TTS Steam, is "Notch-up" & "Notch down" possible?

[Percybigun]

I recently got a 8-pin socket fitted to my old Ringfield tender-drive A4 "Golden Eagle", the loco is circa 1990 and i bought it recently as New-old-stock, its a perfect runner, so I thought it was the best candidate of my old ringfield fleet for DCC conversion.

I got the socket fitted at Peter Spares, they did a lovely job of the wiring (much neater than hornby/bachmann at the factory - cough ahem!) and i have initially tried it with a Hornby A4 TTS decoder & speaker.

I am aware that a superior decoder should be used for Ringfield, but i thought it was worth a try, if it won't work i have plenty of modern loco's that i could chuck it in.

It runs pretty well, although a bit jerky at start-off, but i could live with that, the main problem is the chuff-rate (of which there are approx 5 - 6 different sound-loops, not individual chuffs like on expensive decoders) only plays the slowest chuff-loop (and i mean the very slow shunting 1mph chuff) no matter how fast the loco is going, even at max. speed i tried it thinking it might kick-start but i have had no joy.

i know the hornby TTS chuff-rate famously can't be adjusted, but is there a way i can trick it or manually get it to "notch-up" or "notch-down" to hear all the different sound-speed-loops that i need? 

whilst i realise that these are budget decoders with limited adjustments in the CV's, the same "notch-up" or down feature is available on the hornby TTS diesel decoders, and there is hundreds of available CV's to adjust on hornby TTS (most of which seem to be useless or have no effect) so surely this is available somehow on steam?

if i could make this work, i will be well happy because i can swap the TTS-fitted tender between 30 of my other ringfield lner loco's, the TTS chip & speaker did physically fit (squeeze!) into the back of the tender.

otherwise, can anyone recommend a decent sound decoder with LNER 3-cylinder sound, for the old hornby ringfields? it needs to be pretty small in size (i.e. no bigger than the hornby TTS decorder). i've tried the Loksound A1 peppercorn recently and am not keen on the 3-cyl lner chuff sound it gives (out of the box)

[Chrissaf]

Sounds to me Percy as if you have some form of TTS CV configuration issue.

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I plucked this TTS demonstration You-Tube video at random. There are about half a dozen TTS locos demonstrated in it. I haven't reviewed them all, but the first one up was the Hornby TTS A4 Gadwell. A wide range of speed related chuff rates can be clearly heard. I have no reason to suspect that the other locos used in the video demonstration will be any different.

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[96RAF]

Let me explain how TTS works.

STEAM

Steam TTS uses a series (as many as 18) of looped but fixed chuff sounds related to the throttle setting and controlled by bemf from the motor. 

 

So you apply throttle and as the loco accellerates to that set speed it chuffs and as it passes certain speeds the chuff rate changes to suit. When it gets to the selected speed it stays at that chuff rate.

 

If you throttle back it coasts until bemf tells it that it has synchronised speed and it engages chuffs again at that new speed rate.

 

You can select chuff or coast upon command of F17. This is handy for coasting on a long flat bit where the driver would have geared down to save steam and give the fireman a break. (Percy - I would check you have F17 switched off if you are not getting above coast chuff rate or ensure you don’t have bemf set wrong CV10).

 

DIESEL

Sounds are recorded in bands or notches just like the real thing - akin to a series of fixed revs on your car 1000/2000/300/etc although diesels rev much slower,than this. The number of notches (3-8) depends upon the actual loco. The automatic throttle notch to notch transitions can be adjusted by moving the CV values up or down for this notching window (TTW). You need to read the leaflet to get your head round this - effectively the same as selecting Ice/Normal/Sport on your car’s clever computer.

 

When a diesel moves off at slow speed it gives a burst of power then settles back to idle. If more power is required it notches up and stays there, ditto as you call for more speed. Just like the real thing. If you had ever driven a car with a free wheel,dvice you would know what I mean (early SAAB or Rover).

 

Manually you can use F5 to notch up one or more, F6 to notch down one or more, F7 to return to idle at,any speed and F8 to thrash up by two notches until max chat is achieved. This can be done at any speed from stationary to max. Useful for revving up the beast if it is providing trackside power generation.

 

Upon throttle down the sound ‘coasts’ until it reaches the appropriate TTW setting and then adopts that noise level.

 

Summary:

Steam relies upon bemf to,control chuffs on or off load (you can prove this by spinning a motor by hand with a loco stopped on the throttle - having obviously disengaged the gears to be able to do this - I did it on a test rig. Hence why you need a motor to control the chuff output.

 

Diesel relies upon set speed bands controlled by the TTW CV settings. Hence why you can install TTS in a dummy car and still have throttle response without a motor.

 

Steam stuck on one chuff rate is a fault of configuration as Chris suggested.

 

I hope this helps.

Rob

[Percybigun]

thanks for the replies, just to clarify i do have several modern loco-drive DCC ready engines with TTS fitted successfully, giving out all the different chuff rates.

its just this one which is being difficult, because TTS doesn't like being installed on a Ringfield. On DC most of my old ringfields need the controller nob turned much further "on" than modern loco's, which means the ringfield needs alot more current to run slow, so the TTS "thinks" that the ringfield loco is moving much slower than it actually is and gives out slow chuffs for fast motor speeds.

I had tried changing the BEMF settings before, and some other speed/acceleration settings (i forget now but i've got notes somewhere - i do remember that on the speed/acceleration settings all i could do was make the situation worse and most settings had no effect whatsoever - which could mean RM wasn't capable, or Hornby have built in a few dodgy CV's which are not actually changeable). i did spend hours reading the manual and trial/error to fine tune it, then did a factory reset to get rid of my useless efforts - but i will have another try!

[96RAF]

I have TTS installed in two  ringfield diesels but not in a steam ringfield so can’t comment apart from if it doesnt work after a factory reset (CV8 set to value 8 for a full reset,or value 5 for a sound only reset), then put CV150 to value 1 which is recommended for Bachmann motors but seems to work for several Hornby motors as well. Fiddling with CVs 151/2 or 153/4 as appropriate is for the more experienced  twiddler and I wouldn’t touch CV10 (bemf) at all on a steamer.

 

The other things that effect chuffing are CVs 3 and 4 should be set no less than value 15 and both controller and decoder should be set on 128 speed steps.

 

There have been a few TTS decoders that needed sending back for a factory reprogram, but this is just the basic decoder side, not the sound side, which is not reprogrammable by you, me or them.

 

 

Anything apart from that is unfortunately likely to be finger trouble. 

Rob

[Percybigun]

I did try cv 150 at 1 but it ran terrible, super fast and jerky. I've done alot of playing with cv's 151-154 and found a suitable setting to make the loco run well, but still the chuff speed is a quarter of the loco speed. I checked cv's 3-4 are at 15, i have tried other settings higher & lower but it runs terrible. Also tried adjusting back emf and any setting but default it runs awful.

i just wish there was a way of fooling it, or manually notching up/down the chuff speeds (i know its not realistic to do it manually while driving the loco, but it would be a useful compromise).

i saw a thread on here ages ago where someone had the same prob with old ringfield steam and TTS, he couldnt find a fix either.

[2e0dtoeric]

I don't know - I'm guessing, but is the problem the motor design?

Maybe the Ringfield runs a lot slower, rpm wise, for a given voltage, than a can motor, so the back emf is confusing the issue?

I don't have one to play with, so I can't test the idea.

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And, as briefly touched upon, notching up and down is a diesel thing. Steam has a throttle, just like a car engine - infinately variable.

[Fishmanoz]

Given that everyone is struggling to understand this, may I suggest you ring HCC at the Contact Us number at the bottom of the page and ask to speak to Mark Lodge the manager. If not available, he will ring you back.  Mark should be able to contact the TTS development people for an opinion.