 pci

The glass diodes are Zenner I think.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

Actually, .1uf is 100,000pf if you want to get technical. 

A cap that is marked .5uf would be 500,000pf.

I wonder what they'd be using Zener diodes for...?


----------



## T-Man

Thank you for the edit the 1 and 5.










I once bought some 12 volt zenner diodes, they look like the diode on the left. The glassy looking one.
Tiny and orange. It's only a guess.


----------



## ChopperCharles

This disc cap has .1Z 100V printed on it, google tells me that's .1uf... and it's also what the schematic says to use.

Charles.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

There are many glass silicon diodes, I have lots of them, so they're not necessarily Zener diodes. I also have lots of Zener diodes in epoxy that look like a 1N4005. You can use a meter and a resistor to measure forward and reverse drop across the diode to see what you have.


----------



## T-Man

Just to give an idea of the ventillation in the shell.


----------



## old464

how come there was never demand to build new chuffing boards for these older 70's tenders? not enough demand for such. people replace the old stuff with guts from a railsounds/trainsounds tender? 

Chris


----------



## ChopperCharles

From what I can tell, the locomotives just aren't worth anything. I paid $20 plus shipping for my loco with tender. Also, it's not even 0-scale, it's much closer to 1/64 scale. It's the same height as my American Flyer 4-4-2, just fatter to make it wide enough to run on o track. It does have smoke though, and it works pretty nicely.

Charles.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

I guess there simply aren't enough people that want to buy the upgrades. FWIW, there were some boards available some time back, but they seem to have been discontinued, probably from lack of interest.


----------



## T-Man

There are circuits around for sound it takes time to find and build them.
Most people want to buy them.
It's great to find them so cheap I have not seen them for under 40 bucks.

I got lucky and discovered a SOS smoke unit it has a 180 ohm resistor and you can just make out the contacts on the push board. I was testing with 220k and 100k??? O h well.










I need to figure out what engine to use it in.
This is another Jim junk part. :thumbsup:

I always thought the 1841 was an SOS tender, It is pictured with one, but the Lionel Supplements say different. The 8142 is the SOS engine and it has a die cast shell. SO the diagram for the 8142 shows what I have for a part.
The tender is page 190 4-18 and the engine is on 3-15 page 124. The smoke unit has the same part number but the 8142 shows two wires going back while the 8141 shows only one. Go figure. This is all in Lionel Supplement 1-9.


----------



## wolfeinmane

I was an IC Mask Layout Designer for many years, you realize that schematic is bipolar right? And the transisters have no values? Your power requirements would diminish greatly in Cmos.


----------



## Big Ed

wolfeinmane said:


> I was an IC Mask Layout Designer for many years, you realize that schematic is bipolar right? And the transisters have no values? Your power requirements would diminish greatly in Cmos.



Huh.....that was exactly my thoughts.:laugh:


----------



## T-Man

I have my own transistor conundrum. So I will let Charles deal with it. Ed, the terminology comes into use when you use a transistor as a switch. 

Here is the smoke unit circuit. Next I can test it with the tender. 











I have to re check this. No time now. 
I had to edit the tender contact. The diagram is fine.


----------



## Stillakid

Ya just gotta love junque! Keeps you thinking


----------



## T-Man

wolfeinmane said:


> I was an IC Mask Layout Designer for many years, you realize that schematic is bipolar right? And the transisters have no values? Your power requirements would diminish greatly in Cmos.


Don't you mean this thread?????


----------



## ChopperCharles

Woo, my SOS tender's problem was a bad capacitor. It works correctly now!

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

I'd like to see the board when you get a chance. I assume you went with a 220 ohm resistor? I tested mine today it works. I get noise when it is not chuffing with the 180 ohm resistor. I wil need to see some videos on them to get the idea how well they work too.


----------



## T-Man

The trial run for the Sound of Steam. The engine is a 239 cast boiler.

Poor focus but just listen!!!





It sounds OK to me much better than the initial test.


----------



## Stillakid

Bob, very nice! You never give up


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

The sound of static from the 70's, good work putting it back together!


----------



## ChopperCharles

Here's a video of mine, with all new electrolytic caps: 





http://youtu.be/65fNoHm944k

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

It will slow down on the track and sound better. You speaker is free standing too. With the shell on for some vibration, finis.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

If you put a baffle around the back of the speaker, you'll get more low tones.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Well, it sounds pretty good to me. I'm going to try and replicate the circuit (waiting on parts orders to come in) and use it in my American Flyer steamers (the ones without chuff and smoke). 

Charles.


----------



## T-Man

"Sounds" good.

Don't forget the sound board at amazon.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

What sound board at Amazon?


----------



## T-Man

steam board 12 bucks.


----------



## old464

T-Man said:


> The trial run for the Sound of Steam. The engine is a 239 cast boiler.
> 
> Poor focus but just listen!!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It sounds OK to me much better than the initial test.


the engine resistor must be good also in yours. that was my issue. the tender was good, it was the engine. it would be cool to amplify certain sounds and make new ones! gotta be a good board designer and know what to do i guess.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

Gets the job done! That was pretty advanced for toys back in the day.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Well, I tried to reproduce the board but no luck. Not sure why, but it doesn't sound even close to the same. It makes a soft bzzrt noise and that's it. I think it's the transistors, but honestly I haven't a clue. Giving up on this i think. Ah well.

Charles.


----------



## servoguy

The steam sound comes from the junction of the first transistor in the circuit. A different transistor might have a different noise spectrum.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

The transistor selection will be critical for the one that is actually generating the sound. Some transistors are a lot lower junction noise, and they'll generate less noise. I'd look for some ancient transistors, the older the better.


----------



## servoguy

I used to have a box of really old electronics, but it got trashed some years ago. It might be possible to harvest a transistor from some old electronics device. Even a transistor like a 2n2222 which has been produced for many years probably would not work well because the newer devices probably have been improved to reduce the noise. Like John says, look for something old, about 40 years old. You could also put several transistors in series. As I recall from the schematic, it was the base-emitter junction that was used to create the noise.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

I like the idea of finding the oldest piece of junk that has transistors in it, those would probably be best.


----------



## servoguy

The newer stuff is always SMD (surface mounted devices) and these are not easy to use or salvage. Problem now is to find some old electronics. It is also possible that increasing the current through the junction could increase the noise.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

Increased current will increase the noise, that might be worth a shot.


----------



## servoguy

One of the few times when junction noise is desirable.


----------



## servoguy

You can also get some Johnson noise using a high value resistor, although I think the noise level is pretty low. I have designed circuits where we had to work pretty hard to reduce the Johnson noise to an acceptable level.


----------



## ChopperCharles

how would I increase the current? Use 1/2 watt resistors instead of 1/4 watt?


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

servoguy said:


> One of the few times when junction noise is desirable.


Yep! :laugh:


----------



## servoguy

It isn't clear how the first (left most on the circuit diagram) transistor is biased. Everything else is pretty simple. Changing the 220 ohm resistor value should affect the bias, and changing the C1 will affect the junction current of the first transistor. Changing the wattage of a resistor has no effect on the circuit operation. The wattage has to due with power dissipation (keeping the smoke inside the resistor). Try increasing C1 and/or decreasing the 220 ohm resistor and see what happens.


----------



## ChopperCharles

220 ohm isn't even in the circuit right now, I'll play with C1 though.

Charles.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Well, I took the sound of steam board i had, cleaned it up, and shoved it in an American Flyer tender. Big disappointment is i have as of yet been unable to find a reliable way to trigger the sound. I tried a magnetic reed switch, but it would get stuck on for no reason. Right now I'm using a microswitch actuating on the magnets i glued to the axle, which works well enough, but misses sometimes and doesn't work at all in reverse. (the magnet jams against the trigger and locks the wheel up)

Charles.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

If you use a reed switch, you have to be aware of the current limits, they're pretty low for many of them.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

For a microswitch, you need to have a trigger on the axle and the lever lays across it so it won't jam in reverse. Lionel frequently had a cam and a microswitch for earlier diesel locomotives with RailSounds, I have a couple of them.


----------



## ChopperCharles

that's probably the problem  Sounds good when it worked, and was much easier to set up than the microswitch. I shall look for something that will work at radioshack today.

Charles.


----------



## servoguy

Some reed relays are very sensitive and some are not. If your magnet is too strong, then the reed relay may never open.


----------



## ChopperCharles

It looked like the relay opened, but current was still traveling through it. So I think it was too high a current. I went for the smallest relay I could find, but apparently the side effect was it doesn't work so great. Will see if Radio Shack has anything I can bodge into working. 

Charles.


----------



## servoguy

Is this a mechanical relay or an electronic relay? You have to watch the voltage & current ratings of the relays.


----------



## ChopperCharles

mechanical reed switch.

Charles.


----------



## flyernut

I have a Rock Island 4-8-4 with the "mighty sounds of steam". It's hilarious!!


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

Most reed switches have a very low current handling capability.


----------



## servoguy

How low is low? A 220 ohm resistor with 20 volts across it will draw a maximum of 100 ma RMS. 100 ma may be too big for most reed switches. I think a FET switch like a DG151 might be better. There are FET relays that are cheap and rugged that should be good for an application like this, but they will need a sensor (reed relay?) to trigger them.


----------



## servoguy

If you search DigiKey for solid state relays, you will find a few thousand that should work. there is a filter which allows you to sort through them specifying what is important.


----------



## servoguy

If you only need one or two, ask DigiKey for samples.


----------



## ChopperCharles

I'll look at digikey again, but it's hard to shop there because size is of the utmost importance - I have to be able to mount whatever switch or sensor I get.

Charles.


----------



## servoguy

They have a solid state relay packaged in an 8 pin DIP. Is that small enough? They also have some SMD devices.


----------



## ChopperCharles

Here's what it sounds like in an American Flyer shell:






Charles.


----------



## servoguy

That sounds pretty good.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

I doubt you'll get any samples from Digikey. However, you can get really cheap shipping, so for small orders, it ends up being no more than $2-3.

Here's a magnetic read switch with a 1A capacity, should do the job: http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/RI-25AA/306-1091-ND/302007


----------



## ChopperCharles

This is what I ordered, which didn't work  I ordered five, and after the third one did the same thing I stopped testing them. 

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/D...ang=en&site=us&keywords=374-1092-ND&x=18&y=10

Charles.


----------



## servoguy

Charles, you and John are not referencing the same reed switch.


----------



## ChopperCharles

I know that, I'll try the switch he posted next... just wonderign if the specs are THAT much different?

Charles.


----------



## servoguy

Your switch was rated at half an amp. John's was rated at one amp. big difference.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn

I saw some rated even more, but they were starting to get pretty large. However, you might order a couple of the higher rated ones as well.

Here's a 1.5A one: http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/MRPR-3 27-33/HE546-ND/313610


----------

