TTC CLRV/ALRV updates and discussion

[H4 5600]

4228 was at hillcrest at 3 pm tonight.

[TTC7595]

4048 pulling 4140 up Bathurst street right now

[jor]

Some alrvs including 4204, 4207, 4221, 4226, 4236 and 4249 stopped tracking. 4225 still tracks at Russell and 4229 tracks but is messed up

[7749]

56 minutes ago, jor said:

Some alrvs including 4204, 4207, 4221, 4226, 4236 and 4249 stopped tracking. 4225 still tracks at Russell and 4229 tracks but is messed up

All of those you listed still track.

[CLRV4002]

7 hours ago, 7749 said:

All of those you listed still track.

They all say last seen a day ago or more 

[T3G]

4098 is out on the 501L this morning.

[Wayside Observer]

Yikes!  I think I can post this without getting into too much trouble.  Every so often my phone goes off and I get pestered with electronics questions from one of my friends in the transit biz.

In this case, one of them needed a rundown on the rectangle with the S and R in it. The first time it got sent, the image didn’t come through so I was actually suspecting it was a picture of one of the old SR switch signs at Roncesvalles and then when it did show up, turns out it’s a schematic snippet so I looked it over and called back and gave the crash course on what’s really going on in there.  The vehicle in question’s contemporary to the ALRVs.

You guys want to see CLRVs and ALRVs running in museums after they kick the bucket in Toronto? You need to learn electronics like this.  So here’s your homework assignment:

1) What is the box with the S and R?

2) Why have it in the circuit there?

3) What does it feed into and why?

4) What type of circuit is this?

4a) What type of circuit is this not?

Bonus question 1)  If this circuit crashes as soon as you probe it, what should you do?

Bonus question 2)  If this circuit makes foamers crash when they look at it, what should you do?

Class dismissed.  Go ride some streetcars and call it a research period.

[Robert Lubinski]

4103 and 4111 have been MIA for some time. Haven't seen any postings listing these as retired.

[T3G]

30 minutes ago, Robert Lubinski said:

4103 and 4111 have been MIA for some time. Haven't seen any postings listing these as retired.

4103 was my bad, I previously flagged it as MIA on May 15 but I forgot to update the first page accordingly. The unit hasn't tracked for about two weeks but it's been reporting fresh data these last couple of days.

4111 is a new discovery, so thanks.

 

[CLRV4002]

4066 seems to have a mechanical issue at York and Queen right now. It caused quite a backlog of vehicles behind it. Currently connected to the flexity car behind it 

[TTC4120fan]

On 6/4/2019 at 8:45 AM, PCC Guy said:

Going over my photographs from yesterday, I also noted that rustbird 4120 was back at Russell, parked right in front of 4041.

4065 has been previously reported as being retired in this thread, so I'm not sure anythig will come of the unit still tracking anywhere.

I am surprised to see the old girl still there! Have to make a trip down to Russell to get photos. I am guessing that it was used as the yard shunter after the tracker shut off.

Is it stripped?

[T3G]

15 minutes ago, Matthew TTC 4120 said:

I am guessing that it was used as the yard shunter after the tracker shut off.

It was used as a mule at Leslie for months after it disappeared from service. What's more likely is that after it stopped reporting GPS data it was moved up to Russell since they don't appear to store dead cars at Leslie anymore.

15 minutes ago, Matthew TTC 4120 said:

Is it stripped?

It's missing its left hand front skirt right under the driver's window. Any other parts it may be missing will have been obscured by the cars in front of and behind it.

[CLRV4002]

4185 on the 506

4075 is on the 501 which is quite a surprise to me since this car has just been used as a mule towing cars for the past few months. I didn’t think it would see service again 

[jor]

Patricks transit site posted a picture of 4204 running two days ago

https://www.instaghub.com/post/BySNAxhnZt0

[Shaun]

3 hours ago, jor said:

Patricks transit site posted a picture of 4204 running two days ago

https://www.instaghub.com/post/BySNAxhnZt0

Test runs to prepare it for service?

[CLRV4002]

35 minutes ago, Shaun said:

Test runs to prepare it for service?

It was at Roncesvalles Carhouse for unknown repairs and was brought back across Queen to Russell on Monday I believe. That’s likely where he caught it. It also ran a day or two before down to exhibition loop for tests. It’s currently at Russell 

[Wayside Observer]

Nobody wanted to take a crack at the schematic for the cute little multiple unit cars?

Anyways, 4075 is definitely out on 507. I stopped for a coffee at the Tim Hortons at 27th St. and saw it pass by on the way to Long Branch so I caught a couple pictures of it at the stop when it went by on the way back to Humber.  Beautiful spring afternoon for it too.  I wish I was using my manual focus rig with a roll of Kodachrome instead of my cellphone though but those days are gone.

[Bus_Medic]

You cropped out too much. I noticed they’re not laid out much like automotive schematics anyhow. That one looks like goes down to the point of identifying P and N gates and stuff. You never get that kind of detail in my end, even on the hybrid electrics.

plugs pin out into mysterious modules, but almost never show the internal circuitry.

[GrandeWest_B35G]

4 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

Nobody wanted to take a crack at the schematic for the cute little multiple unit cars?

Based on context, I'm going to guess it has to do with regenerative braking. As @Bus_Medic said, it's too cropped to tell, but it looks like it's wired into the main power supply; that would make it difficult to disconnect, and therefore hard to preserve.

[Wayside Observer]

I’ve redrawn the diagram to make what’s going on a bit more clear and avoid some Euro style symbols.

[Wayside Observer]

15 hours ago, Bus_Medic said:

You cropped out too much. I noticed they’re not laid out much like automotive schematics anyhow. That one looks like goes down to the point of identifying P and N gates and stuff. You never get that kind of detail in my end, even on the hybrid electrics.

plugs pin out into mysterious modules, but almost never show the internal circuitry.

 

14 hours ago, Imgursdownvote4love said:

Based on context, I'm going to guess it has to do with regenerative braking. As @Bus_Medic said, it's too cropped to tell, but it looks like it's wired into the main power supply; that would make it difficult to disconnect, and therefore hard to preserve.

Unfortunately, the tightly framed cellphone picture of part of the computer screen in all its pixeley glory is what was sent to me so there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.  My friend's main question was what the deal was with the box with the S and R in it, so he got in tight on that with the camera.  Anyways, like I mentioned above, I redrew that little snippet so it's more clear about what's going on and gets rid of the Euro style logic gate.  I actually liked the snippet when I looked at the rest of it because it does show some action and covers some of the basics nicely without showing too much of the entire diagram and becoming overwhelming.

What we're actually looking at is part of the control system of a small electric multiple unit car that handles some propulsion fault monitoring.  The boxes with the S and R in them are Set and Reset latches.  Everyone calls them SR latches but quite often the datasheets refer to them as RS latches or /R/S latches depending on the specific type just due to the way they're laid out on paper if you draw the individual gates they're made out of and if the inputs are active low (that'd be the /R/S variant) instead of active high.

Anyhow, the inputs from the part of the system that detects if one of the contactors like the line switch or switching for regenerative/dynamic braking load resistances comes in from the left side into the set inputs on the two latches.  The output of the two latches feed into the OR gate so that if either or both of the latches get set, the dashboard indicator for contactor fault comes on, so multiple different error conditions can put the trouble light on.  Think of how any number of conditions that get detected by a car's ECM can pop on the single Check Engine light on the dashboard.  That output plus the individual outputs of the latches continues off to the right to the rest of the control system and probably through to the event recorder since those cars do have black boxes.  If this condition gets triggered, the operator can push the dashboard mounted reset button and try again.  That comes in on the left and resets all the latches and takes away the output feeding through the OR gate and turns off the warning light.

Why use latches instead of taking the inputs through directly?  They literally latch, so a momentary fault condition will set them and they'll stay set until the reset command comes in and once reset, they'll stay reset until triggered again so nobody has to lean on the button all the time just to operate the car.  Since these are latches and not flip-flops with a clock circuit, this is a combinational logic circuit and not a synchronous circuit.  This is a good design approach since the latches respond as soon as one of their inputs changes state without having to wait for the next clock pulse to come in so it avoids any potential problem where a brief glitch landing in between clock pulses goes unhandled.

Edit:  Forgot to mention that since this was from a multiple unit car, outside the area that was shown in that little picture, there's probably circuits to handle putting the fault warning condition on and read it off the trainline along with the reset so that one of the trailing cars can flag it at the driver's position on the lead car and the reset button can reset the entire train.

CLRVs are full of electronics like this in pretty well all of their systems so when the time comes, someone at HCRR's going to have to learn the nitty gritty of electronics.

[Bus_Medic]

Tailed 4181 on the 401 from port union to Brock road ‘round 4

[bus_7246]

10 hours ago, Jonah N. said:

4087 is currently on a flatbed truck at russell going to be taken to scrap anytime now

 

EDIT: 4181 is also being loaded onto a truck now

4229 also bit the dust and was hauled away 

[Robert Lubinski]

4119 and 4165 are both tracking on 501 this morning. 4117 was out of service wb on Queen yesterday early afternoon on its way to Hillcrest.

[CLRV4002]

I managed to take a quick look at Russell today. 4230 has its pole back up and is parked behind 4225. The western track has all the remaining ALRVs, their poles are still up (not sure about 4236) but the lights are off, so perhaps the power has been cut to that track 

I also looked at Leslie and the ALRV that was there is gone, or at least not in the same place