Paul3 - thanks for the primer. I just ordered a QSI Tsunami decoder for an Atlas RS-1 from Tony's but I had no clue that it was going to be that tough to get everything in.
I am printing out your instructions but if you could come up with some pictures, even better.
Yeah, I know about the lack of pics, but even so...at least I told folks what color wires go where.
My thoughts about the horn levels are that they are okay. Not great, but okay. A factory install will be louder, but that's only expected since they design the loco around the speaker instead of trying to cram a speaker into a loco that was never made for it. At my club, the room is so large (6300 sq. ft. & 12 foot ceiling) and there's so much white noise (fans, people, etc.) that the diesel engine sound does get kinda lost more than 4 to 5 feet away. The horn can be heard from much farther away, and the bell is probably the most clear (high tones in a small speaker and all that).
Meanwhile, on my 25'x50' finished basement home layout with an 8 foot wallboarded ceiling, the same loco at the same sound settings is too loud. I can hear the diesel sound anywhere in the room, and the whistle and bell are almost overpowering.
I like the horn sound quality. They certainly sound like the various air horn samples that I've played on the internet, with the problem of the Tsunami sound coming from a small speaker. This, of course, means that you're gonna miss out on the lower tones. I was able to try some Heavy Bass speakers from QSI with the Tsunami, and it made a signficant difference to my ears.
I haven't tried the "hyperdrive" yet. That's next. The motor control is a bit wonky without it, so far. In one direction, the loco starts moving at 10% throttle...and it's not a gentle transition, it sort of instantly moves at 10mph, which is a little fast. In the other direction, the loco doesn't start moving until 25% throttle and it's a very gradual change from 0mph to 5mph or so. The loco is 2 years old, and I've been using it so it should be broken in by now.
I don't like that CV5 and CV6 are missing from the decoder. This would make speed matching much easier.
I played around last night with some extra features:Playable whistle - Don't bother, as not only is it half the volume, it sounds terrible.Auto Sounds - The auto grade crossing is a fail. It should be 2 longs, a short, and a long. Instead, it was 3 shorts and a long. The auto "1 toot stopped, 2 toots forward, 3 toots backwards" was succesful. It would get annoying on a local freight or a switcher, but kinda fun on a road job. The auto brake squeal is okay, sort of like the QSI, but at least the sensitivity can be changed. The auto bell I didn't try, yet, but might be very annoying if done wrong.Auto Fan and Auto Compressor - Yep, they work. More realistic that they come on when they do by themselves, rather than have me try to remember to play them.Manual Notching - Interesting, but sort of a pain. Neat to be able to rev the engine without it moving, but annoying to throttle down the loco too far and have the engine shut off...while it's moving! IOW, fun to play with, but not to operate with.Quiet Mode - I like it. If you have the loco sitting there with no functions on, after so many seconds (from 1/10th second to 25.5 seconds), the sounds will automatically mute themselves.F11 Brake Rate - This was actually a lot of fun. Set up CV3 and CV4 to something like 30 and 100 respectively. When running at speed, hit F11 once, and not only do you get the brake squeal sounds, the loco will slow down faster based on what you put in for CV61 over 128. The loco will slow and stop, but the engine sounds continue based on the throttle %. Hit F11 again, and it will then release the brake and the loco will accelerate based on CV3. Try it, it's fun. And it's fully adjustable, from being another Emergency brake to almost no effect at all.
Paul A. Cutler III************Weather Or No Go New Haven************
I didn't take any pics, but last night I installed a TSU-1000 Tsunami in a modern Atlas Classic RS-11 (it came with white LED's, not bulbs). It came out pretty well.
The speaker was the small oval speaker with it's snap on enclosure. The decoder was the Alco 251 version of the Tsunami. The system used for testing and programming was a Digitrax Zephyr, using a DT300 throttle.
Opening the shell, it was obvious it would be a tight fit. First step was to remove all the black wire clamps and strip the Atlas board of all electrical connections. Next, I removed the LED head lights, and then took off the Atlas board from on top of the motor. The rear weight needed to go to make room for the speaker, so by removing the two screws holding it on, it came off.
Doing some quick measuring, it was clear that the decoder mounts had to go to make room for the decoder. Using a Xuron track nipper, I cut these flush with the top of the motor.
At this point, I had the four wires coming from the trucks, and the two wires on the motor. The motor wires were unsoldered, and the Tsunami decoder wires were cut to fit and soldered to the motor (orange wire goes on the top motor lead, gray on the side). The decoder was then taped to the top of the motor with 3M Magic tape so that the speaker wires and the capacitor were towards the rear.The truck wires were long enough to connect to each other, so I did so and used the resulting connection to attach the red and black wires from the decoder. I used heat shrink tubing to insulate the connections.
Next, it was time to connect the LED's. The red wire from the LED connects to the blue common wire on the decoder (I left this connection bare for adding the rear LED lead later), while the black wire on the LED connects to the white wire on the decoder. The LED was left in place on top of the metal weight at the front.
The rear LED's black wire was then connected to the yellow wire on the decoder, then I used the leftover blue wire to connect from the black LED wire to the blue common wire from the decoder. The LED was then taped (with Magic tape) to the roof of the RS-11 shell just behind the clear plastic lens.
The speaker was next. I fed the wires through the mounting holes from the front, then trimmed and connected them to the solder leads. Then I snapped the enclosure onto the speaker. This was then mounted into the shell. I placed it on top of the LED and the clear plastic lens, so the whole thing is in at a slight angle. I needed to clear the flywheel and the gear tower. The speaker was secured with small amounts of Walthers Goo.
The last problem was locating the capacitor. I managed to fit it inbetween the front metal weight and the decoder while keeping it above the flywheel. I ended up using a mini cable tie to lash it down. It took a couple tries to get it so that it didn't bind the flywheel with the shell on.
After that, it was just putting the shell on and running it.
Performance is good, tho' I needed to tweak it a bit. I changed the horn to the Hancock Air Whistle (as was standard on NH RS-11's), and I added Reverb to the horn effects only (I liked it as it gave it a richer sound). I then maxed out the Master Volume to 255, and boosted the exhaust sounds from 180 to 210. The air horn, when maxed at 255, caused some distortion, so I returned it to the factory setting (225).
The other problem was that the loco would start moving at 01% throttle. This did not allow the engine sounds to rev up before movement. Normally, you can adjust CV03 on other decoders to get it to do so, but no matter what I put in for CV03 (I even put in a value of 100), it would always start moving the instant the throttle went to 01% (even with CV02 set to 00). I then used preloaded speed table #11, and this seems to have solved my problem. It gives a delay when starting that allows the motor sounds to rev before movement, not after.
After the tweaking, I have to say I am very impressed with the quality of the sound. Very, very nice stuff. The Alco chugging sounds real good, and the Hancock, while a touch high in tone (no doubt due to the small speaker) is at least a whistle and not a horn.
I'll have to take it to my club to get what it sounds like in such a cavernous room, but so far, I like it a lot. I'd do it again, no problem.