Coming up with a plan

I decided to do this project for several reasons, the most important of which is that this locomotive is my daughter's and she wanted sound in it. I've heard sound in this identical loco at a show, so I knew it was possible, but I never talked to the guy about how he did it, what decoder he used, etc. But the biggest question was – could I do this myself?? Having just got into DCC in January 2010, I have only added drop-in decoders to locos, so going from that to a retro-fitting of an old loco (mine being first released in 1993), with sound, in N scale is quite a task for me!! I still consider myself a novice Model Railroader, though some would probably consider me at the intermediate level, I still have nagging doubts about my ability.

The first task was to determine what decoder and speaker combination I could cram into the shell. Obviously, milling the frame was a given. I carefully measured the obvious spots for a decoder and speaker and bought the TSU-750 Micro Tsunami decoder from Soundtraxx, along with a 1/2” speaker and enclosure kit. I actually bought several other speakers to test out, but this is the one I settled on as the best “bang for the buck” given the space limitations.  I also figured while I was at it, I'd change the white LED to a golden white LED and put in some Micro Trains couplers to finish off the package.

I had initially hoped that the decoder would fit on top of the frame at the back with some milling to the rear part of the frame, but once I had the decoder in hand, it was clear that wasn't going to happen. I could have put a larger speaker in the fuel tank had the decoder fit, but there was no way. Altering the plan, I test fit the decoder inside the fuel tank where it fit quite nicely and the 1/2” speaker was a perfect fit at the rear of the loco (with some milling). The bonus is the E8 shell has an opening in the rear door of the loco for the window without the plastic covering it – a perfect way for the sound to get out without drilling holes in the shell. Time to work the plan. The first photo shows all the parts before assembly.

Changing the LED and Lightboard

First task is to remove the shell. Quite simple on this loco, just lift the ladders over the fuel tank slightly away from the body, and you can gently shake the frame out of the shell. With the shell removed, the next thing I decided to tackle was changing the white LED to a golden white LED. This particular loco has a light board already in place, so I just had to remove the old LED, set up the lightboard to be DCC friendly, and then put the new LED on. I found a PDF document online that Ron Bearden wrote on doing just this task, so I followed his instruction.

Removing the light board requires you to pull out a plastic clip that holds it in place. See below:

And when it is removed:

The first task I thought I'd try is removing the old LED. Solder wick in hand, I kept heating and wicking the solder on the LED leads until I got it all cleaned up and the old LED slipped out. I shortened the leads on the new LED slightly so they were the same length as the old one. I bent the ends over to fit back in the holes and soldered them onto the board. I'm very happy I've built so many Fast Tracks turnouts and read a lot of good posts on soldering on the MRH boards, as I've developed some pretty good soldering skills to do these tasks.

Next I removed the resistor in the middle of the board. This took a little doing and I wondered if this might be beyond my skill level, but with some patience and solder wick, I managed to get it off and more importantly, not lose it.  Work slowly and carefully so you don't melt anything you don't wan to.  With the resistor off, I filed two gaps in the circuit board – one that will be gapped with the resistor I removed. This modification allows the light to work off the decoder function rather than the track power running along the body-length pickup strips.  See below:

Finally, I carefully soldered the resistor over the center gap that I had cut. This was also tricky, but with some patience and the help of some tweezers, I got the resistor in place, and my lightboard work was complete. See below.

Nice

I have been very curious about the possibilites of this new decoder.

I have a N scale Bachman 2-8-0 I have been holding off on putting a decoder in until I can get sound into it. This may be the ticket..

Chris

Milling the frame

The lightboard was one of the easier tasks, but now its time to get down to business. Milling the frame of the loco to fit the decoder and speaker will likely be the biggest task in this project, so I began taking apart the loco. The lightboard had already been removed, so I removed the fuel tank by prying the four tabs up, two at a time, and slipping it off. Next, I removed the pickup strips that run the length of the loco on both sides and then pulled out the worm gears on both ends. The motor then slips out fairly easily and the trucks are removed with clips on the frame, similar to the fuel tank. I have to say I appreciate Kato's design and how things fit nicely but are still easy to take apart and put back together. Finally, I took a sharpie marker and marked up the area of the frame at the fuel tank to fit the decoder.

On to milling the frame. I bought myself a Dremel 9901 Tungsten Carbide Cutter, based on a post in the MRH forums. After a few minutes of futility, I thought there must be a better way. The metal in the frame is quite soft and it just kept gumming up the threads in the cutter, so I was constantly cleaning them out and getting very little cutting actually completed. Next, I tried a cutoff wheel, and while it was slightly better, it still was going to take a long time to complete the task at hand. I had recently purchased a Dremel accessory set on sale at a local home supplier and started digging through there to see what else might work. I came across a 1.5” metal EZ Lock cutoff wheel and thought I'd give it a shot.  Success. This was definitely the best tool for this particular job, but I had to work for about a minute and then let it sit for 5-10 minutes to let everything cool down. Not ideal, but workable.  See the 9901 Tungsten Carbide cutter and Metal EZ Lock Cutoff wheel below:

After milling out what I thought was enough space for the decoder, I tested the fit. Not quite enough in places, so kept at it and test fit again. It seemed to fit nicely, except two of the four clips of the fuel tank wouldn't latch onto the frame. So I kept at it. And at it. And a little more. And then some more, until I realized there was plenty of room for the decoder in the space. Puzzled, I tried flipping the fuel tank around, and sure enough, it fit perfectly! I milled out too much of the frame, but not an excessive amount. Once I completed this task, I cut in some grooves along the side and bottom edge of the frame to route the wires from the decoder up to the top of the motor. These grooves allow the shell to fit properly without the wires interfering or getting crushed. I also shaved out the end of the fuel tank (next to the rear truck) to allow the wires to get out of the fuel tank into the grooves so they aren't pinched at that point. With this cut out and the grooves cut into the frame at the bottom edge and sides, I test fit the decoder and wires, routing them through the grooves and then put the shell on and they fit perfectly.  See the final milling and test fit of the decoder in the fuel tank, as well as the ends cut out of the fuel tank.

Next, the frame at the back of the loco needed to be milled out to fit the speaker and housing. I measured it up and marked it again with the sharpie marker and got out the Dremel. I'll mention at this point that one of my job tasks is preaching safety and reducing accidents in our workplace. With this in mind, when doing the milling I made sure to wear pants, long sleeve shirt and work gloves, as well as a full face shield, dust mask and I went the extra mile and put safety glasses under the face shield. I've seen several accidents where something came in under the faceshield and still got in the eyes, so I thought I'd take the extra precaution. After the task was completed and I saw a little bit of dust on my safety glasses, I was glad I took this extra precaution. Fine metal shards in your eye is not a pleasant feeling but I digress.  See the markup of the speaker area:

Before milling out the speaker area, I put the enclosure together with a bit of plastic cement.  I didn't have room to add more space to the back of the enclosure (the kit comes with spacers to add length to the back of the speaker to give it better sound), so its just two pieces put together and the speaker fits in the front.  Here is the enclosure together with the speaker:

I completed milling the area for the speaker enclosure and test fit with the shell. It didn't quite fit, so I had to mill just a bit more until it did. The biggest task complete! I am concerned how much pulling power I took away by removing this much of the frame, but I plan no more than 6 passenger cars to be pulled by this loco, so it should still be enough to do so. Unfortunately, I figure I did remove about 20% of the frame in this process – always a potential problem, but even more so in N scale.  Below is the milling complete with the speaker enclosure in place.

Next up will be changing the couplers to Micro Trains knuckle couplers.

Haven't tried the steam sounds, Chris

but my assumption was always that the steam sounds were better than the diesel sounds, and the sound I got out of this little decoder and tiny speaker was much more than I was expecting.  You might be able to get an even larger speaker in your steamer that would make it sound even better.   

Installing Micro Trains couplers

While waiting for the frame to cool between cuts, I thought I'd check out the couplers and see what it was going to take for me to get these changed out. I ended up alternating between these two tasks, working on the milling, then working on the couplers while the frame and cutting wheel were cooling. The couplers were the most frustrating task of this whole project. I kept picturing a couple engineers at MicroTrains laughing while writing the instructions for putting together these tiny little things. “Wait, no, put in the instruction 'it should slip right into place' like it actually will!!! HA HA HA!!! I wish I could watch people doing this!! HA HA!!” I was fortunate the kids were busy during this exercise, or I'd have filled the swear jar a couple times over. Needless to say, though, I did finish it by following the instructions from MicroTrains.

The easiest one to do was the Pilot assembly, so I started with that. Not having the recommended jig, I was forced to improvise. I cut the pieces off the sprue and cleaned them up, then I burnished the inner surfaces of the draft gear box with Greas'em. Using my fat fingers, I put the lip shank into the draft gear box and then slipped the knuckle shank over top. Surprisingly, I managed to get the trip pin into the two shanks without too much problem. Then the tough part came. Those darn microscopic springs. This is where the swear jar missed out because nobody could hear me.  Here is what it looks like before removing the pilot box:

And here it is when its removed (the new coupler is shown):

I got out a large box to work in to catch any stray springs or pieces I dropped so they could easily be retrieved. After about fifteen minutes of “sproings” and picking up the spring, I got it into the spring slot using an X-acto knife and slipped the draft gear lid on. Then the draft gear lid popped off and “sproing” - we were back to square one. Another twenty minutes passed before I got back to this stage. This time, I had put the draft gear box on some flat tweezers and when I slipped the lid on, I closed the tweezers to hold it together. Then I heated up my soldering iron and gently melted the top to the sides of the gear box. And thankfully it stayed together and worked. I then removed the pilot from the shell by pulling out the brass clip and gently prying up the draft gear clip until it came off. I removed the old coupler and slid the new draft gear box into place, replaced the draft gear clip and the brass clip that held it all together.  Worked like a charm.  Above is a picture of the coupler pocket ready to go into the pilot hole.  The brass strip holds it all in place after insertion.  Here is what it looks like from the front:

And a close up:

The rear coupler is mounted on the truck, and this was where I was really happy nobody was around. Removing the old coupler wasn't too challenging, I just needed to twist out the old one and then trim the centering spring post that was in the truck to 1/16” according to the instructions. Well, I broke the centering post off which I wasn't sure if this was a problem or not. Might have been. I put the lip shank and knuckle shank together with the trip pin again without much difficulty and then slipped it into the truck. Next, I had to put a spring into the #1128 adapter pocket and slip it into the draft gear housing on the truck and line up the shanks together to slip into the centering spring. In Human Performance, this is what we call a ELS – an Error Likely Situation. Too many steps in one, all ripe for error. And error I did.  Here is what it looks like apart with the pieces to make the new coupler:

And here is where the centering post broke off that should have held the pocket in place better if it was just trimmed.

At one point I was certain I would never get this into place and if I didn't break that centering spring post, I'd perhaps have put the old coupler back on. I could get the adapter in, but it would not stay in place and the shanks wouldn't stay. I came to the realization that I need to work something into the place where the centering spring post was to secure it better. I took another draft gear lid and cut it to fit behind the adapter in the truck so it wouldn't slip back further into the truck. I got it into place and used the soldering iron to give just enough heat to melt it into place without damaging the truck. From there, it only took a couple tries to get it seated properly. It still had some slop, though, so I took some epoxy and glued it in place. Finally, the couplers were complete and my sanity could be restored.  Here is the final view of the truck and coupler:

You can see one of the reasons this article wouldn't make it for submission - I need a camera I can adjust the settings on to get better depth of field.  I got better with lighting, but still would help to have a better camera to work with the lighting.

John Columbo, the 'N' Scale Steam Wizard.

DC Snr.

Not too shabby!

That little N scale steamer sounds pretty good. 

THe thread

A forum thread where they discuss the installations can be found here:

Has-anyone-installed-a-decoder-with-sound-in-their-Bachmann-2-8-0

Regards,

Chris

Lubing and Re-assembly

 At this point, when I was cursing at the trucks, I noticed some fine particles in the gears of the trucks and then saw the same on the worm gears. After posting my problem in the MRH forum, I took some soap and water and an old toothbrush and scrubbed the gears and left them to dry. Before I put the loco back together to start the wiring, I added a touch of synthetic automatic transmission fluid to all the gears as recommended by many people. The trucks rolled smoothly on their own, so I hope this will make this loco even smoother than it was prior. With the lubing done, it was time to put the loco back together for the final wiring of the decoder. Here are all the pieces ready for assembly:

This is a pretty simple process and starts with putting the trucks back on by simply slipping the mounting loops over the clips on the frame. Next, drop the motor back into place and then put the connector from the worm gears into the motor and press the worm gears into their mounts over the trucks. After those fiddly couplers, this was a walk in the park. With these in place, replace the plastic covers over the worm gears, ensuring the truck pickup strips slip into the appropriate slot in the covers. Only the pickup strips that run along between the trucks and the lightboard to put on yet. But first, a little Kapton tape is needed on the pickup strips under the motor leads to isolate the motor from the wheels and frame. The motor itself is already in a plastic housing, making it fairly simple to isolate it. Here's a shot of where I put the Kapton tape:

Now we just need to attach the wires to the correct locations and put it all together.  I'll show all this next week when I get time to take some more photos and a video to "show" what it sounds like.

Now, the rest of the story

I'll describe briefly how I finished the install, the resulting issues and then post the resolution, hopefully tomorrow with some pictures. 

First, I got all the wires routed in place.  I started with soldering the black and blue wires to the light board.  The black goes on the left (negative) side and the blue goes on the right (positive) side.  There are two small holes at the back of the light board, so I shortened them so they would fit nicely without a bunch of excess wire around and stripped a bit of the wire and tinned it.  A little flux on the circuit board and I soldered the wires to it.

Next, I put the light board in and put the plastic clip back in place to hold it.  Then I hooked up the motor pickups (orange and grey wires) and shortened them so they would fit nicely as well.  I stripped a bit off the end of the wire and tinned it, then put a little flux on the motor pickups and soldered the orange wire to the right (positive) side of the motor and the grey to the left (negative) side of the motor. 

The next thing I wired in was the light.  Since there is no rear light, I cut the yellow wire down to a stub and then following the trimming and cutting described above, I soldered the white wire onto the left LED lead and the red wire I soldered to the right pickup strip. 

Finally, I soldered the two purple wires to the speaker.  I started by allowing more length, as the speaker just fits tight in the body shell, to provide some room to put the body shell aside and leave the speaker in it.  I stuck the wires through the back of the speaker port, stripped a bit off, tinned them and soldered them to the speaker.  This was a delicate operation and one I would not even have considered a year ago, but it was fairly simple (again, thanks to Tim Warris of Fast Tracks for getting me started and several MRH regulars, like Rio Grande Dan, Benny, Blue and Joe for giving me more guidance).  I then pushed the speaker into place in the baffle and decided to put it on the track and see what came up.

This was a very anxious moment for me, so I thought I'd try it on the programming track with the PR3 hooked to decoder pro first in hopes that if I had anything hooked up incorrectly, I wouldn't fry anything, or at least to less damage.  Probably not logical, but that was my thought pattern.  I set it on the programming track, opened decoder pro and tried to read back from the decoder, but it kept saying no loco on track.  I played around with a few things and tried the "reboot" fix, but still had nothing.  I was concerned.  I brought out one of my other locos just to make sure it worked and it was just the new loco, but it didn't work either, so I had a problem with Decoder Pro and the PR3 communication, most likely.  So, I took it in to the layout and put it on the track and fired up the Zephyr.  When I turned the track power on, the motor sound started up!!  I could blow the horn, ring the bell, and it sounded great!  The kids came running when I called and they played with the bell sounds and horn and then we tried to turn on the light.  No light.  Tried to move the loco.  No movement.  I only had sound and nothing else.

I took the loco off the track and retraced everything again.  I re-checked the polarity of the LED and it was correct.  All the wires were hooked up right.  I put it back on the track and this time I got nothing.  No sound, no light, no motor.  Grrr.  I googled different things and played around, but still had no success getting it to run.  At my wits end, I decided to contact Litchfield Station and they told me just to send it in and they'd look at it.  So I did, and waited to hear back from them.  After I had sent it, I thought that I should have checked the voltage coming off the track to the motor leads, but I'm not sure what setting I'd have used on my multimeter anyway.  So I waited to hear back from Litchfield.

The verdict

After a few weeks, perhaps, I don't honestly remember how long because I was so busy with home and work, I got an email from Litchfield.  They informed me there was no problem with the decoder and that I had hooked it up "right", but as those experienced DCC people reading this will likely have already figured out, I had spotty contact from the trucks and pickup strips.  It just wasn't getting consistent juice to power everything and make it work.  They also recommended I use the capacitor and would install it for me, as well as hard wire the trucks to draw the power.  I took them up on it, because I had no idea where I would stuff that capacitor and I just wanted it back and working.  

Today, the package came in the mail.  My daughter opened the box as quickly as she could and we got it down to the layout for a test drive.  Having a functioning sound decoder in a loco is a thing of beauty and I'm very glad I opted for the golden white LED as it looks so much better than the regular white ones.  I haven't heard sound in an HO loco for a long time, so I can't really compare, but I was quite impressed with the sound coming out of this little 1/2" speaker.  I know a bigger one in an HO loco would almost certainly sound better, but this gives a nice added touch to running the locos.  The only problem is my son now wants sound in HIS loco.  Maybe that will be one of my next projects, but first, I need to get more track layed because its getting old driving up and down the same 12' of track (3' of which is a siding).  I will post some final pictures in the next couple days and hopefully get a video up here to "show" you what it sounds like.  

Hey Dave

I honestly think that with good pictures and video you still could have submitted this as an article, maybe one of the best articles MRH has ever seen, because you did have trouble.  Just give credit where credit is due and told your story.  Include a link to Litchfiled in the text and I's sure they would be pleased as punch over there!  I know you can write already.  I'll bet Joe would have published it as long as the images and video/audio were acceptable.  Just my 2 cents.

Maybe I'm wrong...

"It didn't work, here's how I solved it" articles

Yes, we need more "it didn't work, so here's how I solved it" articles. Notice my staging track turnout editorials. Those editorials were just that - what a mess, now what do I do?

The best movies are ones where the main characters get into deep doo-doo and then manage to overcome it. I would bet most will find such an article to be a cut above your typical article ... probably one you don't want to put down because you want to see how he gets out of that fix he's in!

Welcome to the great "Sound loco problem"

Now you're seeing the big problem with sound locos - once you put one on the layout, the rest of your locos seem like there's something really missing!

Sound is addictive!

The sound conundrum

Yep, the sound bug has firmly bitten me now.  I've been trying to figure how I can get sound decoders into my other N scale locos.  My Kato SD40-2 is a possibility, but I think at this point, my GP-35's are out of the question.  Just not enough room.  This may be another kick in the backside to go back to HO.  Once Rapido releases the FP9's, I'll have more HO locos than N anyway, and all but one will have sound (at this point).  

What it looks like

OK, I got around to getting a picture of what the final wiring looks like.  I could really use a camera that allows me to get a better depth of field, but it is what it is.  Here is the picture:

You can see the pickup strips are gone and replaced with grey wires running to the truck towers.  You can notice at the back as well, there is a perfect round hole drilled out where they put the capacitor.  It fits perfectly there - I'd never have thought of trying to drill that out to put in a capacitor.  Just one more lesson to be learned!

What it sounds like.

All I had available was my daughter's point and shoot camera, so the video and audio quality aren't the best.   Anyway, I have to figure out how to adjust the sound as you'll notice that the engine doesn't really start to rev up until its well down the track.  I also don't know what the crackle is, but perhaps someone can enlighten me.  I'm sure its supposed to be some kind of railroad sound and isn't just random static, but I'm not sure.  If I can borrow a real video camera from someone and hook up one of my good mics to it, I'll post a better one.  I'll continue this blog as I figure out all the settings to get it where I want it.   Decoder Pro is a great tool for programming, but its still a schmozzle of settings that I don't know the meaning of.  Trial and error at this point.

Sound the horn

Cool, but I'm curious to see what the horn sounds like! I'd love to have sound in my N-scale engines, but I'm concerned that it is too "tinny". I wonder if there is a way to maybe have a sound decoder hooked to a speaker under the layout that is the same as the one in the engine. Then, they are MU'ed together like a consist, so that when you accelerate your engine etc, you get high frequency sound coming from it and lower bass sounds coming from a central speaker. Would only be good for a small layout, unless you get into transponding and sound ($$$$$$$).

I really enjoyed your post!

Dustin

The horn

It is there, Dustin, between 26 and 30 seconds.  A short blast and then a long one.  Its very faint behind the bell sound (which the cheap mic in the camera picks up much better than the horn).  I really like the horn sound, even after riding the train home and hearing the loco blow the horn 40 or so times crossing roads in the middle of the night.  While it is likely tinnier than HO locos, I think the sound is best at lower volumes anyway and it does sound OK.  If you want booming bass, you aren't going to get it in N or HO for that matter.  

The second decoder under the table could certainly work, hooked up to a larger speaker, but it really is only effective in a yard situation where the switcher stays in the same rough area.  However, low bass levels are non-directional, so if you used the equalizer, you could cut all high sounds out on the table decoder and boost the lows and perhaps get a good sound, but again, this only works on smaller layouts, but I think yours would have potential for that.  It also depends on how many operators you're going to have that will get annoyed hearing he rumble from your loco that is across the room.

Better, but crank up those speakers

We just shot another video.  I can't plug an external mic into my camera, so its a little soft, but turning up the volume should get you all the sounds nicely.  My son's BN SD40-2 sits on the main - the loco he wants sound in now.

Recording Sound

The loco sounds pretty good, glad you got it sorted out with the help of the fine folks at Litchfield Station!

For recording sound you could route a mic directly to your computer soundcard and just sync up the audio and video later.  Some soundcards have a fair amount of noise but it will likley beat that on-board camera mic all to heck.  Too bad we were not a bit closer so you could borrow my cameras!

It probably is not necessary to have sound in all of your locos.

If you cut away the weight in the lead units of your road locomotives in consists, you could make room for the speakers and the following locomotives that are mu'd to them would have enough weight to make up the difference.  Perhaps even convert the lead units to dummy's by removing the motors.  If you put crews in the cabs of those units equipped with sound, then you have the sound units readily identified.  Your units used for local switching may be a bit more complicated, unless you run them in powered/dummy pairs.  I have noticed that both the BNSF & the UP seem to usually do switching with two local units mu'd together.  A possibility with gp units used for local switching is to remove some of the weight to allow for room for the speaker.  The reduced weight will reduce the tractive effort of the locomotive, but that is probably not an issue for a local switcher that is pulling less than a dozen cars at any time.

Good thoughts, Russ

I have a pair of GP-35's that I could work together in tandem doing switching and pull the motor out of one and fill it in with a sound decoder and then MU it to the powered one.  Might be worth experimenting.  If I can find (when I can afford it), another BN unit for my son, I could do the same.  Its unfortunate that dummy locos are rare these days, as you end up spending money on things you don't really use.  I'll definitely think this over a lot.  I need two or three more locos on my chainsaw for the operation thoughts that I had for it, so perhaps one powered and two dummies would do it and each consist would have sound.