Hi again, I recently purchased a athearn 2-8-2 with a digitrax sound decoder installed by the previous owner. I am not satisified with the sound decoder as it sounds unrealistic to say the least. Kind of "toyish" if you get my meaning. I am interested in installing a Bachmann medium steam sound decoder. My questions are these: (1) Can I cut the old decoder loose and install the new sound decorder directly without any rewiring? (2) Is this the best sound decoder for this locomotive? Thanks.
Is this N scale? I'm not aware of a Bachmann sound decoder other than a special one you add to a DCC equiped Bachmann loco. If it's a Digitrax, it should have an 8 pin plun on it that is pluged into the board in the tender. Tsunami is the way to go in my oppinion. You either have to hard wire it in or see if the board in the tender has an 8 pin plug in it. Joe
No, its a Athearn Genesis HO scale 2-8-2 Southern Railway. The digitrax decoder has a 6 pin wire harness. The decoder first off will not stay put inside the tender. So, I cut it loose back behind the cab of the locomotive. Im going to install a 6 pin wire connector here to allow more freedom of movement. Who ever installed it didnt give it enough wire in order to allow the locomotive freedom to move around. It derails constantly. When I ran the locomotive, it sounded I am sorry to say "mickey mouse". I liken it to my daughter blowing on her wooden train whistle. Its not realistic at all. What I want to do if its possible is to do away with it and install a Bachmann Tsunami sound decoder 6 wire in its place. hopefully I can just wire it direct to the existing 6 wires from the old digitrax sound decoder without any problems.
Loco,
Just to make a slight correction: Bachmann does NOT make the Tsunami decoder; Soundtraxx does. Bachmann only installs the Tsunamis in some of their locomotives.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
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Is this loco DCC ready? If so there shouild be wires running between the tender and loco. On steam locos the tenders usually have room for a deocder and speaker. Since it's a Genesis is it fairly new IE made in the last several years? If so I would think it would be DCC ready. Joe