Is there any plug and play sound decoders on the market? It would be great to just plug it in, mount the speaker and run.
Any of the sound decoder makers have 8 and 9 pin plug in decoders, take your pick. Plug it in, find a palce for the speaker, and you're done. Assuming the loco is properly DCC Ready - since that term is meaningless and you find it on locos that truly are just "plug in the decoder" to "plug in the decoder and rewire a few things"
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Depending on the locomotive,there are several options. MRC makes some decoders with specific sounds and speakers that come with the 8 pin plug. But probably the best option are the Loksound Select decoders. You can get them with the 8 pin plug or the 21 pin plug attached. However, the Loksounds need a speaker, which is easy, as you just have two wires to attach to the speaker. The Loksound is the best sounding of the two and it is a good marketing tactic to leave the speaker choice up to you because each installation depends on the amount of room you have in the Loco.
I just put a Loksound Select Micro in a HO Atlas HH1000 using a sugar cube speaker. It sounds great. Especially since they have the specific sound file of that very early diesel locomotive. With Loksound most online DCC dealers will load whatever sound file you need to match the loco you are putting it in.
SB
Do you already have the locomotive?
If you look at companies like Walthers that make both sound and non-sound engines of the same model, you'll find they are the same engines inside but without the decoder. So, they have speaker wells built in, and space for the decoders, and they really are plug-and-play.
But, unless you have an affinity for a particular decoder, you are probably going to save money and effort by just buying the engine with the decoder already installed. It will cost more to buy the engine, decoder and speaker separately unless you go with a real bargain-basement decoder.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Thank you for your answers. I have a couple of Athearn "quick DCC" RTR diesel locomotives. I found a Digitrax DGTSDH166D plug in sound decoder and a customer review said simple to install, thats great being my soldering skills are below par. The review did state that it comes from factory set up for steam locos. Will have to change the proper CV to diesel.