# Latest addition to the fleet Live Steam Aristo-Craft 0-4-0 84200



## Jetguy (Mar 22, 2019)

*Aristo-Craft 84200 Undecorated 0-4-0 Live Steam*
Just going through this one and digging out the problems. I don't think it was ever run, however, given the age, the battery pack for the tender was shot and would not take a charge (8 cell 7.2v NiMh AA cell flat pack). Pressure gauge didn't work due to being plugged up with the white thread sealing compound. I cleaned that out and it now reads some pressure, but of course, now it's leaking at the threads. I've got the shell off just for testing and observing for leaks and problems.





The second part of this is, I figured out something kind of interesting, that Aristo-craft used the Elan EM57P300CPS audio chip, and that's the same basic chip that Williams/Bachmann used in the True Blast plus sound cards in O gauge. 








The sounds recorded into the stock Aristo-Craft chip are terrible, near unbelievably bad especially for the whistle. It's does have the exact same bell sound that True Blast uses, but also they added a 3rd function of a recording of steam engine train sounds rolling down the track in loop.

After reading the chip's data sheet, they are likely using the 4 button 4 position sound memory option and just only using 3, but the good thing is, they followed the standard of what sounds are in what position so that when you replace it with a Williams chip, whistle is still whistle and bell is still bell. You get nothing when you press the engine sounds button because there is no data in that memory position. That said, I'll take a better whistle any day!!
Really bad whistle so you understand what I'm talking about.





Last, even after changing chips, the audio was still way too loud to the point of distortion due to lack of a volume control. This was solved by adding a 10K Ohm variable resistor (a potentiometer with only wiper and one leg) between pins 3 and 4 of the LM386 audio amplifier. This allowed turning the volume down where it is still plenty loud, but no longer distorted.









And so, after all that


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## Jetguy (Mar 22, 2019)

Another quick clip with the Williams whistle.


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

I don't know much about live steam models, but I was surprised that they put in electronic sounds. The whistle and bell are cool, but I would think the sound of the actual steam engine would be fine all by itself.


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## Jetguy (Mar 22, 2019)

Lehigh74 said:


> I don't know much about live steam models, but I was surprised that they put in electronic sounds. The whistle and bell are cool, but I would think the sound of the actual steam engine would be fine all by itself.


I generally agree with you and really, the whistle should be a controlled steam whistle. The problems of "why not" is that classic scale problem, a scale whistle doesn't sound scale frequency, and a scale bell, well the same thing but worse. This isn't my first live steam, I've had Wilesco traction engines for a long time now and recently got an Accucraft Emma at a local trainshow and it has no electronics (yet) and is full manual control. I picked up this Aristo-Craft from Trainz because I was interested in the built in remote control aspect. I intend to eventually add remote control to the Emma. Agreed, there is plenty of chuff, steam popping sounds, the fire roaring, and so on. It's fun to have a few different brands, I think I like these Butane burners better than the Esbit tablet solid fuel, and different brands are fun to see how different companies did things just slighty different.

That said, live steam is a labor of love. These are complicated, lots of inspection, startup, running, and shutdown procedures to keep both you safe and the locomotive ready for another day.
So, I don't run live steam on a regular basis, but with slightly cooler weather, it's fun to get one out and run it that few times a year. It's messy, it's costly, and so yes, I gladly run my O gauge electric trains all year, but there is some excitement just to break this out and boil some water.


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## Jetguy (Mar 22, 2019)

Hmmm, interesting twist in the plot. I didn't notice it during initial testing and at first thought maybe I damaged the wiring to the LED headlight since I did take the boiler shell off.
So, trying to figure out why the LED headlight was no longer working, tracing back the board and checking at the tender, I was getting nothing on the tether harness. So then, not even sure why, I put the original sound chip back into the board and then the LED lights, so it appears for some reason, they chose to use an IO function of the sound chip to relay the signal to turn on the light?? Multiple swapping back and forth shows this. 
OK, so probing with a meter, it's basically what I thought. There are 4 digital inputs that swing from 0V off state, to 5V on state but they are momentary only corresponding with button press.
To toggle the headlight on or off, they used custom programming in the sound chip to toggle an output high or low alternating when triggered by the headlight momentary input.

2 options, bypass the sound chip and wire LED just on, or build a simple flip flop and use the headlight momentary to trigger pin from the radio section.

The workaround= headlight always on when power switch on:


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