Hey guys - I am thinking of converting over to DCC, and would like to install sound in some of my steamers. I am particularly interested in doing sound in a Spectrum Consolidation and a Kato Mikado. Could anyone point me to a good "how to" tutorial for this? Also, what sized speakers fit in the tenders of these locos?
Before I get into specifics, you should probably think about whether you want to use a single or double decoder method. Let me explain that. The best modern sound decoders for N scale applications are the Micro-Tsunami (officially the TSU-750) from Soundtraxx and the micro Loksound from Loksound. I use the Micro-Tsunami in all my sound installations because I like the sound better than the Loksound (the Tsunami uses 16-bit sound files, while the Loksound still uses 8-bit; I think the Tsunami's sounds are more realistic-sounding) and the Tsunami uses standard 8-ohm speakers, while the Loksound needs a special 100-ohm job that you can only get through Loksound dealers. Both of these decoders have advanced motor control along with their sound functions. But unless the locos you are working with already have wiring back to the tender for front headlight, power pickup and motor power, you're going to have to run 6 wires (blue/white for the headlight; red/black for power pickup and orange/gray for motor power) from the tender (where you'll fit the decoder and speaker) to the engine. Lots of folks do this, and Powersteamguy (a/k/a Bob Ellis) is a master at this. But I've never had much success doing it; the wires always seem to upset the locomotive balance. Plus, I prefer that my tenders be "detachable" rather than hard-wired to the engine. So instead of using the motor control features of the Tsunami, I tend to use a two-decoder method: a motor-only decoder in the engine itself for motor control, and the Tsunami mounted in the tender with a speaker for sound. That means I'm "wasting" the motor control features, but I prefer this method (I also think that the Lenz Silver Mini, which I use exclusively for motor control, has better motor control than the Tsunami; others disagree). Now for your specific questions. Installation of either a micro-Loksound or micro-Tsunami in a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 will be VERY difficult using the original short tender. This is because of Bachmann's crazy "shell within a shell" tender design, in which an inner shell with the coal load and weight fits inside the outer shell. The result is that there just isn't much space left for a decoder and speaker of any size. I think that a 10mm speaker and enclosure will work and provide enough left over room for the micro-Tsunami, but I haven't actually done it yet (post-holiday project). You can also get a medium-USRA tender from Bachmann, which has a bit more room, and then you could probably use a 15mm round speaker. Things with the Kato Mike are much happier. Bob Ellis has a whole tutorial for installing a micro-Loksound decoder in the tender of a Mike, with wiring to the engine for motor control and headlight. I do it differently. I mount a Lenz Silver Mini in the cab of the Mike (it literally just fits), with the wires passing through the very top edge of the boiler shell (over the flywheel which is inside). Once you are past this step, wiring for motor control is a cinch - you use the solder pads on the headlight board (after cutting through the traces to isolate the headlight) for power pickup and to wire the headlight, and you solder the orange and gray wires directly to the tabs of the motor brushes for motor power, pop the shell back on, and you're done with that phase. For sound, I use a 15mm speaker in a round enclosure, available from any Soundtraxx dealer. Here's a link for it at Litchfield Station: Litchfield::... This speaker with its round enclosure (which you buy separately) will fit nicely inside the bottom of the Kato tender at the very front, below the coal load. You cut a 3/8" hole in the top of the tender shell below the coal load for sound egress, plus drill a bunch of very small (#70) holes in the coal load which acts as a sort of speaker grille. That leaves plenty of room in back for a micro-Tsunami and its "keeper" capacitor (the capacitor supplies power to the TSU if power pickup is interrupted by dirty track; trust me on this: you NEVER should install a sound decoder without a capacitor, because the sound will regularly cut out on you and drive you crazy. Ask me how I know this <grin>.) You wire the Tsunami's power pickup to the phosphor-bronze pickup strips in the bottom of the tender, wire up the capacitor and speaker wires, and you're done, except for adding some weight (lead putty, cut sheet lead over the Tsunami, etc.). I'll try to post a photo later of the component layout in the tender of one of my Mikes. John C.
I use Lok_Sound decoders and speaker in the Kato Mikado, The decoder and speaker is housed in the tender. My tutorial for this installation is in the July-August 2007 issue of N Scale Magazine. I have no trouble passing five/six wires from the steamer to the tender. The installation can be done with either five or six wires traveling from the steamer to the tender, I've done over sixty decoder installlations in Kato Mikado's using this iechnique. If you don't want sound it works just as well with a Lenz Gold JST decoder which has a plug that you can disconnect the wiring from the tender to the steamer. In a Spectrum 2-8-0, you can use a Lenz mini decoder in the boiler of the Spectrum 2-8-0. For sound I would usw a Lok-Sound decoder and speaker in the tender. Again, in this case wiring must pass from the steamer to the tender which isn't a problem if done correctly. You must do so surgery inside the tender to get the decoder and speaker seated properly. *** Note - Using the Lok Sound decoder you must use the Lok Sound speaker that is supplied with the decoder. The Lok Sound decoder can't use the 8 ohm speakers that are commonly used for sound decoder installations. The Lok Sound speakers come in various sizes and shapes.
Drigitrax also makes sound only decoder that fits nicely into the tenders. My solution has been to wire the decoder into the loco and wire the sound units in the tender. This way there aren't any wires going between the tender and the loco. The main problem with the digirax is that they don't have a specific sound for a 2-8-0 and a 2-8-2. They just have a "generic" steam sound. But they do have a library of sounds that you can upload onto the decoder. And they library is open source so they are adding to it all the time. Just one more possibility to consider. Eric
There is hope for the 2-8-0 to make things easier. The new USRA Standard's that Bachmann is selling seprately use a new tender floor that no longer uses the full sides. There is a lot more room in the tender, even with the light board in it, which can be removed to get even more room. They use a metal floor now which helps eliminate the need for additional weight. I helped write a full review of all the tender offerings for the upcomming NTRAK Steam Handbook 2008 Addenum. I think all the new tenders except maybe the slope offer the possibility of sound. The Vanderbilt may be tight also because of the narrow width.
Thanks guys for all of the great information. I have not decided yet whether to do the dual decoder route or the one decoder in the tender route yet. As I am just beginning in DCC, which method would you think would be easier for installation? At this point, I am thinking of doing the dual decoder route. I would like to get all my steamers up and running first, and then decide which ones I want to install sound in. Also, I have heard that the Kato Mike conversion is rather difficult. Powersteamguy, I am going to pick up the N-scale mag article you wrote. Hopefully, it won't be too difficult once I look at the diagrams and the instructions.
I was wondering if the new tenders they released would have additional room. Also, I heard there is a PC board in these tenders. I also see that they advertise them as "DCC ready." Does it have a DCC socket or something?
Mike: My tutorial uses actual photo's of an installation using the Lok Sound decoder and speaker. If you follow the photo's in the article, the installation is easy. It should take you no more than an hour to do your first Kato Mikado sound decoder installation. As for the two decoder approach, I see no need to spend an extra $30 for a mini Lenz silver decoder. The Motor controls on a Lok-Sound or micro Tsunami are equal to or surpass the motor functions in the Lenz mini silver decoder. *** Note_ I've used the Lenz silver mini decoder in most of my steamer installations before the advent of the ESU micro Lok Sound or Soundtraxx micro tsunami decoder. Have fun...
Mike: The new Spectrun tenders are DCC ready for Bachmann Spectrum steamers that have the tenders plug configuration. You can remove the light board and have more than adequate room for a sound decoder and speaker.
I know that some guys on here use the Tsunami sound, but others use the Loksound. I know that Tsunami uses 16 bit sounds, while Loksound is 8 bit. Can you really tell the difference with an N-scale speaker?
The Loksound is pretty good (much better than the Digitrax's stock sounds), but yes, I prefer the Tsunami's sound - even through an N scale speaker. If you haven't yet looked at the video I posted of one of my Mike's equipped with a Tsunami (in another thread I started today), you'll see that even with the tiny speakers we have to use, you can get a fair amount of volume. You don't get any bass, but you do get decent mid-range from about 500hz up, and the midrange is what has most of the sound "clues." Think of it this way: even on a tiny AM radio, or the speaker in an iPhone, you can tell the difference between a clarinet and an oboe because you hear the midrange sound clues even on those tiny speakers. The Loksound does have the advantage of being programmable for specific sounds, which the Tsunami is not. But I prefer the overall sound of the Tsunami - things like the bell, in particular, and the percussive nature of the chuffs sound more realistic to me. Whether this is due to 8-bit vs. 16-bit or better recording techniques by Soundtraxx, I don't know. YMMV. John C.
Mike: Lok Sound uses a more refined speaker (100 ohm) than the stock 8 ohm speaker that is used for most sound decoders. You can't use an 8 ohm speaker with a Lok Sound decoder as the sound will be distorted.Lok Sound supplies this speaker when you purchase the decoder. It all comes down to operator preference. I also have micro Tsunami sound decoders installed in some of my steamers. Have fun....
For what it's worth. I have installed Tsunami sound in my Lifelike Berkshire by following John Colombo's very detailed and illustrated directions and am extremely pleased. The sound is very good in my 14x18 room with around the room shelf layout. In fact, it is readily heard upstairs from the walk out basement. This was my first DCC and sound installation and while not easy with the great instructions it was successful. I plan to do more including the a Kato Mike i just bought.
The Lok Sound decoder has been 16 bit for at least 2 years, all that means is there is more storage for sound files, and has nothing to do with the sound quality. You can also make your own recordings and install them on the Lok Sound for custom files. That is the biggest advantage with Lok Sound, you can change the decoder to any kind of sound file you want, steam or diesel. You can upgrade the firmware on the decoder also this is nice if you have older decoders. It is the only sound decoder that I use for the above reasons.
This is not exactly correct. Yes, the most recent version of Loksound decoders have 16mb of storage capacity for sound files (which I think works out to the ability to store something like 150 seconds of sound). However, the sound files are sampled using 8-bit data, not 16 bit data (the Loksound has 4 independent channels using 8-bit sampling). The storage capacity and the data sample size are different things. An audio CD uses 16-bit "words" as its sample size, and takes 44,100 samples per second. The 16-bit encoding scheme was adopted by Sony and Philips at the dawn of the CD era because it was generally considered the minimum necessary for high fidelity audio recording and playback. There is a very audible difference in audio quality between sound sampled using 16-bit encoding vs. 8-bit, though whether this would make a major difference in model train sound applications given the kinds of sounds (e.g., chuffs) and the size of the speakers is debatable. This isn't Beethoven's 9th we're dealing with here. But I can guarantee you that you would hear the difference in music on an iPod if the song were sampled at only 8-bits vs. 16 bits. But there is no question that the programmability of the Loksound makes it far more flexible in potential sound applications than the Tsunami - assuming that you (1) buy the Loksound Programmer to do the programming and (2) can find or record the sound files you want to use. John C.
Bob, Will the Tsunami handle both the Horn and Whistle sounds, as well as drive the Mars Light? I have 3 people that are wanting me to install sound in GS-4's but I also want to be able to take care of the lighting effects with the decoder also. The GS-4's "Mars Light" is a joke. Is there a decoder that will do all in one or do I need a Richmond Controls or Ngineering Mars light driver along with the decoder?
Well, I'm not Bob, but I think I can answer this, and the answers are all yes. You can configure the Tsunami to blow the whistle on F2, blow a horn on F3 and it has many lighting effects programmable in CV's 49-52, including Mars, Pyle Gyralight, ditch lights, etc. etc. I've never used the Mars function available in the Tsunami myself, so I can't tell you what exactly it looks like, but given Soundtraxx's usual attention to detail, I'll bet it's pretty darn good. You might want to go to the Soundtraxx web site and download the complete user's manual for the Tsunami series. Pages 42-43 of the User Manual explain how to set up the Tsunami for whistle and horn operation (note that the Heavy Steam version is the only one that comes with BOTH whistles and horns). The complete user manual is very, very helpful for stuff like this, and is actually pretty well-written. John C.
Skip: The answer to all your questions are yes. John went into the details. Sorry that I didn't answer your post immediately, but I'm out of town and don't have access to a computer 24/7. The micro Tsunami has the GS-4 specific whistle and horn files which you can assign to specific F functions. You can also control the Mars light using specific lighting functions. Have fun....
