Steam Safety Valve after Update driving me crazy!!!!!

[Robert2d6]

Since I did the update on TS12 to the latest version, (49922) the steam safety valve starts going off as soon as I start a session, regardless of the steam locomotive I am using, happens on freeware, payware, doesn't make any difference as far as the model or type of steam engine. I notice that on all the locomotives I have, when I start the session the coal is at 100%. The steam pressure is within a few pounds of where the safety valve lets loose. So all I hear is PHTTT...PHHHTTTT. PHHTTTT etc. etc. until I can get the @**## steam pressure down by burning the coal down to about 40-50%, running the cutoff as high as I possibly can, and having the water at 100%, all of which is totally unrealistic in my opinion. Somehow, I don't think a typical steam engine operates with the safety valve activating continually, that would seem to drive the engineer and the fireman to "abandon ship." So my question is, how I can I fix this so that I can enjoy running steam engines again without that constant racket going on. I don't think it has anything to do with the config files for the locomotives, since they are all doing it, so it must be something in trainz that activates the safety valve at a certain pressure. Is there a way to adjust that activation pressure by editing something, or if not, is there a way to get rid of the constant Phhttt Phhhttt Phhht sound, even if I have to delete it ?

 

[ZecMurphy]

Good Morning Robert2d6
First thing is to ensure that you are using a loco built for TC3, TS2009, TS2010 or TS12. Or, at minimum, a locomotive that has the loco, driving wheel 'bogie', enginespec, and enginesound all set to a train-build number of 2.8 or higher (note, simply raising the build number of the enginespec and enginesound will not fix issues such as this, it needs a true TC3+ enginespec and enginesound to work correctly).

If it is a TC3+ steam loco, then this is up to the creator of the locomotive. Some creators setup their locos so that they are 'full hot' when starting. This can, however, leave you with too much pressure when you start. On the other hand, some creators setup the loco to be 'warm' when starting. This means you may need to actually sit with the blower for a few minutes before you can drive, otherwise your boiler pressure will plummet.

That said, a good fireman will have the boiler pressure just below the safety valve pressure when stationary, so that the safeties are just feathering (not full pressure release, just sizzling away quietly). Then, when the train departs, it departs with full pressure. Unfortunately, Trainz doesn't support this, and when starting the boiler pressure can be a little over the place if setup to semi-replicate this. If the safety valves are not setup correctly, then you may also find that instead of a nice long steady 'phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttt' sound, you get lots of short pops out of them at pressure. This is definitely an issue with the enginespec, and needs the creator to fix it.

My VR F class tank loco on the DLS (under the username S301) is setup, from memory, to be almost hot when starting, but will require a bit of blower till the pressure reaches full (safeties blow off). Once this happens, turn the blower down/off, and put some water in, and start driving.

As a note, having the safeties lift is not a bad thing, and even lifting for lots of short pops when you are close to pressure (especially when working hard - your boiler pressure can be a bit over the place there). It's when you're building steam beyond the safety valve limit, and they're not lifting (or you're still building pressure with the safeties lifting!) that you have to worry...

However, it's not possible to completely turn off the safety valve function/sound.

Zec

 

[Robert2d6]

Good Morning Robert2d6
First thing is to ensure that you are using a loco built for TC3, TS2009, TS2010 or TS12. Or, at minimum, a locomotive that has the loco, driving wheel 'bogie', enginespec, and enginesound all set to a train-build number of 2.8 or higher (note, simply raising the build number of the enginespec and enginesound will not fix issues such as this, it needs a true TC3+ enginespec and enginesound to work correctly).

If it is a TC3+ steam loco, then this is up to the creator of the locomotive. Some creators setup their locos so that they are 'full hot' when starting. This can, however, leave you with too much pressure when you start. On the other hand, some creators setup the loco to be 'warm' when starting. This means you may need to actually sit with the blower for a few minutes before you can drive, otherwise your boiler pressure will plummet.

That said, a good fireman will have the boiler pressure just below the safety valve pressure when stationary, so that the safeties are just feathering (not full pressure release, just sizzling away quietly). Then, when the train departs, it departs with full pressure. Unfortunately, Trainz doesn't support this, and when starting the boiler pressure can be a little over the place if setup to semi-replicate this. If the safety valves are not setup correctly, then you may also find that instead of a nice long steady 'phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttt' sound, you get lots of short pops out of them at pressure. This is definitely an issue with the enginespec, and needs the creator to fix it.

My VR F class tank loco on the DLS (under the username S301) is setup, from memory, to be almost hot when starting, but will require a bit of blower till the pressure reaches full (safeties blow off). Once this happens, turn the blower down/off, and put some water in, and start driving.

As a note, having the safeties lift is not a bad thing, and even lifting for lots of short pops when you are close to pressure (especially when working hard - your boiler pressure can be a bit over the place there). It's when you're building steam beyond the safety valve limit, and they're not lifting (or you're still building pressure with the safeties lifting!) that you have to worry...

However, it's not possible to completely turn off the safety valve function/sound.

Zec

This happens with the Auran Locos, Blue Comet, PRR T1, The Dutchess, as well as every other steam loco I have. Never happened with any of my steamers before the update, so I think the update had something intrinsically wrong with it's parameters for the safety valve. I only download Steam Loco freeware that is highly recommended, so the combination of Auran steamers, and locos made by very reputable creators of late model Trainz steam engines, would tell me that the locomotive is probably not the issue. If it is, then not only are the Auran payware Steam locomotives not properly configured, but so are all the 3rd party locos on the DLS.

"If the safety valves are not setup correctly, then you may also find that instead of a nice long steady 'phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttt' sound, you get lots of short pops out of them at pressure. This is definitely an issue with the enginespec, and needs the creator to fix it.

I get this intermittent safety valve activation with the 3 Auran Payware locos I have, so maybe we should start by seeing if these can be fixed, if it is indeed a locomotive issue, which frankly , I doubt.

 

[frogpipe]

I'd be happy if I could just find the damn wav file and cut it's volume to like 25% of it's original.... In fact I think I'll look for that tomorrow....

 

[Robert2d6]

I'd be happy if I could just find the damn wav file and cut it's volume to like 25% of it's original.... In fact I think I'll look for that tomorrow....

I looked around, but couldn't find any wave files that were recognizable.

 

[ZecMurphy]

Hi All
I just took the Blue Comet for a run here. It is definitely a challenge to keep the boiler pressure under control. In fact, in this case, I think it's actually quite accurate in that it would take a lot of practice to keep it from blowing off. It could be done quite easily I think on a 'perfect' line (steady gradient at over 50MPH). But, you need to be thinking a fair way ahead on uneven gradients, and speeds at or below 50MPH.

A few notes from my quick run of the Blue Comet.

First, this one is already 'hot' so shouldn't need much blower, if any, to get going. At most, hit 'N' three times (6 times is full blower, so this means half blower). But turn it off pretty quick. When you start, and have to sit for a while, leave the boiler water, only top it up if it starts to blow off, or if it gets below about 30% (note, this figure is the sight glass, not total boiler).

Once you are going, keep the water at about 40-50%. Especially if you know you'll need to back off (e.g. approaching a lower speed limit), as this will allow you to put water in to cool the boiler. If you're struggling to keep pressure up, turn the blower on a little, and try backing off on the regulator. Be warned, doing this may cause the pressure to rise quite quickly.

The only time I was able to cause the safeties to do short bursts though was when I overfilled the boiler. This is another situation that can cause it. Avoid filling the boiler beyond '100% water' on the HUD/gauge glasses, as it'll cause the safeties to play up. Beyond that, they were always on for a fair amount of time (if they were blowing off). As such, I think this is more a case of firing/driving style.

Also, if you really need to drain boiler pressure. Do a brake reduction down to 60-65PSI on the train brake, open the regulator to full, go to full forward on the cutoff, and tap the 'D' key to bail off the independent brake (the 'brake cylinder' reading on the HUD should drop back to 0psi, or very close too). You'll need to keep pressing it to keep the independent brake off. This will allow you to create a lot more drag on the loco, allowing it to be worked harder.

Remember though, working it harder will also cause more draft, and hence a hotter fire, and this will make more steam... It really does become a very complex balancing act.

Regards

 

[sniper297]

I keep waiting for the punch line, then I realized I'm the straight guy who's supposed to innocently step in and say "what update?" Are we talking about patching to 49922, or that thing where it says 666 content updates available (the number gives you fair warning not to go there!)? Or something else?

Zec, if he's saying it didn't do it before and does it after whatever he updated, most likely suspect would be some kind of sound loop - early TS12 before one of the patches we got sound effects from stuff like animated passenger coach doors and grain hopper loading hatches that continuously looped the sound over and over after the first activation. I forget what fixed it, but I think it was one of the patches.

 

[jjanmarine3]

Robert, try something here , - I have found that certain settings become better controlled after asking the A1 to drive and then reverting back to driving myself, and this also seems to be the case with the safety valve issue. Perhaps the answer lies in there somewhere ?
I wish there was a way one could see the A1 reversor positions like the regulator postions for certain conditions .

 

[ZecMurphy]

Jim, the 49922 update for TS12 fixed a bug that prevented the safety valves from functioning. Hence, prior to this update, TS12 didn't have any safety valves at all due to this bug. Afterward, you not only heard them, but would also see them (on appropriately configured locos), and it would effect the boiler pressure.

As to the controls working different after the AI (note, AI, not A1 - AI stands for Artificial Intelligence ), not sure how this would happen except that the AI may change the current 'values' for the actual physics (E.g. boiler pressure, water level, etc). It should also do the same if you drive in DCC mode for a few minutes, if this is actually happening. The AI simply uses DCC mode to operate the train, and as such the reverser, regulator, etc positions won't be the same as if you were driving it.

Regards

 

[Robert2d6]

OK, here are some answers to some of the questions asked.
The update was TS12 49922 as I stated in OP.
In addition to the 3 Auran Payware Locos that do this, all 14 of Ben Neals steam Locos when starting a session, immediately trigger the safety valve. Many others do it too, but these are the locos I have just tried in the last few hours, because they are all on one route I have.
The pressure when starting is usually within a few pounds of triggering the safety valve, when the valve triggers, you see steam coming out of it on top of the boiler, so it is no a sound loop. It is the actual valve going off. As the valve triggers, the steam pressure drops about 4PSI, below the trigger point, the valve closes, the steam immediately builds back up again to the trigger point and the valve triggers again hence Phhht.....Phhhtttt...Phhhttt..PPhhhht..

Up until this time I have not touched the water, the blower which is off, added coal, or anything else. This is within a few seconds of starting the session. The water usually starts around 40-50%, the coal is loaded to 100%, and I am in Cab mode always. In order to stop this really annoying noise, I have to get the pressure down by letting the coal burn down to around 50%, and add water like crazy. I have not had to use the blower since the update. Most of the routes I am running have speed limits of around 30-40 MPHs, so I have to run cutoff all the way up as high as it will go to try and reduce steam pressure. Once I get the coal level around 50%, usually the valve settles down, and doesn't go off unless I slow way down, or add a bit too much coal.

I have not tried letting the water run low, down to the 30-40-% range, but from reading a 350 page book on the operation and design of steam locomotives, that seems to be something that is not recommended, because if the water gets too low, some really bad things can happen to the boiler and firebox surroundings.

Here is what the update 49922 was supposed to fix..... copied from the Auran website.

• Fixed issues related to boiler pressure and safety valves in Steam locomotives

Download:

Now before the fix, everything worked OK, without having to be totally obsessed with the operation of the loco totally focusing on trying to get the steam pressure below the safety valve trip point and keeping it there. I could add coal to keep pressure up , keep the fire white hot, keep the water around 50%, operate the blower when going slow, and everything worked perfectly. Now enter the "Fix", and all that goes out the window. Now I can't keep the coal at 100%, I have to burn it down to 50% which can take quite awhile, I have to flood the boiler to cool it and keep the pressure down, ride along with my train brakes dragging and hope I don't hit a steep downgrade with over heated brakes, run the cutoff at 75%, etc..etc,...... I am just about to the point of giving up on steam engines, and going back to all diesels, or re-installing Trainz, and updating it to the last update before 49922 and then I will have what I think is the proper operation of the steam engine as I had before the update. To me it is a question of, if it "ain't broke, don't fix it". If it was a fix for the safety valve not going off at all, then I think something else needs to be looked at, as far as the threshold of when the valve should activate not being within 1 PSI of the boiler pressure

I will try the suggestion of switching to AI, and then back to self drive and see what effect that has on the steam pressure and valve operation. But I think all these suggestions are band aids for a update that is flawed. Now if I can just find that wav file.....

 

[sniper297]

Can you make a video? I'm trying to duplicate with what I have;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQvgnoTHavQ

Not trying to be insulting, but is there any possibility you could be mistaking the compressor cycling for a safety valve? I haven't had a safety valve go off yet, but I would suspect it should sound more like a long continuous hisssssssssssssss than a series of Phhht.....Phhhtttt...Phhhttt..PPhhhht.. which sounds more like what the compressor does.

 

[ZecMurphy]

Except it most certainly did NOT work perfectly, far from it. The fact that I had locos running around with 700PSI in the boiler, and no safety valves functioning, was testament to this. I tested this with many locomotives (built-in, official DLC, my own, and others), and all did this. And it was a bug that we fixed.

And this is where the big difference is. Without the patch, the locos did not have safety valves, and hence you could push the boiler pressure as high as you wanted. Not even close to realistic (in fact, in real life, missing safety valves would simply mean you would be dead, as the boiler would explode if the pressure kept climbing!). Sure, it's easier to drive, you just need to worry about water and fire, and ignore the fact that your loco should have blown up ages ago - plus the fact that you'll have a heap more power due to the higher pressure.

Yes, steam locomotives are DIFFICULT to drive, and our physics model this pretty accurately if the loco is setup correctly (the main missing control is a damper, which would actually help a bit with this by restricting the heat that the fire can put out). My test of the Blue Comet here showed that, although a little difficult to drive, it is accurate as far as operating like a steam locomotive goes (as to accurate to the prototype, hard to know without driving/firing the real thing...).

As to Ben Neal's locomotives, as per my first reply, make sure they have a build number of 2.8 or higher (loco, drivers bogie, enginespec, and enginesound all must be 2.8 or higher, and need to be configured for this correctly as well - changing the build number won't fix it). If they are not 2.8 or higher, then they are not using the new physics/sounds model for TC3/TS2009/TS2010/TS12, and as such will not work correctly (the boiler pressure is a good example, it will be all over the place in most cases).

As I said, the water level is for the gauge glass, not the total boiler. Most steam locos are setup so that the gauge glass covers the entire area above the crown sheet, and hence it's only when it drops below the gauge glass that you will have troubles (namely, melt the fusible plugs). The Blue Comet should be starting around 40-50% water IIRC, so keeping it at this level for normal running is about right for the loco. Increasing more will give a short fix for boiler pressure/temperature, but that extra water will heat up, and produce extra steam for a smaller space after a short time.

It really is a balancing act, and some locos will be more difficult than others...

Regards

 

[Robert2d6]

Except it most certainly did NOT work perfectly, far from it. The fact that I had locos running around with 700PSI in the boiler, and no safety valves functioning, was testament to this. I tested this with many locomotives (built-in, official DLC, my own, and others), and all did this. And it was a bug that we fixed.

And this is where the big difference is. Without the patch, the locos did not have safety valves, and hence you could push the boiler pressure as high as you wanted. Not even close to realistic (in fact, in real life, missing safety valves would simply mean you would be dead, as the boiler would explode if the pressure kept climbing!). Sure, it's easier to drive, you just need to worry about water and fire, and ignore the fact that your loco should have blown up ages ago - plus the fact that you'll have a heap more power due to the higher pressure.

Yes, steam locomotives are DIFFICULT to drive, and our physics model this pretty accurately if the loco is setup correctly (the main missing control is a damper, which would actually help a bit with this by restricting the heat that the fire can put out). My test of the Blue Comet here showed that, although a little difficult to drive, it is accurate as far as operating like a steam locomotive goes (as to accurate to the prototype, hard to know without driving/firing the real thing...).

As to Ben Neal's locomotives, as per my first reply, make sure they have a build number of 2.8 or higher (loco, drivers bogie, enginespec, and enginesound all must be 2.8 or higher, and need to be configured for this correctly as well - changing the build number won't fix it). If they are not 2.8 or higher, then they are not using the new physics/sounds model for TC3/TS2009/TS2010/TS12, and as such will not work correctly (the boiler pressure is a good example, it will be all over the place in most cases).

As I said, the water level is for the gauge glass, not the total boiler. Most steam locos are setup so that the gauge glass covers the entire area above the crown sheet, and hence it's only when it drops below the gauge glass that you will have troubles (namely, melt the fusible plugs). The Blue Comet should be starting around 40-50% water IIRC, so keeping it at this level for normal running is about right for the loco. Increasing more will give a short fix for boiler pressure/temperature, but that extra water will heat up, and produce extra steam for a smaller space after a short time.

It really is a balancing act, and some locos will be more difficult than others...

Regards

OK, I will try your suggestions. I did just find something on a web site regarding safety valve which agrees with what you are saying

Locomotive boilers use a special type of safety valve known as the locomotive type safety valve. This type has extremely rugged construction and high accuracy, giving it the ability to discharge repeatedly without losing its calibration or requiring frequent overhaul; one identifying feature of the valve is it does not have an external operating lever. The safety valves are installed directly onto the boiler top using threaded adapters. It is common for the safety valves to discharge frequently during operation because the locomotive has a variable steam demand and the deep fuel bed gives the boiler a significant time delay for responding to load changes

So maybe I just got used to the operation without the valve operation properly and have to relearn it. Anyway thanks for your time and your explanations, I appreciate it.

 

[frogpipe]

To my mind (or ears) the problem isn't that the safety goes off, it's that it's SO #@(&* LOUD....

 

[Robert2d6]

I agree, when the safety valve sound drowns out the rest of the train, something is wrong.

 

[sniper297]

Yeah it is a wee bit fortissimo, ain't it? :hehe: I managed to get the safety to blow off on the built in Y6;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fROCdaLdC4E

But it took 5 minutes of abuse, the boiler starts at 270, shut the injectors off, blower on all the way, overstoke fire, popped at 300 pounds. Shut off blower, increase water injector, blow whistle and the pressure only took a minute or so to drop below 290. Got moving and it dropped quickly to 270, not getting any kind of runaway boiler on that one.

Looked at the dependencies for the Y6 to find the sound effects, it uses Steam Engine Sound - 2 cylinder,<kuid2:126323:53050:1> which has a few WAV files that sound similar but not nearly as loud.

 

[Robert2d6]

Yeah it is a wee bit fortissimo, ain't it? :hehe: I managed to get the safety to blow off on the built in Y6;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fROCdaLdC4E

But it took 5 minutes of abuse, the boiler starts at 270, shut the injectors off, blower on all the way, overstoke fire, popped at 300 pounds. Shut off blower, increase water injector, blow whistle and the pressure only took a minute or so to drop below 290. Got moving and it dropped quickly to 270, not getting any kind of runaway boiler on that one.

Looked at the dependencies for the Y6 to find the sound effects, it uses Steam Engine Sound - 2 cylinder,<kuid2:126323:53050:1> which has a few WAV files that sound similar but not nearly as loud.

All the steam engines I have tried so far, about 20+, start at the safety valve blow off point for each engine ( of course it varies with each engine) . If it trips at 240, they start the session reading 240, or maybe 239 or 241. Haven't found one yet that began the session at more the 5 pounds from safety valve actuation.

 

[Robert2d6]

I took a 45 mile run today using an Loco that I downloaded yesterday, which looks and sounds great. It is the Great Northern 2-8-8-2 Mallet #2047 from this site and is freeware. http://northwesttrainz.weebly.com/steam-power.html. The safety valve sounded off in the very beginning for about a minute then quit, and I just kept the water at between 40-50% and let the coal burn down to 45% and kept it around there, and the blower was never turned on. The safety sounded off again for just a few seconds at a stop to load coal into my coal hoppers that I had in my consist, and for the rest of the trip it was quiet. Great run. I think my big mistake may have been flooding the boiler with water trying to bring the steam pressure down, which apparently was having the reverse effect.

 

[Robert2d6]

I put Philskenes Kuid for Replacement of large Steam engine specs on a couple of my locos, to see if it helps minimize the steam safety valve noise, and it seems to help quite a bit. I looked at his Kuid Config <kuid2:69871:2132:1>, and copied the steam portion of it below. I see there is a setting for "safety valve high pressure" , and my thinking ( knowing almost nothing about any of this), is that if I increased the high pressure setting by some percentage, that the infernal safety valve noise might stop . Now I realize, that in real life you wouldn't want to do this, because it could result in the boiler launching itself into orbit, if the pressure got to high, but I was wondering if anyone has tried tinkering with this setting to stifle the safety valve's very annoying hissing sound? I may try it and just wear a hockey goalie helmet just in case...

steam
{
firebox-heating-surface-area 48
firebox-thermal-conductivity 17
boiler-volume 20
steam-chest-volume 0.8
steam-chest-max-flow 230
super-heating-constant 100
max-fire-temperature 725
min-fire-temperature 568
initial-boiler-temperature 468
firebox-efficiency 0.9
max-coal-mass 1500
ideal-coal-mass 750
shovel-coal-mass 6
safety-valve-low-pressure 1496
safety-valve-low-flow 10
safety-valve-high-pressure 1526
safety-valve-high-flow 20

 

[ZecMurphy]

Hi Rovert2d6
The higher you raise it, the higher the 'blow off' pressure will be for the safety valves. However, on many locomotives, you'll simply end up running at that higher pressure and end up blowing off in the end anyway. Well, sort of. It'll take you a while to reach this sort of pressure if working hard...

It will, however, also change the starting pressure of the loco to be much higher level. This will give you a much more powerful locomotive, which will mean that you'll need much heavier trains to make it behave even somewhat close to the prototype. It'll also make the locomotive more likely to slip, and possibly a lot harder to control.

Regards