Now let me get this straight...

[Anonymous]

I know that the Intermountain F units are built with sound installations in mind. During development, Sountrax and Intermountain worked together so you can buy a soundtrax board that mounts where the standard circut board is located, and the speakers essentially plug in. Quite a nice set up I think.

James

[rrinker]

Rexhea has it right.

"Easy sound" probably means there is a space cleared out to mount the speaker. Putting speakers in diesel locomotives is not always an easy thing. For example, as far as I know, the non-sound versions of the new Atlas Trainmaster has the same metal frame as the sound equipped version - this means there are two nice mouting places already part of the frame where speakers could be easily mounted.

Of course, per a thread in the layouts section, "DCC Ready" is not an official term by any means, and just because a loco has a socket for a decoder does nto make it DCC Ready. In some cases, there are shorts in the wiring, other parts that have to be removed, or other parts put in backwards, all of which lead to poor operation under DCC, or damage to the decoder. See Proto 2000 GP-38, SD-9, MDC Critter, etc. Other models from the same manufacturer are JUST FINE, so go figure.

--Randy

[simon1966]

I am not sure what is meant by the two terms decoder and DCC chip? In my experience, the Decoder is what gives the locomotive DCC capability. I would assume that the term DCC chip refers to a component on the decoder board. So they are essentially one and the same thing.

DCC ready means that the locomotive is capable of having a DCC decoder installed with a minimum of effort. In many cases there are DCC decoders designed as plug and play installations for these locomotives. However, some installations may require extra effort including soldering, cutting tracks and installing different lights.

DCC ready with easy sound would imply that the installtion of a sound decoder from Soundtraxx and speaker would be fairly easy. There would be no decoder in this locomotive.

A DCC equipped loco will have a non sound DCC decoder installed. You would have to either replace this with a full sound decoder or add one of the sound only decoders and speakers from Soundtraxx. Not neccessarily an easy thing to do.

DCC with sound (Like the BLI locos) is the ball of wax as you put it.

[rexhea]

Nope! Sorry!
First forget the word "chip". It is just jargon for an integrated electronic circuit.

For Loco's, there are two different types of decoders; those that have sound capabilities and those that do not..

If it says DCC ready: It means it is wired so that the installation of a decoder is a simple matter of plugging it in. It will not have a speaker installed. You have to buy a decoder

I don't know about DCC ready with easy sound.

DCC w/sound, means the sound type of decoder is installed with speaker. (Ready to go with sound.)

Summary: It you buy a DCC ready Loco, you have to buy a decoder of one type or the other for DCC operation. If you want sound you will also have to buy a speaker and install it somewhere in the loco or tender

REX

[SpaceMouse]

I've been working on getting a new locomotive forever and I'm trying to figure out what the catalogs are talking about. This reguards DCC and sound.

There are three basic components in the loco:

The decoder:
The DCC chip
And the speaker

If you want sound, it is built into the decoder, not the chip.

If the catalog says DCC ready. I has a non-sound decoder. You need the chip.

If it says DCC ready, easy sound. You have a decoder, but you have to install the speaker and buy a chip.

If it says with DCC it has a decoder and chip but won't make sounds. Adding a speaker won't do it.

It it says DCC wit sound you get the whole ball of wax.

Is this close?