Life Like 0-8-0 DCC Conversion / With Video

[C&O Fan]

I have one of the early Life Like DC 0-8-0 switchers

I'm in the process of installing a Tsunami Light Steam Decoder

But first I added extra tender pickups using the photos on

Wolfgang Dudler's web site

http://www.westportterminal.de/tender080.html

and also Gary Hopkins Web site

http://www.nmra.org.au/Hints/Pickups/Pickups.html

Both are nicely Illustrated

I installed the wire pickups in the trucks as Illustrated

and soldered the wires to the 8 pin wire harness board

you can see the extra red wire in this photo with the black shrink tubing on it

I used Red wires for the right side wheels and Black wires for the left side wheels

keeping with the standard color code of the decoder wiring harness

 

Here's a comparison photo showing the later sound version tender on the left with the factory installed pickups

and the QSI twin Speakers mounted facing down thru the floor 

It's a pitty you can't buy these tenders separately

Even more of a shame Life Like didn't wire the trucks on all the models !!!!

 

 

Here's another picture of the sound tender showing the speakers

 

 

 

[C&O Fan]

I'll be using an oval speaker as a High Bass won't fit in this small tender

Rather than mount the speaker facing up and drilling holes thru the coal

I'm going to try it facing down using the coal load as a baffle

 

[C&O Fan]

I had to remove the floor weight to make room for the Decoder so I used some stick on lead weights

on the sides of the tender which doubled the tender weight

 

I also used the top of a ball point pen for a light trap

 

 

I cut out the coal doors on the front of the tender to direct the sound toward the

loco

I later filed the cut to smooth it up

 

 

[C&O Fan]

Here's a comparison video of the QSI Sound Loco and the Tsunami Loco i just finished

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR4fWcxk2_Q