ESU XL4 + Pulsed Smoke issues

[DGE-Railroad]

Hey Maxim, fantastic work.

Given your knowledge with ESU, can you advise me please?

I am trying to test the large ESU smoke generator with an XL4 and the Lok programmer board

The programmer board isnt capable of powering the smoke unit in this setup I've discovered, so I'm using a small power switching circuit.

My question is whether the ESU software sh old switch the smoke yellow or green wire via the decoder aux terminal? I'm using yellow at the moment which I think is correct, but the smoke unit doesn't come on when the smoke function is triggered?

At the moment I have the yellow smoke wire connected to aux1 on the decoder, with smoke in f6 but f6 maps to aux2
The Aux2 function output is set to trigger the smoke chuff with aux1 set up as an ESU smoke unit

I think it may just be a case of moving the yellow wire to Aux2 for the chuff trigger, but the ESU manual shows yellow to aux1!

I'll m totally confused. Can you help?

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Looking at the manual, it shows green to aux2, and the green supposedly makes a smoke burst with sound.
The manual also shows the yellow connected to aux1 also.
This is specifically for an XL v4.0, so looks like you need both.

Other installations use the susi interface.

This is from section 5.3 in the mach 2015 manual, part number 01515-16039

You also have the jumper on the smoke unit set to steam right? According to the the manual there are 3 settings of the jumper, vapor, steam, and diesel.

You have the jumper in vapor mode, and the manual does not explain well, but I think you need steam cylinder mode.

Greg

 

[DGE-Railroad]

Thanks for taking time out to look Greg,

The jumper is definitely set correctly - the steam cylinder' mode as they term it, is used if you decide to go with an optional maniflold in ordet to channel the snoke output down to the cylinders. 'Vapor' as they term it, refers to smoke stack output.

Something which doesn't help in their manual is an error in the wiring diagram for rthe XL. The harness on the smoke unit is
Green
Yellow
Red
Blue
Grey
Black
which marries up to figures 2 and 4 in the manual, so I'm happy
Green = chuff trigger
Yellow = Aux1
Red = power
Blue = SUSI clock (unused in this setup)
Grey = SUSI data (unused in this setup)
Black = Gnd
On the all important figure 6, they show the colour sequence on the header wrong; yellow,green,red...
However yellow *is* shown as going to Aux1 onthe decoder. (On that basis I think they just show the colour order at the smoke unit end incorrectly in the picture)

In the decoder output programming
Yellow/Aux1 is set to smoke unit (so I think that'd be the heater on/off logic)
Green/Aux2 is set as you say to the steam burst (so, I think that'd be the fan control)

I think I probably don't have the power switching circuit hooked up correctly. The circuit I am using it this one - proven to power the ESU smoke unit with the ESU decoder tester board (note that horrific-looking last picture isn't mine - I breadboarded it! )

 

[MaximDeDonder]

Hi!

You posted this as an topic and didn't send it to me as a message so I wasn't notified. But here I am.

First of all, in general, this is a digital smoke unit and not an analog, just connecting a DC voltage to the yellow wire won't work, it needs data on that cable. This is different than many American smoke units.

The sequence of the wires on the picture don't matter, the colors do. Both yellow and green wire have to be used. If you want to use an external chuff trigger, you have to use the SENSOR inputs!
Yellow = aux 1 = control of the heater = output mode "External controlled smoke unit" -> "ESU Smoke Unit" in Lokprogrammer
Green = aux 2 = control of the fan = output mode "trigger smoke chuff" in Lokprogrammer

The problem is however in the power switching. The black wire has to be connected to the ground of the decoder (did you do that too?) and the red one to U+. But U+ is not 5V but 16V! I think that that's the problem with your setup.
I always program everything, hook it up to my normal control unit (Central Station, Massoth, ...) and then test the smoke unit. The Lokprogrammer is indeed not powerful enough for the current of the smoke unit.
I would not recommend to use an external power supply for the smoke generator, use your control unit.

Hopefully I could help you and if not, please let me know!

Greetings from Belgium

Maxim De Donder
Modelspoorbanen De Donder

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Max, you say this smoke unit needs data on the SUSI cable, but then you make no mention of the wiring of the SUSI, which DGE says are unconnected.

I was under the impression you could use this on DC also, but you said it needs data.

Can you clarify?

 

[MaximDeDonder]

Max, you say this smoke unit needs data on the SUSI cable, but then you make no mention of the wiring of the SUSI, which DGE says are unconnected.

I was under the impression you could use this on DC also, but you said it needs data.

Can you clarify?

Hi Greg

I don't say that this smoke unit needs data on the SUSI-cable, it needs data on the yellow (and green, can be used with external contact directly but the manual is unclear about this) cable. These are special data lines for the ESU decoder.
The SUSI cables are only for non-ESU decoders like Massoth, Zimo, ... SUSI-cables are the blue, grey, black and red ones. With an ESU decoder you use black, red, green and yellow.

I hope this clarifies the misunderstanding.

Greetings
Maxim

 

[Greg Elmassian]

When you say "data" I was thinking of a digital data stream. I think it is more logic levels, but as you say, not well documented.

Thanks, Greg

 

[MaximDeDonder]

Logic levels that change are a modulation of data on a medium, the yellow wire in this case. So the yellow wire is also a data cable like the cables for SUSI, but this one is special made for ESU decoders.

The green wire is a bit unclear. From what I understand it get's a pulse on every chuff. That is generated in the decoder on aux 2, but could be wired directly to a sensor. But that bit is unclear.
I would always use the SENSOR input because the decoder has to know when it must generated a chuff sound, so wiring the smoke unit only is not enough.