thanks all;I playing with em a bit today ,looks to me an at-1000 board and a nice speaker would go or maybe 2 of the smaller speakers .looks like a speaker could go in cab pointing down ,but the we lil folk will have to go.... the board could poss go sideways next to motor but you would louse your shell mounting screws on that side. well Ill order the at-1000 and a few speaker sizes . thanks again J.W.
I put sound in several FAs and FA1s, using Soundtraxx LC decoders. I was able to put a fairly good sized rectangular speaker in the rear of the A unit, but had to do a fair amount of grinding on the weight. I also put a second speaker in the B unit, of one of the sets. Lots of room in the B unit.
I put a tsunami at1000 with a 1inch round speaker in a p2k FA2, it required removing the fan, sealing the moveable louvers and building a speaker enclosure from styrene. I have the speaker pointing thru the grill on top. It also required some surgery to the weight to make the decoder and enclosure fit. It was not the simple job that I expected given the size of the loco. But If I find another FA2 at a show for a good price, I'll do it again.
I tried putting a Digitrax 165 LO series/soundbug in a FA-1 set.
There wasn't enough clearance between the componets on the decoder board an those on the factory light/connection board. Manly the capacitor. I think this will hold true for any board style decoder,as the FA/B is not like most other LL/P2K "standards".
I was able to get it to work by making an 8pin extension from a cut down NEM 652 socket,and then spacing it with a thin piece of wood.
I gave upon the Soundbug, and was going to try a LokSound, but I found a PCM FA1 AA set at the BLI rummage sale. They already had factory LokSound, (...and antennas!)
A decoder with a pigtail will probably work better.
IIRC,those units don't have the typical empty space over the rear truck,either, so I think I just had the speaker (without an enclosure) two sided taped to the roof, facing down,behind the cab area.
getting ready to do some conversions on a aba set of 2 fa1 & 1fb2 ,any one have any advise or recommendations on these ? thinking they shouldnt be two bad compared to the rs3s I just did (used at1000 board & small oval) with the help of picts from litchfield .cant find anything on fa fb units but Im sure someone has done em . I would really like to use a bigger speaker if possible .any help would be much help Thanks J.W.