Hello everyone from the other side of the pond,
AS anyone had the opportunity to fit one of these decoders to a freight car. If you have, did you encounter any problems at all and how did you go about fitting pick-ups to the trucks? I have my own ideas on this but I would prefer to get other peoples views before I go out and buy some or more likely just one to start with.
Many thanks Regards Colin Cambridge UK
Local train shop had a demonstration of these which was put on by a Soundtraxx rep. He had them mounted in a boxcar, mechanical reefer, and caboose. I picked up one of the cars and thought that the installation made the car heavy, but I don't know if he had more in the car beside the decoder and the speaker, additional weight for example. A friend of mine has one of the decoders still in the bag and it is no larger than a typical Soundtraxx decoder.
I looked at the sample car's pickups. These were made from the flat bronze springs that come with Kadee #5 couplers. I don't have a picture, but basically a portion of the spring was removed and the remaining portion including the two little spring wiskers was epoxied or otherwise bonded to the top of the truck bolster. Two of the pieces were required, one to pick up from the right side and one to pick up from the left. The bronze wiskers were positioned to pick up from the wheel back side wheel faces. Flexible wire was then soldered to the bronze piece to make the electrical connection into the car.
There are wheel pickup assemblies that are commercially available. Bowser is one such supplier, http://www.bowser-trains.com/pricelistbowserhonscale.html. They have a caboose lighting kit #74060 that they sell for $11.83 that includes the wheels and pickups. It appears that they also sell the pickups separately as item 74056, which according to the price list is 99 cents. I don't know what that item looks like or how it mounts.
I am not anti-sound, but since you did not ask for my opinion about the sound in a car concept I'll refrain from any editorial comment.
Hope this is helpful to you.
Some interesting things you can do with this new decoder. Among the most intriguing was being able to program brake noises and flange squealing back in the consist now, not just the loco. I've got no experience yet with it, but plenty of experience with Tsunamis. They're good stuff and I don't expect any less of this one.
For wipers, get some Tichy .010" phosphor-bronze wire, although you can us larger. For pickup, on brass trucks, get some PC tic material. You can cut and attach it to provide an insulated mounting pad to stick the wiper to and attach the lead up to the decoder. For plastic, I often can just solder the lead to a length of the Tichy P-B wire that is a little longer the wheelbase of the truck, the drill the hole in the truck, pull the lead up through it and glue in place. Here's a couple of pics to show what I did, excuse my shaky soldering skillz.
Picking up off just one side of the track on each truck helps a little in simplifying, but I generally like to have as much contact was possible and wipe both side on each truck if I can make it work.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I like Mike's wiper method which allows for eight wheel pickup. For those interested, Athearn has a pair of modern caboose trucks that have the axle point/bronze strip pickup assembly that works very well.
They are introducing another truck next spring but still of a modern design.
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATHG61382
I hope they continue this line and make a few older style solid bearing trucks. As for the Soundtraxx decoder I'm not too interested for the simple reason that I have enough to do just keeping the trains running let alone trying to keep track od another throttle to use for train sounds. Or can it be programmed for random sounds?
There's a point where this stuff gets a little gimmicky, like the BLI sheep/pig/cow sounds from a stockcar?
[edit] OK, I just took a listen here: http://www.soundtraxx.com/dsd/soundcar/soundcar.php
I have to admit it just might be something worth looking into. If I can "consist" the sound car so I don't have to specifically address it to get a decent (i.e. realistic) sound pattern then I might bite. I DO have a C&NW push-pull that I could use a bell & horn on!!
[edit II] P.T. Barnum would love me! I just bought the last Soundcar that MB Klein had in stock. Got a KurrentKeeper to go with it... you just shot my RR budget for the week Colin! I'll be installing it in a Kato C&NW cab car and I don't anticipate any pickup issues since these cars have excellent lighting conductivity but for $20US the added capacitors might be a good idea. I hope time permits me to install it soon. I already have a function only in there for the headlight/beacon so maybe it will go quickly...
Ed
Ed,
I've just heard it described and haven't looked at the docs yet, but people have been remarked about how it can be set up to handle random or triggered effects as you desire. That cab car should be an excellent project of how it handles lighting, as well as sound, another handy feature that makes the product so versatile.
Hi, Mike
My first thought was OK, another corny gimmick but after watching (hearing) the Soundtraxx demo where they showed the cab car that goofy went on in my head and I suddenly saw an application on MY layout.
Then when I saw the street price of thirty bucks (I was expecting 70 or 80!) I decided to bite... heck, I already paid twenty for the function-only decoder that's in there now, and I'll repurpose that into another car (I see a business car with track inspection lights below the platform!)
I'll report back when I get it installed... Ed
Ring Engineering makes freight car trucks with electrical pickup, using bronze bushings on the axles. Might be more reliable than the wipers. These are the same power pickup trucks they use on their end of train device. I actually suggested that they make these trucks available separately, several years ago, and they replied that they would consider it. I have several of their EOTs on my layout, and I can say there is no flickering whatsoever with the EOTs.
http://www.ringengineering.com/PowerPickUpTruck.htm
Might be kinda cool to have a freight car rumble by with flat spots on the wheels.