# LGB 2219S mogul with no chuff or whistle until at speed



## eatrains (Jan 2, 2008)

I've got an older LGB mogul (2219S). At slow speeds I only hear the hiss sounds. At higher speeds I can hear a weak chuff and a distorted whistle, and at even higher speeds the whistle sounds correct but the chuffs still seems relatively quiet. Putting only the tender on the track gives me the same absent/distorted whistle symptoms dependent on the track power level.

The tender battery is healthy and I've opened up cable plug between the loco and tender and the wires seem ok, though i didn't actually try trimming/recrimping. In other posts about similar problems people have suggested the wire as the culprit, but would that still be consistent with the sound differences at speed/power? Maybe a power pickup issue in the tender?


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

This engine has the chuff sensor on the rear axle and the cable from the engine to tender is most likely the issue. 3 wires on the left side of the cable are 2 for track power and one for rear light. Right side is Chuff power, ground, signal. This is a very common problem with the LGB older moguls. Note the tender does have track power pickup and with no cable from the engine the chuff will never work!!
The newer LGB moguls have a cable with 3 pairs of wires and only the speaker is in the tender.


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

Its also a sign of the original electronics starting to fail. This is also common with the earlier LGB sound boards. While the trains and the motors last nearly forever, the same cannot be said for early electronic sound circuits. The loss of a good chuff and the whistle is one of the common sign that the sound boards are dying. If it was my mogul, I would have it upgraded to a newer Phoenix sound system. The shop in Zionsville Indiana does this work in my area. Mike


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## wolfetrac (Dec 24, 2010)

I agree with Mike. I had the same exact issue and it was the sound board. I bought my locomotive brand new in the early 90's. It had about 3 hours total run time on it. I tried running it about 1 hour or so at a brisk speed to maybe recharge capacitors but no luck. It spent most it's life in storage and the board still failed from age.


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## wolfetrac (Dec 24, 2010)

A little more info. The board just failed about two years ago so I got 25 good years with it.


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Before suggesting a manufacturers sound board I would ask where the original poster is going in the future. If track DC, DCC, or battery then the suggestions could be more in line for future use.
For instance if thinking DCC then a digital decoder set for DC would be more cost effective than the phoenix even though the Phoenix will do DCC, it is much less cost to do a dcc decoder with sound than to have a Phoenix and add a DCC decoder later.


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## eatrains (Jan 2, 2008)

Following up on this, I replaced the 9v battery and everything seems fine now. Not sure if the age of the electronics means it's more sensitive to battery health, or if the battery was just not as healthy as i thought?

Eventually I would like to upgrade to a new sound/driving decoder (it's my only non-DCC loco). Though I must admit feeling a bit sentimental at the thought of changing the engine's "voice"...


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Interesting that it was the battery all along when in the first post it was mentioned that hte battery was 'healthy'.


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## eatrains (Jan 2, 2008)

Dan Pierce said:


> Interesting that it was the battery all along when in the first post it was mentioned that hte battery was 'healthy'.


The post-power down sounds were fine with the "unhealthy" battery, so I assumed something else was at fault. Surprised the battery health would affect anything at all when the loco has track power, unless the available power at low speeds isn't enough for the sound system and the battery has to make up the shortfall.


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