Will the Athearn plug & lay board accept a Soundbug? It appears to have an 8 socket module that looks like it was made for a device like a Soundbug.
Short answer:
No.
Longer answer:
The 8-pin socket on the Athearn plug & play board (referred to as an NMRA Medium Plug) is for a "motor and lights" decoder, and the Soundbug is a sound-only device. So while you could power the Soundbug from the appropriate pins of that 8-pin socket, that's about as far as their compatibility goes.
No. The 8-pin socket on the Athearn board is an NMRA standard socket for a motor/light control decoder (or Tsunami with an adapter harness).
The Digitrax Soundbug is sound only, with no motor or light control circuitry.
The SoundBug is designed to plug into a Digitrax 16x series decoder.
However, all that the SoundBug needs is the two power leads direct from the track. This provides both power and DCC signals for the decoder. You can clip off the plug and just wire the SoundBug directly to power leads on your locomotive.
However, there may be issues programming the decoder. You will probably need to program the SoundBug separately from the locomotive, using clip leads to connect it to your programming track.
Oh, I just noticed, it's your first post. Welcome aboard!
Does this engine have a motor decoder already, and are you running DCC? If not, the SoundBug isn't going to be what you want. It is strictly DCC, and has no motor capability.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasley The SoundBug is designed to plug into a Digitrax 16x series decoder. However, there may be issues programming the decoder. You will probably need to program the SoundBug separately from the locomotive, using clip leads to connect it to your programming track.
No programming issues when used with those Digitrax 16x series decoders.
Digitrax specifically engineered the Soundbug to not have any CV overlap with this series of decoders, except for the address-related CV's.
None of the inrush issues often associated with other brands of sound decoders, either.
I have a couple of the DH165K1A / SFX004 combinations, and programming both of the decoders together in the loco and without a booster has never been an issue...
Edit: Added clarification in bold.