[CKCECB]

I have an Lionel LTI era tender with a WBB True Blast II whistle and bell in place of the original air whistle. It's recently been whistling and ringing on its own

Track is Menards tubular, new this year, and cleaned, in a simple ovular layout that's maybe 12 feet around. Power is a KW that has a stud diode and a DPDT switch to give both bell and whistles using the orange lever. Loco is a Lionel LTI era Pacific, but it does the same thing with my old MPC scout type.

Any ideas on why I am getting a phantom DC pulse that triggers the sound? It goes back and forth intermittently, both bell and whistle despite what my selector switch is set at. I am also running a caboose that I put LED lighting in that is the only other possible source of DC I can think of as a possible suspect

Thanks,
Chris

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

If you have any significant load that is using a diode to produce DC, it will put a DC offset on the track.

The fact that it's triggering both the whistle and bell suggests it's either the transformer, track feed and track joint continuity, dirty wheels/rollers, or some internal flaw in the tender.

Do other locomotives have the problem? That would be my first test. Next test would be to swap out the transformer.

 

[Millstonemike]

Does it happen on both KW outputs? Did it start with the addition of the caboose LED lighting?

 

[CKCECB]

I tried this tender with three different locomotives and the same thing happens. I have only tried it on the B throttle.

I will go through everything again to check track connections and power feeder connections. This tender has not had this problem before, but I did recently install a collector to the front truck because the tether connection jack in the loco is a pain and my son had me add engineer and fireman figures. But I did keep the tether and I think I will try it again to see if it may be the collector.

Thank you for your thoughts.
Chris

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I'd try swapping throttles on the transformer as well. If it's just one locomotive that has the issue, obviously that's the focus of investigation.