Howdy everyone --- long time since the answer to my question sorta went into limbo. As Phil said above, Peter really does give great customer care for his products. Which brings me back to where I left off --- with "magic smoke" coming from my Mylocosound board. Anyway, Peter and his top sidekick engineer put their heads together and, without having the exact Locolinc equipment I have (including the new wifi converter unit), went about making some electronic adjustments to create version "17 E" of their soundboard. Then Peter very graciously had Del at GScale Graphics send me one in exchange for my "toasted" board and $20. How's that for customer service!
Upon receipt, very carefully, I installed it, set it up with load sensitivity at 2 beeps and put it to the test on my work bench. Immediately I knew things were drastically better as I got regular chuffing sound from the engine which I could'nt get with my original board. After setting the proper chuff speed per Rik Bennett, I throttled up and everything sounded great. I held the speed the same for a good while but the chuff would not back off to a soft chuff but remained hard. Then I backed off a little -- nothing -- a little more, and wow! -- it went into coast mode. Backed off some more and it stayed in coast. I then sped up, got the hard chuff, held it there again but no soft chuff. Backed off as before but this time got no coast no matter how much I slowed. I repeated this testing sequence numerous times and most of the time I could get into coast when I backed the throttle up some but never got a soft chuff.
I then set the load sensitivity to one beep as per Rik Bennett and re-tested the board in the same manner as I described above. After numerous test runs the results are that I would get a soft chuff if I left the engine at the same speed for a while but it was erratic as to how long it would hold that soft chuff-- sometimes for a little while but mostly for a very short time. As for the coast mode, it would go into coast when I backed the throttle but it would only stay in coast for only a few seconds before a hard chuff resumed. To be thorough, I did the same testing with the load sensitivity at 3 beeps and I could get a soft chuff well but could never get into coast mode.
I also ran the engine with six cars in tow around my layout and the results did not change appreciably. So, overall, although the soundboard does not run as "perfectly" as Rik Bennett can make it, I am very pleased with the results at the 2 beep load sensitivity setting. The board sounds wonderful, a great sounding chuff, neat whistle and bell, plus several other auxiliary sounds that make the engine sound pretty darn real. Thank you Peter for your patience and efforts especially without all the right transmitting equipment. You have done me a wonderful job and I really appreciate it.