Hi,
Richhotrain's thread on putting sound in a Steamer brought my question to mind. As I don't want to disrupt his thread, I started this one...........
I've got an HO P2K ABBA PA consist. The A's are powered. I have not installed decoders but I understand they are plug in and a simple chore. As the B units are dummies, they would be perfect for sound units. The physical installation of them is pretty straight-forward to me, but I am a tad uncertain about the wiring.
My biggest concern is how the two decoders work together - or is just one used? Said another way, assuming I install regular decoders in the A units, will the sound decoders in the B units be wired to the A decoders or ???
Right now, that ABBA consist - in Santa Fe Warbonnet livery - is sitting in a display case. It is really a piece of work, but I think I need to get it on the layout soon...............
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
I've done exactly that with a very old Athearn Blue Box Alco PA-1 A-B set. A LokSound Select went into the powered A unit to handle motor and light functions, and the speaker went into the dummy B unit, connected with a micro-mini 2-conductor wire set from Miniatronics so the two can be separated if necessary. This allowed a very large speaker and enclosure to be used for much better sound.
I also have some multiple-unit sets from Broadway Limited with sound in each one of them, such as a GE AC6000 set, and have found that having a speaker in only one dummy out of an entire set sounds just as good.
The sound decoders in the dummies would be installed by themselves. You'll need power pickups from somewhere. Not sure how Proto did them - Stewart/Bowser dummies have metal wheels and are missing only the wires fromt he truck sideframes to get power.
If the locos are drawbar connected and/or always run together, you can give them all the same address. Or if you mix and match, give each one its own address and consist them to run together.
If they are permanently connected, running jumpers through all 4 to link the track pickups would give you a 4 unit set that would be pretty much impossible to stall - that's a lot of wheels over a long distance picking up power, so no mere dead frog or spot of dirt on the tracks would ever stop that beast.
If you run the AB sets together but not always all 4 units together, you could put a sound and motor decoder in the powered A and put the speaker(s) in the dummy B unit. If there is power pickup available int he dummy, a 4 pin connection would do, 2 for the track power and 2 for the speaker.
The nice thing about a cab diesel dummy is that there is a lot of space inside for a BIG speaker and enclosure. I have a speaker I think came from a laptop in my one F7 dummy, nearly fills the whole thing up - but it actually can reproduce some bass frequencies. Unlike a little tiny less than 1" round speaker.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
mobilman44I've got an HO P2K ABBA PA consist. The A's are powered. As the B units are dummies,
1. Put a decoder in the A units and run wires back to the Bs for the speaker. The two decoders in the A units could then be "consisted" together. This arrangment has the advantage of allowing you to also put a small speaker in the A unit. For prime mover sounds the sound coming from the B is ok, for a horn it isn't wonderful if one is close to the loco.
2. Put a separate sound decoder in the B's with separate addresses. This allows one to run the locos in any construct. A. AB ABB ABBA AA or the ubiquitous ABA. Using the DCC to "consist" them to run together. It of course will be the most expensive.
3. Put a separate sound decoder in the B set to the same channel as the A. That allows the two AB to run together without consisting.
4. Could put a sound decoder in the B and run wires up to the A for a secondary speaker.
I have an ABBA set of F units where the 2nd one is a dummy for sound. All 4 pick up power from the track and carry it on a bus that runs to all the units. Each unit has its own decoder. It can run through 18" of dead track without loosing electrical contact.
A side note. The original Proto-2000 PA units had a motor problem. On an amp meter they measure just fine, but what the meter (at least not the ones I had) couldn't show was that for a split second on start up they could pull up to 3 amps. I went through 3 decoders before I figured it out. Replaced the motor and no problem after that. So you might want to check the manufacturer date for the units you have. As far as I know later runs did not have this issue.
The OP mentions my separate thread on adding sound to a steam engine.
I might suggest that there is an alternative to doing it yourself, and that would be to pay an experienced pro to do it for you.
I have never added sound to a locomotive, so the challenge seems daunting to me as I consider my first sound install.
It seems to me that the "easiest" sound decoder install would be a steam engine since there is so much space in the tender.
Next in line would be a sound decoder in a diesel where the room under the shell is more limited when considering both the decoder and the speaker(s).
It would seem to me that the most difficult installation would be in an AB diesel consist where the motor decoder is in the A unit and the sound decoder is in the B unit, particularly where the B unit is a dummy with no power source.
Rich
Alton Junction
Who makes a good sound-only decoder? Do the newly-rumored Digitrax 16-bit decoders come in a sound-only version for a sound-only price?
I've put Digitrax Sound Bugs in a few dummy engines - old Athearn rubber-band drive models that have been neutered, but they still have all-wheel pickup. It's a very easy installation, given the cavernous space inside. But, even with a big speaker and a whole shell for an enclosure, they still sound like Sound Bugs, not Tsunamis.
Another thing to consider, at least, is making sure that either the frame is not "hot" or that the couplers are isolated. With my old Athearns, the frame is part of the circuit, so I made sure to use plastic Kadee draft gear boxes to keep the couplers out of the circuit.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Texas Zepher2. Put a separate sound decoder in the B's with separate addresses. This allows one to run the locos in any construct. A. AB ABB ABBA AA or the ubiquitous ABA. Using the DCC to "consist" them to run together. It of course will be the most expensive. 3. Put a separate sound decoder in the B set to the same channel as the A. That allows the two AB to run together without consisting.
It is my understanding that the decoder needs some sort of motor attached so that it can be programmed. Can you remind me what gets connected to the decoder motor leads to simulate the motor load?
Thanks
A simple 100 Ohm 5 or 10 Watt power resistor connected to the gray and orange wires will simulate the load of a motor. Don't use a lower power resistor because they do get quite hot when used for this purpose.
My understanding is that you only need the resistor connected to the motor leads for programming. So, you can use a low-power resistor to program the decoder, and then remove it and insulate the ends of the leads before you put the shell back on.
If you have a resistor wired to the motor leads, you will be generating a lot of heat, as mentioned, and you will be using up precious DCC amps while getting nothing useful in return.
I'm not sure if you can program Vmax down enough to cut the motor power down to zero, but that's worth a try.
Thanks all for the replies and advice!
The set I have is the early version and its "DCC friendly". Its a shame one couldn't just buy a sound chassis for them, like I did with the Stewart FTs. I suspect they will continue to sit in the display case - and they really do look good there.
I suspect they will continue to sit in the display case - and they really do look good there.
Or, you could sell that PA ABBA consist to me.
Hmm, has Walther's done any re-runs with sound in them? If you could find a random road name one with sound, you could swap the shells. The new ones might run at different speeds though, with Walthers messign around with gear ratios.
Or just put sound int he powered ones, if the dummies don't have easy access to electrical pickup. There's quite a bit of room inside, especially if you remove the factory circuit board and just wire the decoder in. If you need more space, there's tons of metal you cna drind off along the middle of the chassis withotu risk of going too far, to make a flat space for the decoder - then a large round speaker and enclosure can sit in the back where the factory circuit board was. Overall it wouldn;t be a terribly difficult sound install, especially compared to a smaller hood diesel like a Geep or RS-3.