Low cost sound possibly.

[Anonymous]

Ok well this is a start. Im a A2 Student undertaking a electronics project for my A level. I have recently got into G-scale model railroading. I have a friend who owns a fairly large layout who got me into the hobby, anyway back to the topic title. I have come up with a way to make a low cost Sound unit for our trains. talking maybe £40-£50 brand new. I was wondering if you could give me some feed back. ill give u a list of featues i thought that would be good, please feel free to let me know if i have missed any;

Can be used on analouge or digital trains
Costome sounds can be recorded onto the device by a end user
The device will be capabul of emulating engin sounds on deisels steam and electric trains, depending on the sound recorded.
The steam sounds will be syncronised to the wheels by hte use of a small addon board ~£5.

Any feedback you guys can give me would be greate as i may well produce these in small numbers if the interest is there.

Thanks for your time :)

[cacole]

If you can turn out this product at the price you say, my opinion is that you could definitely sell as many as you can manufacture, depending on the currency exchange rate. The cheapest sound system for G-scale trains as an add-on item in the U.S. that offers more than just steam chuff or diesel motor sounds seems to be the SoundTraxx Sierra. Their Web site will give you an idea of what their system offers in the way of sounds compared to yours. The biggest challenge I foresee with your approach is the end user getting the sounds to record into the module, especially for an older steam locomotive.

[Anonymous]

The end user recording will be by way of a line in jack on the device similar to that on a minidisk player or a computer. the total recording time of the device is going to be around 60Seconds, may be longer but the qulity is reduced at longer times. THanks for the feed back and i will have a look at the site you mentioned.

[Anonymous]

humm Ok i have had a look at the compitition by the look of it you cant change the sounds on them. but they do have as they put it "polyphonic sound processors" allowing them to play more than one sound at a time. this i cant do but i may be able to play 2 sounds at a time if needs be.

But compared to $189 my device will have value for money on its side at ~$75 im still looking into alternatives so i may have a breakthrough will have to see. i will let you know if i do.

[Anonymous]

Just off the top of the head, a workable solution could probably made around an MP3 player. Using the already existing hardware/software to download sounds/tracks on the player might just be the user interface. Plug in the module and there you go. Probably would be workable fairly easily, with "ambiance" type sound effects. Now if one wanted to synchronize with the model, that becomes more complex, talk about a DCC decoder perhaps, with cam input......

[Anonymous]

i have looked at the MP3 idea and it would be easyer for a end user to add soundes ect, but the problem comes with things like looping engin sounds will look into it a bit more closely. thanks for the feedback though. i would like my sound unit to work with both dcc and analouge trains though so it must be independant of the dcc decoder when one isnt present. Ill let you know when i have trauled through some more data sheets.

[cacole]

I assumed in your original message that you meant on-board sound installed in the tender or locomotive, did you not? When you start getting into MP3 files, CDs, etc., that could not be an on-board system.

Also, you would probably get a better response to your idea if you moved this message topic over to the Garden Railways magazine forum.

[Anonymous]

cacole --
MP3's stored on Flash memory, are real possibilites for on board sound equipement. A number of MP3 players available to consumbers would easily fit inside a HO 40ft box car. The roll your own idea below, would contain perhaps 5 or 6 ic's. Probably fitting on a 1" x 3" PCB. (Of course you'd need a speaker.)

cnchamis --
Take a look the ATMEL's (www.atmel.com) AT89C51SND1 product. Includes a MP3 decoder, USB, and various flavors of FLASH memory interface as well as a general purpose 8051 compatible micro processor. That , a flash, usb port., a bunch of code and a handfuls of appropriate sounds could make exactly what you need. Well it should be low cost, but certainly would be a project!

[cacole]

Yes, but by the time you purchase an MP3 player, flash memory, batteries, etc. you have paid more than you would for a commercial on-board sound system such as the SoundTraxx Sierra, that can be controlled from either DC or DCC. Now, if you already have an MP3 player that you don't use for music anymore, and are willing to give it up to mount in a locomotive tender or box car......