Installing sound

[Rambo2]

Is it easy to do in a proto 2000 gp 9 or 18? I only have dc and do not have any experince in electronics 

[RR_Mel]

There isn’t much room in the Proto 2K locomotives.  Pull the shell and see if it’s doable.

 

 

Mel

 

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

 

[BigDaddy]

I milled the frame on a Life like GP9 to make room for a speaker.  Of course you need a friend with a milling machine.  The soldering is not difficult, but if you've never soldered, you need some practice on something else.

[hon30critter]

Milling the frame might not be necessary if you use 'sugar cube' speakers. Here is some information on them:

http://sbs4dcc.com/sugarcubespeakers.html

http://sbs4dcc.com/tutorialstipstricks/sugarcubespeakernotes.html

http://sbs4dcc.com/tutorialstipstricks/wiringmultispeakers.html

Many modelers have been able to install sugar cube speakers in very tiny spaces. This little 25 ton critter has two speakers:

Dave

[gmpullman]

I have yet to tackle any of my GP series Proto 2000 engines but I did a pair of SD-9s a while back and managed to squeeze two cube speakers in there:

SD_9-decoder-sp by Edmund, on Flickr

SD_9-decoder-3 by Edmund, on Flickr

There's just enough room on top of the weight to squeeze a Loksound Select in there.

SD_9-decoder-2 by Edmund, on Flickr

SD_9-decoder-sp3 by Edmund, on Flickr

I filed the old mounting bosses down but I don't recall having to remove any more of the weight. The second speaker is mounted to a styrene bracket and is suspended in the cavity of the cab.

SD_9-decoder-7 by Edmund, on Flickr

TCS has an excellent reference at their website with clear photos. Here is a look at how they did the GP-7.

https://tcsdcc.com/installation/ho-scale/2040

 

 

Good Luck, Ed

[Stevert]

Look for a used P2K GP9 or GP18 with factory sound at a swap meet or train show. They're not hard to find and are usually reasonably priced.  (If you're not too fussy, you can get a GP20 and just turn off the turbo.)

Then just swap the shells to get your desired road on the chassis with sound.

Once you do that, put the "wrong" shell on the non-sound chassis, take it back to that swap meet or train show (or that auction site) and sell it.

The end result is the road name you want converted to sound for less than what a good sound decoder and speaker(s) would cost. No electrical or soldering experience necessary!      

[faraway]

How much pulling power do you need? My trains are about 5 cars long. I remove all weights (the chassis is heavy enough for short trains) and have plenty of space for the decoder and the speaker.

[mbinsewi]

Rambo2

I only have dc and do not have any experince in electronics 

Doesn't the OP need to convert this to DCC for sound?

Mike.

[rrinker]

 Well, if he wants to get full use fo the sound he will. Otherwise he will just have prime mover and (maybe, depending on the decoder) some automatic sounds, like the horn tooting when starting off.

 That's stillt eh dirty little secret, Sound and DC just aren't good together. The loco won;t even move until others, that do not have sound decoders fitted, are already moving at a decent clip, at least any halfway decent modern loco. Because the alternate would be the sound loco running around silently until it got to a certain speed, then the sounds would mysteriously start up. That's probably even worse.

                          --Randy