OK, I needed a few campfires around the Diggs so here's what I did and it worked real well. Had the wife pick up some of those flickering LED Tea-lights at Michaels. I tried this with a cheaper version I found at the dollar store but the ones from Michael's work a lot better and for $3 ea it's a pretty good deal. The light emitted is bright yellow and the flicker action if very good, such that it looks like a campfire from a few feet away and actually light up the surrounding area for a few inches with the flickering light just as real fire does. These lights come with 3 internal button batteries which I removed. Then I soldered wires to the contacts and ran a 12 " pigtail from the enclosure. Observe polarity (+/-). Then in order to waterproof the enclosure, I painted the entire thing (except the bulb) with Henry's roof patch, let it dry for a few hours and buried them in the appropriate locations. Croaker Diggs is prewired so it was no problem connecting them to the existing wiring and connecting them to a 5 volt power supply at the terminal box. They look great in action and to add to the realism. I cut small wooden logs and arranged them around the 'flame'. Another, I put in a small section of PVC to look like a barrel fire. If you need a realistic campfire, this worked great for me. I'll try to post a video of them in action when I get a chance. Shu
Here's the video's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6uej7PHWL0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdOm8IRm64w
Follow the adventure - http://www.croakerdiggs.com
Rene Schweitzer
Classic Toy Trains/Garden Railways/Model Railroader
Great!!! OK, just where did you get the cricket and frog sound effects. If you have them as a permanent sound on the layout, how did you do it? If you don't mind, I would like to see a couple of pix of how you built it as I would like to duplicate.
Tom Trigg
Tom - The sound effects..OK. I have a PC in a weatherproof filtered outside enclosure in the train shop. From one of it's sound cards - it has two - I run the left chan of card 1 to a mixer and then a 3 watt amplifier to a speaker on the layout. The right channel runs thru a 200 watt amplifier to a sub-woofer and another larger speaker enclosure built into one of the cabins. I do this for both cards, resulting in 4 stereo channels. Each channel goes to a separate speaker at the diggs. We are currently utilizing only 4 speakers but the rest are for future expansion. What I wanted to create is not only appropriate sound effect coming from the layout, but from specific areas. ie:Piano, laughter, barroom sounds coming from the saloon, church bells on the hour coming from the church, farm animals coming from the ranch/cabins. We are also planning appropriate sounds coming from a depot, when i get around to building one - HA! The different sounds coming from different locations adds, in my humble opinion, a new level of realism. Oh, almost forgot...the computer is running a 'free' program called Mixere (google it). The software allows you to assign any sound effect file on your computer to a channel. It allows you to create an unlimited number of channels of sound. Beyond that, you can assign each sound to play at individual volumes, channels and schedule each one to play every XX minutes/seconds or continously. It is very cool for this application and it was about the 10th one I tried. Furthermore, you can set it up with different files and settings, then save the 'configuration' and reload that configuration at any time.. For instance, I has 3 configurations that I use. Night time, which has bullfrogs and crickets and an occasional coyote (3 files); We have daytime quiet, which is subtle railroad yard sounds, an occasional cow or horse (8 files); and a all out daytime busy file which at last count draws from 42 sound files, various sounds that you would/might find in a bustling wild west mining camp including (here we go...) saloon music, women screaming, horses and wagons creaking and yelling, banjo music, gun-fights, chickens, crows, explosions, thunder and lightning (awesome thru the sub-woofer - all the neighborhood dogs like that one), laughter, black-smith shop sounds, steam pressure relief valves, distant loco whistles with echo, toots and rumbling and many many more. Oh, there even squeaky bed-springs which will come from the bordello...er...gentleman's club. I have gone nuts I know but I absolutely love this thing and to go out there on a warm summer evening, have a cold beer or glass of wine at sunset and watch the trains and 'experience' the town come alive complete with the campfires and people and cabins...we'll - you get the idea. It is my escape. My wife, friends, family neighbors don't think that I am obsessive about this thing - THEY KNOW IT!! Thanks for asking but I bet you're sorry you did! - Shu
Rene - Thank you for the invite. I will be sure and do that as soon as I clean up the text and take a couple photos that are presentable. Thanks again for the offer - I love the magazine and can never wait to get the next issue. Thanks, Shu
Shu Thanks for asking but I bet you're sorry you did! - Shu
NO! I'm amzed at the concept. Ive got an old pc just taking up space in the train shed. Sounds like I need to "dust it off and put it back into use. I've collected a decent library of train related sounds but have not seen a way to get the sound where it "belongs."
You have given me the concept, I've got the parts, old PC, three, maybe four spare sound cards, a few spare speakers, now all I need is to find the time! Thanks a bunch! I love this idea.
Great - You may have trouble getting more than two sound cards to work in one machine. I was unsucessful. Have fun
Thats prety cool, the Fires and the sound idea.
Couple of questions as i am not savy in this area. where did u pick up your sound bites? Is it easy to get the different sounds to come from the specifice speakers you want? Is special equipment needed to do more than the 4 you have.
Thanxs D
D - Thanks for the comment. The sound bites came from several sources. Google train.wav, whistle.wav, etc. I picked up an audio editor by Sony - "Audio Lab" where you can edit the audio files to your hearts content. The 4 chan limit I have hit is because I am running two 'stereo' (2-chan) cards in the computer. I could not find anyone who has been successful running more than two sound cards in the same machine. I Did buy a 5 chan surround sound card but I have yet to find a software mixer that will support 5 discrete sound channels output. Actually I did find a 8 chan card that came with it's own software but it was very pricey at $350 if I remember right. Since the entire railroad project was just an idea 6 months ago, we have been very busy getting a 'baseline' operation going and will return to concentrate and refine each specific area after a short while ie:lighting, discrete sound,smoke generators, servo controlled actuators. pneumatic actuators for the switches, closed circuit video, CTI computer control of the train(s) etc. - Shu
Shu: Your latest video posting is completely awesome.
Tom - Thanks very much - I antiqued it here - I think it worked out pretty good. I wish I had more track so the video didn't stop as it approached the end of the tunnel! - all in good time - Good to hear from you - Shu
Shu I wish I had more track so the video didn't stop as it approached the end of the tunnel
You have started a growing masterpiece my friend. I’m sure that in a year or two you will have a very nice sized layout empire. Large enough for you to produce at least a 15~20 minute mini-feature.
Shu: Just went back and re-re-watched both a few times. You have some skills with the video editing. If you are up to a challenge, think about doing a bit of "Wizard Of OZ". Keep the opening, i.e. bridgework, in b&w (or sepia) have the first train flare out in full color, then as you break into the tunnel go back to b&w and do a quick series of stills of your structures and people. I think that would be a complete mind blower. Keep up the good work.
Tom - Thanks for the idea and positive comments. I enjoy the video stuff and have a few ideas also of projects I want to do. I like your idea also. As soon as I get some time (that precious commodity) I will get on it. Thanks
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