Loksound Select: Automatic horn at starts & stops

[Alantrains]

Yes I agree Stix, none of my WOWs blow the whistle unless I press the horn button or f2

[wjstix]

Interesting, I've installed several TCS Wow Sound decoders, and none of them "auto-magically" blew the horn as described. I've heard of sound decoders that do something like that when operating on DC, since you don't have function buttons to blow the horn manually.

I know that the QSI decoders that came with BLI engines years ago could be set up to the bell rang anytime the engine was set to run in reverse.

[rrinker]

 Probably not doable on a Select, but a full V4 or V5, there should be enough sound slots and enough space in the mapping table to create a sequence. The conditionals are there - stop to moving forward, stop to moving reverse, etc.

                                 --Randy

[tstage]

Thanks for giving it a whirl, Ed.  As previouisly mentioned, it's no deal breaker; was only curious.  And I still like the automatic feature on my TCS Wow...

Tom

[gmpullman]

I don't see why you couldnt, other than the only available sound is short horn. Afterall, when you turn the throttle up you hear a short air letoff (independent brake?) So using function mapping, you add short horn to that, just not delayed so the horn sounds first, then the brake release... now how to have it happen twice for forward and three times for reverse might take some playing around.

Loksound selects do have a grade crossing horn sequence at F22.

If time permits I'll mess around with some function mappings and see if I can get anywhere. Matt Herman was making some youtube videos that were helpful but there haven't been any recent ones.

[edit]

Well, after playing around for a while I didn't have much luck. There IS a short air letoff sound each time you press forward and reverse. This encouraged me thinking I could simply add a sound function to the same slot. Trouble is, the sound project I was experimenting with didn't have the "short horn" sound slot.

Different sound projects have different available sounds but, of course, you can only use what is there, unlike a V4 decoder.

C'est La Vie

Cheers. Ed

[SPSOT fan]

My experience would agree with Mark, ESU doesn’t put such feature in their decoders. Honestly, I once ran a Bachmann loco that belonged to another person, and had such features, and I found it a bit annoying that the decoder did stuff I prefer to do myself. I would also agree radio chatter, etc it a bit ridiculou, but whatever.

[tstage]

I get what you're saying, Mark, and it's no big deal to do it manually.  I was just curious if it could be programmed in.  That said, I still would consider it far less "gimmicky" than station annoucements, radio chatter, and shoveling coal.

Tom

[Mark R.]

Not that I'm aware of. ESU generally considers those kind of configurations "gimmicky" as they don't happen automatically like that on a real engine. The engineer has to manually do that - all part of the realistic hands-on approach of running a sound decoder.

Mark.

[tstage]

As a default TCS Wow decoders sound their horn or whistle prior to the locomotive releasing its air brakes to move forward (long/long), to back up (short/short/short), or when applying its air brakes while standing (short).  Does anyone know if Loksound decoders can be set up to do the same thing?

Thanks,

Tom