SB,
The Soundbug now comes with an 8 ohm speaker, Digitrax isn't great at keeping their website info up-to-date. The decoder works fine with 8 ohm speakers. It will also sound much louder when inside the shell than while you may be testing by itself beforehand.
For power I would have soldered wires to each of the two screw holes on the Soundbug which are used for power pickup and then removed the plastic caps on the Atlas circuit board tabs where the power pickups are attached and just added my wires to them and replaced the caps that hold the wires inplace. In hindsight I think soldering would be a better idea but as these were for a friend I left it easy for him to remove if required.
I also cut off the 8-pin plug connection wires on the Soundbug to reduce it's depth and possible contact with something not desired and covered the stubs with electrical tape to insulate them. I might have had the side of the Soundbug with the stubs placed facing upwards to reduce the chance of a sharp point wearing thru the tape and causing a short.
I recommend the TDS mini oval speaker with the TDS mini oval enclosure available online from Tony's Train Exchange, I've used these in many locomotives with excellent results. One could put something black over the inside of the cab windows to completely hide the speaker if necessary. I've also used silicon caulk to attach speakers to a cab roof which is thinner than a piece of double-sided tape and is still non-permanent if I want to make a change some day.
Don
The web page is wrong - the one I have came with an 8 ohm speaker. The key for volume is having a solid enclosure for the speaker. If I set my Soundbug and speaker on the table and hook it up - it's not very loud. Simply cupping my hand around the speaker increase the volume significantly. The included speaker is almost certainly not appropriate for the loco you are putting this in, but you can find speakers of all different sizes along with enclosures from many sources. 8 ohms is what you want, no special oddball speakers needed.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy,
Thanks for the info. I did find a good picture of the sound bug and I do see the large eyes. It comes with a 32 OHM speaker, I wonder if an 8 OHM would be better for volume.
Thanks
SB
Leaving out the fact that the markers are somewhat unprototypical, if you want to keep them, well, that's your choice - if you're having fun then you're doing it right...
if adding the Soundbug to an existing install that is NOT a Digitrax decoder, you just need to connect track power to the two loops where the screws go when attachign it to a comaptible Digitrax decoder. The two screw eyes are the rail inputs, the inputs are NOT on what looks like a normal 8 pin NMRA connector. I would recommend some sort of conenctors rather than soldering the rail power right to the decoder, so you cna disconnect it for programming. If the stock decoder is arrangeled like Atlas non-decoder circuit boards, the truck pickups are individually wired to the front and rear of the board - however there is a circuit track connectign the front and rear connection points, so if you tap off just the rear or just the front you will get power to the Soundbug from all 8 wheels, not just the front or rear truck.
Don,
Thanks for the reply. I thought about milling some off the frame below the short hood but you are right the cab would be much easier. How did you wire in the Sound Bug? Is it wired into the decoder or just off the truck leads?
I installed Soundbugs in 4 of the Atlas H15-44's for a friend. There's room for the decoder and capacitor on top of the Atlas circuit board and I put mini-oval speakers, with enclosures, attached to the ceiling of the cabs with double-sided tape after removing the figures and control panels. If the cab is running at eye-level you may notice the speaker but normally nobody would see it. I left a fair amount of wire between the decoder and speaker so the shell could be removed with the speaker still connected. Plugs would probably be a good idea. I too liked the marker lights and didn't want to try to figure out how to configure bicolour LED's with a different motor decoder.
On the Atlas decoder F2 is used to turn the marker lights on/off. You should download the 4FncDecoder_Manual.pd and HO_H15-44Manual_Atlas.pdf files from the Atlas website for reference and change CV54 to 4 for F3 (or some other function key), otherwise the marker lights will go on/off with the horn. :-)
The first thing you need to determine is whether there's room for a speaker. You're right that the Atlas dual-mode decoders were actually made by Lenz, but that's immaterial insofar as fitting a speaker into the locomotive is concerned.
Hello,
Has anyone put sound into any of the dual mode decoder Atlas Locos? I believe these have a Lenz decoder in them. I am wanting to put FM sound into a H 16 44. Would it be best to strip out the Lenz and go with a Tsunami or QSI set up or add a sound bug to the Lenz?
The main thing I am concerned about is keeping the small direction lights working in the marker lights.