I rembember haveing a duschion about not being able to replace cards in a locomotive because they weren't made any more (in this case a U23B). I told them that I could probely rebuild one and the parts could be gotten at which point I was told that I was wrong and I diden't know what I was talking about. Well after looking over manueals and diegrams I can confedentely say that they can be built. Not only do these manueals give you all the vaules so you could program an emulaitor, they show you a lit of the circute layout. The only difficult thing would be if you found a property ic which last time I checked you can have custom made in China for under $100. If there is a coledge near your railroad museume you may be able yo get enginearing students to help you with your cards instead of complaneing about lack of parts.

if you can wirewrap, you can make something for almost nothing.

Just get the circuit correct. What I wonder is any specific ICs or parts are made specific for the engine.

and yes I raed perphekt mispull.

Micromart has Circuit board making kits.

If you do have the working manuals for the engine they pretty much have to give the circuit for repair requirements. No, the board might not be made anymore, but if you find the boardmaker, may...maaaybe they might have art in their resources, but yes, if your good, you can duplicate the cards.

Another thing to keep in mind is to replace the capacitors as time goes on they are ushely the first thing to fail.

Exhibit A on the "quality" of our educational system today. You may know what you are talking about, but if you cannot communicate in an effective manner, what good is the knowledge?

Brother Wilkins is correct. The horrendous spelling mistakes will cost you legitimacy. Spell check is your friend.
R

RCD has never once, in the several years I've observed him here and on other forums, expressed even the slightest interest in acknowledging the red squiggly lines under most of the content in his posts.

I believe I took some flak a while ago because I pointed out that it was difficult to take a discussion of safety policies too seriously when, when among things, the initial poster misspelled 'safety' and did not correct it after several very strong hints. It was then pointed out to me that several of the spelling errors resembled a reading problem rather than just poor spelling. There have frequently been points worthy of discussion buried within his posts. I am going to suggest that we cut RCD a little bit bit of slack on the errors if he will make a good faith effort to acknowledge and act on the red squiggly lines. I am also going to suggest again that he talk to a reading or adult literacy specialist. As Brother Peartree pointed out in the previous thread, there are quite a number of people who have such difficulties and have overcome them. Absolutely true. Below is the corrected version of the original post. Except for two words it was done by the spell checker on my laptop. Brother de la Barre is invited to further correct anything I got wrong.
GME

we don't know the age or skills, but he shows spunk and some ability and he is correct about replacing PC boards and it disappoints me in the abilities as to whom he may be referencing to. I find myself spell checking a lot and editing posts myself but sometimes teh misspull brakes trew....

Communication, both written and oral, is what I do for a living. To me, if the op does have a problem, I think it must be horrible, you can form coherent thoughts in your head but communicating them in an effective manner is a problem. It must be hell.

However, spellcheck is your friend, it will fix most of the problems, and yes, an error slips by every now and then.

Spell checked/interpreted

I remember some gal somewhere working some college project and contacted a local electronic manufacturer, she gave them a circuit to plug into some custom Intergrated circuit and they produced some IC's with her circuit.

strange I would remember that but some things jog your brain and this post did that.
If your resourceful, you can do anything.

Anyone who says "you can't replace circuit boards/cards" has never seen the ingenuity of the typical ham radio or electronics hobbyist, or the "hackers" who build new computer controls to "soup up" modern cars into "hot rods." The valid question is, "is it worth doing?" This also sounds like steam guys exploiting a prejudice against diesels, of the old "when all you have is a shovel, everything looks like a pile of coal/dung" ilk.

The other question is, is the documentation necessary to replicate such things as modular cards being saved anywhere? It's far easier to simply replicate something, or better yet build a whole new way of doing the task, when the design documentation is available, instead of having to "reverse engineer" the thing. ("WTF were these guys thinking?!?!?" is a phrase that emanates from underneath too many car hoods today. "Seriously, you built a coolant connecting tube out of the same plastic in the manifold to make it integral, not thinking that propylene glycol attacks that plastic??")

In a communications medium based on writing, it's kind of a kneejerk for me to judge by writing. Fortunately, electrons don't care. Do it and laugh. Or laff if you prefer :)

What I run into, trying to overhaul old cards, is either a) you find a discrete component that is not properly labeled, or if labeled, unobtainable; ... or b) cards where the card (the insulating material) has rotted out or gone brittle and it can no longer hold up to the task at hand.


Or replace the IC with a programmable controller, to wit an Arduino or Raspberry Pi, which are sold at Radio Shack as children's toys.

For instance, in voltage regulator boards, today we understand a great deal more about optimum battery charging than we did years ago. So batteries don't boil off water and last a lot longer. That "modern sense" could be programmed into a replica battery charger circuit if you are using a programmable controller.

And here's another wrinkle for those seeking to replace old microprocessors. Here's a board based computer that can programmed to emulate any older computer in hardware.
https://code.google.com/p/mist-board/wiki/WhatIsThis

Yes, there are people trying to preserve such information, but this is being done primarily through individual efforts, and it would help if the national organizations were to become more active in the preservation of technical documentation by maintaining electronic archives to help make it available for those who need it in the future.

PC