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Speakers
Each loco received two LLPR-MOEU-CO8 speakers to replace the 28mm diameter HB units originally installed in the 2012 conversion to DCC. The speakers require the removal of the massive weight, if still present, and have legs which fit into the slot at the top of the frame. There are screw bosses there but the legs are notched to avoid them. Secure them with small tabs of clear siliconized acrylic caulk.
Note, there is also an SSS speaker model designed for the newer Proto Es with speaker mounting locations in the frame weight – WPLR-E8E9-087. I have used these on my recent run Proto Es and they sound very good.
Lights
I decided to remove previously installed LEDs which were mounted in the P2K’s clear headlight/number board front piece. While the main lights were adequate, the number boards needed more illumination. I discarded the clear head light piece and created a mounting area from flat styrene and marked the mounting locations using another E for vertical and horizontal positioning.
I used 3mm warm white for the headlight and Gyra light and 1.8mm warm white for the number boards. I added ground lights as described in my blog piece on that process.
Because of all the light wires, I used shrink tube as conduit to control the wires. The speaker mounted yellow shrink tube in photo is to route the nose light wires over the speaker. The green shrink on the frame guides the ground light wires to their connections on the motherboard.
I eliminated light bleed with small pieces of shrink tube mounted on the lights which acted as visors.
Motherboard
This is a 2-piece, 21 pin PCB which is slightly smaller than many motherboards. The “mommy” base (Nick Santo's Decoder Buddy board) has the 21 pin decoder connection (shown installed) plus 4 soldering pads for track power, 2 motor feeds, and 2 for a keep alive. It also incorporates 2 speaker soldering pads on each end wired in parallel to facilitate twin speakers. Sweet.
The smaller “baby” board (on the right) is removable and provides the power and function pads with integral resistors for LEDs. It is easy to remove the shell from the frame as all light wires are no longer tied to the frame mounted decoder.
This is an Econami decoder so not all the 21 pins are used. The front headlight was obvious as to which was the correct function pad and determining which baby board function pad connected to which decoder FX lighting option was not that difficult. Note I have encountered similar occurrences using TCS motherboards with the Econami.
After soldering each light’s common to the front power feed on the baby board, I used Decoder Pro’s lighting tab set all the lights to flashing strobe. I simply used small gator clips to connect a function wire to the various pads till the corresponding light began flashing. Change the lighting function to the desired effect, solder, and program.
Move to the next one. Repeated as needed until the Gyra, number boards, and ground lights were properly programed.
(The ground light is actually much dimmer but the longer exposure makes it look more like a security light on a Wal-Mart lot.)
