Does anyone have any links or photos or diagrams or instructions for adding sound (say, perhaps a TSU-750 Soundtraxx light steam and 3/4" speaker) to a DCC-equipped Bachmann modern 4-4-0. Any help at all would be highly appreciated.
I ripped out the PC board, BUT, I labeled each wire I unsoldered and matched them up with the 750 wires. Quite easy.. A 750 ohm, 1/4 watt resistor in series with one of the headlight wires. Which wire is not important but some will disagree.Be advised, Bachmann does not use NMRA color codes for the wires.
Took a messy picture looking for the ever present critics here. The shell will cover the mess.
URL=http://s98.photobucket.com/user/richg1998/media/Spectrum%204-4-0/Tenderwithmicro-Tsunami2.jpg.html][/URL]
I put an oil lamp light on it.
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Another possibility. The TCS WOW decoders are the latest and quite nice. The Tsunami is maybe second generation for SoundTraxx and quite old but sound decoders are evolving as new software and technology shows up. Try not to get caught in a time warp when it comes to DCC.
Rich
Or Loksound V4 or Select Micro - MUCH smaller than tha Tsu-750 and no heat issues.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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Go to the website for the decoder companies or the sellers of the decoders and compare the specs to be sure of what you would get. I did that some time ago and stored the specs for each in a Word document.
At the time I did this, the LokSound Micro was a 0.5 amp limit and not enough current for a couple locos I had. The 750 at the time was a better fit.
For some locos, the 750 has temp issues, sometimes On30 locos that SoundTraxx recommends the 750 and few people had temp issues with a couple diesels. I know I did with one diesel.. A piece of aluminum has to be strapped to the bottom of the 750.
My 4-4-0 and 4-6-0 locos had no temp issues with the 750.
The WOW decoders are slightly larger but I know that will change.
I keep a dial caliper handy to measure the tender or diesel shells.
Hmm, the Micros have always been the same .75 amp as the TSU-750. What's funny is that underneath the shrink wrap, the TSU-750 has a chunk of metal to act as a heatsink - but apparantly it's not enough, or maybe it's just all the shrink wrap covering it. No heatsinks at all on the Loksounds. But, they are open to the air. Nice thing, if there is room (and since the Select Micro is about the size of a dime, there should be), you can connect a keep-alive, either a simple capacitor or a fancier 3-wire type like the Lenz ESP module. Or one of the KA modules from TCS.
They have temporaily stopped making the WOW decoders with internal Keep-Alive, that makes them much smaller. You cna still connect an external KA, which is probably a more flexible solution anyway.