Bachmann Thomas sound board and CVP G3 dcoder

[Rex in Pinetop]

So I bought a Bachmann (Soundtraxx) DCC sound board $99 to put in my Thomas which I had already converted to battery power with an Airwire G3 decoder.  The instructions from Bachmann were lacking so I emailed Soundtraxx customer support.  They have no idea how to wire up their board.  I then emailed CVP Products and they recommended buying one of their converters for $138.  Bachmann customer support had no idea either and suggested I ask the question on their forum.  I'm asking here first as you guys are the best.

Rex

[Rex in Pinetop]

I'm answering my own post after further research.  The Soundtraxx board is not a stand alone sound board like Phoenix.  This Thomas "board" is also a DCC motor controller board and as such conflicts with other DCC boards.  In order to use the Thomas board I have to remove my AirWire G3 decoder and replace it with a "converter" that takes AirWire wireless signals from any of the CVP throttles and converts them into something that Soundtraxx uses as DCC input from "rails".  I'll let you all know if it works.

Rex in Pinetop 

[PVT Kanaka]

Gack! You make me glad I a happily mired in the world of left for slow, right for fast, blow into the wooden whistle for noise!

[Rex in Pinetop]

The AirWire converter does as advertised.  I have it working now.  The sound quality from the bachmann/soundtraxx board is poor but then I've only run sound systems from Phoenix so I guess my expectations were too high.  I get chuff based on voltage versus actual speed so I have to run it very slow else it's too fast to be chuff.  The whistle is a toot which is okay.  The only other sound is a blowdown which sounds like a hiss.  My Phoenix boards have 6+ recorded sounds that are engine specific.  My Shay is significantly different than my Connie.  Oh well live and learn.

Rex

[Greg Elmassian]

Yes, I bought a Bachmann-branded OEM Soundtaxx decoder for my Emily to get the "custom sound".

 

Very disappointing, the only thing besides the whistle being unique, is the fact that Soundtraxx removed the chuff input, and the decoder will stop with a brief power interruption, and will not resume. (Soundtraxx also removed the connections for the keepalive)

 

Very disappointed, but honestly this is not the first time Soundtraxx has "gutted" a Tsunami for a Bachmann OEM.

 

Also your issues with support are typical. You cannot blame Soundtraxx as they sell the decoder to Bachmann as OEM to Bachmann WITHOUT support.

 

And as in the past Bachmann is clueless about the OEM'd decoder and tells you to call Soundtraxx, which violates their agreement, and Soundtraxx (rightly so) tells you to call Bachmann.

Very disappointed I bought the decoder in the first place. Will record the Emily whistle from the show and put it into a quality decoder.

 

Greg