Hello - I have a new set of Stewart FT's - A & B units. They are gorgeous and run smoothly. A unit is powered, B is dummy, with a short drawbar between. The A unit even has a standard 8-pin DCC socket. They have the original single-chime horns on top the cab of the A unit.
I'm considering putting sound (and dcc) in them - probably the decoder in the A unit and the speaker in the B unit. This will be four (4) wires between, but they are hitched so close it will be nearly invisible.
What I'm wondering is what these units actually sounded like - including the horns. Would one of the new SoundTraxx 'Tsunami' decoders sound right?
Opinions ?
Thanks,
Dick Chaffer / Bozeman
I have put Tsunami in a couple Stewart VO-1000 locos. Had to grind down the frame a little using a 4 inch circular bench sander to allow the speaker to fit better. The Stewart's come apart easily and basically snap together. My VO-1000's have four screws to attach the motor.
The Tsunami have shrink wrapped and light board type decoders, 8 ohm speaker.
The LokSound v3.5 is 100 ohm speakers.
The LokSound Select are 8 ohm speakers.
I have a PCM F3 A/B that has two 50 ohm speakers in series in the B and a single 100 ohm in the A unit. With the diaphragms and close coupling, the tether wires are not seen.
Check with Litchfield for decoder and speaker suggestions. The do answer email. Free shipping over $75.00. I buy all my DCC stuff from them with prompt delivery.
Couple links that "might" help.
http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1277
http://www.zealot.com/forum/showthread.php?p=871167
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Add pickups to the B unit too - then you'll have 16 wheel pickup. The Stewart dummies have metal wheels and everything in place except the gears of a powered unit. You just have to solder wires to the metal sideframe pieces to get power. Parallel that with the power from the powered A unit and if it ever stalls you have some really serious problems. I had one I inteded to do sort of like what Bruce at Litchfield did with one, two large speakers, a crossover, and a small speaker all in the B unit. The large ones were sealed to the bottom of the chassis, the small one was stuck under one of the fans.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I have a couple A-B sets of FTs. There's a couple things you can do.
If you use a sound / motion decoder in the engine, get a board replacement one like one designed for an Atlas unit. It's easier in the long run to put that in than trying to squeeze in a regular sized decoder. Then just run to wires thru the window openings in the door between the A and B units and hook up a 1" speaker in the dummy. I add Walthers rubber diaphragms, just one on one unit fills the gap nicely.
Or you could run a couple of wires back to a sound-only decoder, like an MRC "Sounder" and have the sound decoder and speaker both in the dummy. I've done both and both work well.
BTW I've used the Digitrax "LC" first generation EMD board with pretty good results, it's inexpensive but has bood basic EMD sound. However the 'blat' single chime horn it has isn't that hot. MRC Sounder or a Tsunami would be better choices if you want the single chime horn.
I did a search for stewart ft chassis and modeltrainstuff.com site show the various Stewart chassis photos along with the FT chassis which might give you some ideas. I do not want to post the link here. I used Yahoo.com to search and it was the first link.
Thanks gents for all the helpful information and tips. I've not yet looked at the Litchfield links yet. Woofer & Tweeter, sounds like, Randy ?
And yes, I'll be adding power pickup from the B-unit, as suggested. That's why I'm planning four wires between units - two for power, two for speaker(s).
Cannot believe that the MR 'Cyclopedia - vol. 2 - Diesels' does not even mention the 567 in it's discussion of the FT units. In fact, the book is almost (almost!) completely void of engine type details.
I'm looking at the new SoundTraxx units for the Bowser / Stewart units - both FT and VO-1000. I think that's the way I will go.
Thanks again,
Dick Chaffer / Bozeman, MT
Well nuts. I'm so critical in my mind when I see others' spelling and grammar errors - and there's one (at least) of my own in above.
Dick
Yeah, unfortunately the picture showing the install was removed from the Litchfield site a while ago. Probably because it used an old DSD decoder and not one of the modern ones, although there's no reason it couldn't be redone. My crazy self says go for even more - put a speaker in the A unit as well! At some point there will be diminishing returns though. To be better sounding you'd probably get more mileage from two decoders so the A and B each have independent sounds. But that would be $$$.
I wonder if anyone has tried a full range speaker out of a laptop. I had a very nice one out of a SFF PC that sounded great hooked to the decoder, but alas was too big to fit even in an empty dummy B unit. It was close though, it ALMOST fit. I believe it came from an old IBM or Compaq machine, it was oval rather than the more common round ones.
jrcBoze Thanks gents for all the helpful information and tips. I've not yet looked at the Litchfield links yet. Woofer & Tweeter, sounds like, Randy ?And yes, I'll be adding power pickup from the B-unit, as suggested. That's why I'm planning four wires between units - two for power, two for speaker(s).Cannot believe that the MR 'Cyclopedia - vol. 2 - Diesels' does not even mention the 567 in it's discussion of the FT units. In fact, the book is almost (almost!) completely void of engine type details. I'm looking at the new SoundTraxx units for the Bowser / Stewart units - both FT and VO-1000. I think that's the way I will go.Thanks again,Dick Chaffer / Bozeman, MT
Contact Litchfield for recommended decoders and speakers. Nancy has been very helpful to me.
I bought the new shrink wrapped Baldwin VO-1000 Tsunami back in Jan. from SoundTraxx at a train show for the VO-1000 but had to shoehorn it in. The install is somewhere in this forum.
I do not know if SoundTraxx has the Baldwin light board decoder yet. I will have to ask.
Soundtraxx told me they are making one as Bowser is selling their Stewarts with the Tsunami now.
Bruce did a install into a VO-1000 but used the Fairbanks-Morse light board decoder. It does not quite sound like the Baldwin as I have both with identical speakers.
Do a Google search for EMD F-unit. There is plenty of info available.
I found my install. My light board install is what Bruce sent to me in a link.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/169262/1866650.aspx#1866650
All I can say is the new Tsunami 567 sounds AWESOME! I listened to a buddies pair of F7's with them installed and WOW!! I told him," thanks alot, now I think all my F units sound like crap!" As train budget allows, I will be slowly installing Tsunamis into my entire fleet.
Dick,
Good info tips above. Just to add a bit of info. The horns most of the FT's were equipped with were the Leslie A-200 series. These single chimers were often referred to as "Honkers". WABCO's (Westinghouse) version was called the E-2, also a single chimer with a slightly deeper "honk" sound. In later years most honkers were replaced with multi-chime horns.
Both of these horns are availabe offerings on Soundtraxx's Tsunami and QSI's Revolution. You can check out the sound clips from Soundtraxx on this link:
http://www.soundtraxx.com/dsd/tsunami/tsunamisound.php
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
http://www.mrdccu.com/install/hods/Stewart-FTAB-827101.htm
To answer your question about what an FT sounded like.
I doubt there are still 20 folks left in the country that worked on FT units.
We worked them on Santa Fe's Southern Division till about 1965.
They roared instead of humming like a 567 in an F3 or F7.I believe the differance was the manifold.
The powered chassis Stewart once offered with the Lok-sound decoder sounded more like an actual Ft unit than any decoder.
Most folks today can not tell and the Tsunami is far superior to any other decoder in my opinion.
The post at the bottom of this article has a link to Bruce's excellant clinic on installing a tsunami in an FT unit.
Gordon Locke
GC&SF Retired
I'd 2nd, or is it up to 7th the Tsunami 567 sound.
In my opinion, it is superior to all currently on the market. I'm converting my entire loco roster to Tsunami as money permits.
Nice thing is you get your choice of horn. And typically the choices work out for your particular model.
Not sure what road name your FTs are, but if they are Santa Fe this link is an excellent resource.
Santa Fe Horns
Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, COClick Here for my model train photo website