For those of you with lots of experience performing LokSound decoder installation, would appreciate any guidance you can provide on how and where to place the decoder and speaker in the subject locos. Currently, I have either TCS or Digitrax drop in decoders in all of my wide diesels, but am looking to start putting sound into some of the consists this winter. Photos would be nice.
Hi Rick. I've never actually done an install in any of these, but I had planned one for my PA-1's (that project got cancelled when BLI produced it's PA-1's in NKP paint). Because of the placement of the motor/flywheels and the lack of depth in the center part of the frame, my plan was to mill down the rear part of the frame (behind the plastic clip) to accommodate two 220uf, 16v tantalum chip caps (about 3mm high by 4mm deep by 7mm long) and the rear "thick" part of the Loksound. The LokSound would be mounted with the thick back part to the back (sitting over the area milled out to accommodate the keeper caps), and the thin front part sitting over the rear plastic clip. The plan for the speaker was to use an 8x12mm wrapped in an .030 styrene enclosure. The speaker would have been mounted transversely across the front part of the frame. I was going to mill the front part of the frame (the part right in front of the front plastic clip) down to accommodate a 6mm-high enclosure. The .030 styrene enclosure adds about 1.5mm to the overall speaker dimension, so the "cutout" for the speaker would have been 9.5mm from the front of the plastic clip forward and deep enough to clear the front part of the shell. The front headlight and Mars light would have had the light pipes cut off, and would have been lit by 603-size surface mount LEDs glued to the back of the remaining plastic light inserts, with a piece of styrene painted black to separate the Mars light from the headlight. I'm pretty sure all this would have worked, but I never got around to actually doing it. It might also be possible (and maybe easier) to "flip" this install, and mount the Lok and keeper caps in the front, and mill the back of the frame for the speaker. I think I chose the orientation based on my conclusion that the "Lok in back, speaker in front" would require less milling overall than the reverse. But it's been a while since I looked at this. But you're going to have to do some serious frame-milling to do this no matter what. John C.
Hmm, that is an interesting idea. Will have to study the frame some more, but I think you may be on the right path. Have to admit, when I popped the shell off a PA1, yesterday, I had completely forgotten about the plastic motor frame. I believe the E and F units will be more straightforward. Was hoping to get a bit of guidance rather than blaze my own trail.
You may want to cheat just a little and have some outfit like Top Hobby do one for you to use as a template.
Well, after responding to your post, I decided to get out that Kato PA and see if my plan would actually work. I've started milling the frame, so maybe in a couple of days I'll have some photos or else will be able to tell you "nope, not that way." But you are on your own for the E's (I think the same general plan would work for them unless there's room to fit the decoder in the center of the frame, in which case I'd mill the back end to house the speaker/enclosure). John C.
@jdcolombo I just test fitted an E8, and yes, the back of the frame will be best for a speaker. The decoder fits nicely above the rear gears, plenty of room with that long frame. And a couple of caps fit over the front gears (a small piece of styrene to protect the gears and flywheels.) I think your PA ideas will work, but await your experience. @DCESharkman , I was actually thinking along the same path. Of course, once I figure out fitting all this in, the real fun will be the headlights.
OK - I think this is going to work. Here are some preliminary photos: Back end of the frame milled for the keep-alive caps and the thick part of the decoder: Here are two 16v, 220uf tantalum chip caps sitting in the milled-out "well" (I actually milled the well too big, so I stuffed a bit of lead sheet behind the caps to take up the excess space): Here are photos of the front of the frame, milled for the speaker enclosure/speaker: Here are two photos with the speaker test-fit in place (I did find that wrapping the speaker in .030 styrene won't work - it makes the speaker enclosure too long to fit inside the plastic insert in the front of the PA-1 shell that holds the front lights in place. This speaker enclosure is one that is 3D printed and available on Shapeways, made specifically for the Soberton 8x12mm speaker that you can buy from Digikey. For this project, however, I decided to mount an 8x12 from Streamlined Backshop upside down in the enclosure so that I can wire the speaker from on top, rather than having wires coming out the side of the enclosure with no where to go). That's it for today. Tomorrow I'll reassemble the mechanism, put the LokSound in place, and make sure everything fits with the shell on. John C.
Update. Yep, it's going to work. Here's a photo of the reassembled mechanism, before installing the decoder. I've added a couple of pieces of .020 styrene taped down with Kapton tape to protect the flywheels from the wires and hold down the pickup strips. Note also that I've cut the small pickup strip guide "tabs" on the back plastic clip so that the decoder will fit more closely to the clip: And here is the installed decoder. Everything is wired except for the lighting, and I've test-fit the shell, which fits fine. I didn't use the green or purple auxiliary functions for this, so I just cut the wires back and taped them down on the rear piece of styrene with the other wires; if you wanted to get fancy and add marker lighting or even a rear light, then you could use one or both of these for that purpose. For lighting for this one, I've added a small piece of circuit board glued to the front plastic clip that has two 1k, 1/8w SMD resistors on it - two separate "circuits," one for the white wire and one for the yellow, which I'll use for the Mars light since there is no backup light on this unit. There is probably room in the channel to the left of the front plastic clip to use standard 1/8w round carbon film resistors, but I thought the SMD resistors on a piece of circuit board was easier. At this point, I'm going to program the decoder with the Alco 244 file and test it on my layout. Then I'll finish the light wiring. John C.
Wow - that was fast! I would still be setting up the mill and figuring out exactly how to make the cuts (Only 8 more weeks, and then I will have all the time I want to work on these)
Well, once you've done a few of these, you kind of get the hang of what needs to be done. The hardest part is going to be the lighting. To do that, I cut off the headlight and Mars light (this is an SP unit I'm working on; at one time, the plan was to have the shell painted for the NKP; I picked the SP units because the light arrangement and angled numberboards were the same) and glued a 603 SMD LED on the back of each, using some shrink wrap for strain relief, and painting all but the front with a flat black. Here are two photos - the headlight, with some of the shrink wrap, and then the installed Mars light (the Mars light has a larger diameter, so I used three different shrink wraps to make sure the LED and its wires didn't separate from each other or the actual plastic light part). I'll probably finish it sometime today - but the lighting has been the difficult part; so far, I've got about 4 hours of time in doing this, from the moment I opened the Kato box and about an hour of that has been futzing around with the Mars light and headlight. Probably another hour will finish it (I hope). But you now have all the pieces for replicating the installation in your own PA-1. Happy to answer questions - just e-mail me directly at my gmail account (jdcolombo at gmail) if you have questions. John C.
Very nice John. Your sound installs are awesome and inspiring. Thanks to you for sharing as well. Carl
Thanks John for this excellent sound installation and tutorial. Staying cool and having fun with it..... Shades
Hi David. Not easy for this particular model because the numberboards are solid plastic. I think that Kato changed this in later PA's so that you could light the numberboards. The Loksound has 4 function outputs, so there's no problem from that end. John C.
Hi John, Well I wan't sure if that was a newer unit or an older one. My laptop screen is not as easy to see the details as my monitor is. It did sound great and moved nicely....If mine already didn't have decoders in them, I may have had to get sound decoders installed.
Following @jdcolombo John's EXCELLENT tutorial above, I completed updating two PA-1s this weekend with Select Micros: DRGW #s 6001 and 6003. I put a LokPilot into the PB-1 unit, #6002. The most frustrating part of this install (after milling) was that the main headlight (lower) light opening on 6003 was slightly larger than the pipe! So no matter what I did, I couldn't keep the separated (for individually operating headlight and Mars light) pipe in the shell. Well, a couple of small dabs of gel CA on the interior of the shell did wonders. I used 0603 SMD LEDs for all four lights (both A units); upper light is Mars, lower is directional headlamp.
Rick, very nice install and thank you and John for these posts. Giving me that itch as I have two SP PA's and one PB that are just sitting here begging for sound. With you and John helping, I think I shall try it. Oh BTW, I can't hear those Alco's sounds without thinking back a looooong time to my hot rod days. That loping sound reminds me of a high lift cam with solid lifters in a Chevy 454. Giddy up gooooo ! Carl
