Reefer

I have just recently seen a discussion about this item on the Yahoo SoundTraxx Group and the quality of the sound and the sound module is not available from SoundTraxx as the sound track must belong to Athearn.

Rich

Sound equipped freight cars

This is something I have wanted to see for a long time.  In fact, I built a circuit to simulate a reefer sound inside one of the old Athearn PCF reefer models off of a magazine article over 20 years ago.  That unit didn't sound so convincing; I am hoping for much more from these.  The cost is alarming, of course, especially for those who would want a fleet.  We can use a few FGE mechanical reefers on the Sudbury Division, so these are welcome news, and thankfully we don't need dozens of them.  Of course, this is pandora's box...once one of these get on the layout, you will want sound in all of your mechanical reefers.  Our club needs a fleet of 20 or so CP mechanical reefers; maybe the specification will now have to include reefer sound in those cars?

Pre-existing alternatives to Ath offering...

Dear Brotha, Rich, Jurgen,

This issue (sound in railcars) has been discussed at length within the last 12-18 months by both the teams at RMWeb and LayoutSound (IE well pre-Ath announcement).

In both cases, solutions were found which
- were a lot cheaper
- are easily user-loadable
- can be user-adapted to a wider range of cars, and other "typical rollingstock sounds"
(think "flatspot", "flangesqueal", "brake squeal", "brakeman winding-on/releasing handbrake", "door open/close", _and_ "random reefer rumble" in one car!)
- and in some cases are capable of a lot higher sonic resolution than most any currently-available DCC "digital audio playback device".

Indeed, some of the "roll your own" solutions even permit stereo and phase-cancelling tricks to be "designed in" to the soundfile, such that one car can provide sound for those adjacent...
(One example is a 3-car passenger train, where the center car is "sound equipped",
but can "throw sound" such that a conductor can appear to "walk the entire train"...)

The Ath offering should be applauded as an RTR example of what can be achieved,
but for those who's wallets can't stretch that far, alternative (and potentially better-sounding) solutions are available _right_now_...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Sound Freight Cars

I have been looking at the 57' Athearn reefers too?  I have a small fleet of Athearn BB reefers.  I wonder if it would be necessary to have all units equipped with sound?  A mix of sound reefers with the older non sound reefers might do the trick.  They look very nice, but I agree with the original poster, that it would cost a small fortune to put a nice fleet together.

I know it's more complicated

I know it's more complicated than it seems, but for the sound device they are using in these cars, that seems like a pretty high price. You would figure a $5 mp3 player (with looping sound), a $1 speaker, and a simple power interface would do the same thing.

Probably, that simple power interface is anything but.

levels of quality

It's not just the power interface, though that would be non-trivial to get consistent power.  You would also need an amplifier to drive a speaker, and a one dollar speaker would sound like a one dollar speaker, so you would want to get something decent there.  The other feature of the Athearn unit is that it is a decoder, which allows you to control and program it with your DCC system, plus it simulates the sound of the reefer starting up and shutting down, which is pretty cool, though not necessarily vital.

I don't think it would be necessary to get the entire block of reefers sound-equipped, either, if they will just roll through on a train.  You may want to make sure that single cars which end up sitting in a yard or at an industry is one of them with sound, though, which may complicate car forwarding.

I think we will probably get one with sound just to see what the effect is like.  If it seems like something worthwhile, we will look at getting more, and explore ways of doing the same with our other cars.  We will probably have to scratchbuild our CP reefer fleet anyway since there are no models close to correct for them, and while we are at it we can install sound if that is the route we choose.

The next step will be to install motion or speed detection in freight cars so the decoder can tell if and how fast the car is moving, and then produce realistic wheel and car sounds appropriate to the speed in other rolling stock.  If the rolling stock sound units became more widespread, perhaps the economy of scale would kick in and bring the cost down.

Those with out track power

As specified by Athearn, the car requires track power...fair enough, but for the small community of wireless layout that are out there, are left wondering how would one get something like this to work on their layout, or will it be just to add another module to the car.  The other option is placing a sound unit once available too...But It is nice to see that cars are now coming with sound...

Would someone have the link to the other places that have sound features that was mentioned towards the top please.

Done...

Dear Jurgen,

"...The next step will be to install motion or speed detection in freight cars so the decoder can tell if and how fast the car is moving, and then produce realistic wheel and car sounds appropriate to the speed in other rolling stock.  If the rolling stock sound units became more widespread, perhaps the economy of scale would kick in and bring the cost down..."

As mentioned, such things have already been thrashed out and feased on other forums, esp those dedicated to model RR sound. Current solutions revolve around cheaper sound-only user-loadable decoders such as the Digitraxx SFX0416 or even the "Soundbug". As the 0416 has a CAM input, and can trigger/cross-fade sounds relative to speed-step, there are at least 2 different ways to sync "sound to speed" in a railcar. Indeed, use the SS read for "flatspots" and the CAM input for truck-swing/"tight-curve-flange-squeal", and you can get 2 sounds out of the one car/decoder, and _still_ have a 3rd "voice"/polyphony channel ready and able to play the "mech reefer unit start/run/shutdown" sequence on command and/or against a "random" timer within the decoder...

Now, if only we could get some _CD_Spec_ sound decoders....

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS no, the Digitraxx decoders are not the only user-loadable sound decoder game in town, and their "user-loadability" requires some headspace and the free "SPJHelper" software by Fred Miller. However, given that a railcar sound decoder doesn't need the motor control circuitry or function outputs, the price/performance/form-factor balance is about as-good-a-match as is available in the US decoder market. There are some quite high-spec sound-only decoders available from Europe, but at a price that (when last checked) equalled maybe 3x Digitrax "digital audio playback devices" + a PR2 programmer...

PS if you're _really_ creative, no reason why a decoder (maybe even a simply TCS FL2 or similar?) function output can't trigger a small (PCB form) MP3 player, thus giving higher-than-DCC-decoder audio-spec "constant random" sound, and leave the decoder audio for the "trigger on DCC demand" railcar sfx... 

Regarding the price...

I was trolling for cars and it was fairly difficult to find R-T-R cars outside of the Atlas Trainman brand that were lower than $24/ea, and they were usually higher, sometimes much higher. Passenger cars are routinely above $60 now.

So.... with the new realities in pricing, these are not out of line.

Makes me think that there might be opportunities there for a smart manufacturer, as long as people are okay with minimal assembly or less than total details. There are a few out there that already are - they should get more attention, I think.

You certainly wouldn't need

You certainly wouldn't need all sound reefers for the simple fact that they don't all run all the time.

Possible to turn reefer unit off for empties?

slow.track has it right.

slow.track has it right. Reefer units start and stop -- seemingly at random. In actuality, they shutdown the engine, but continue monitoring the box temp of the load. Once it gets above the set point, they start up, run, then shut down. Nowadays, there's often a sat link that lets whoever is managing the traffic to check status and change set points, if needed for some reason.

Generally, the warmer the weather, the more the unit will run. But they won't run continuously unless they have a failure of some kind. My experience is with over the road semis. My guess is that railcars tend to run less than trucks, because they are usually loaded full, have a greater mass of cooled cargo, aren't opened in transit and likely have thicker insulation.

If you had 30 reefers in a yard, I doubt if more than 2 or 3 run at any one time. It could even be silent for periods of time. So having just a few units scattered among the others is likely to provide plenty for realistic sound.

Turning it off..

Joe, 

I don't remember hearing if you could do that or not. It's a good question - I'll get back to you. 

Volume control (general) + Vol setting on Analog?

Dear Jeff,

While you're inquiring, might be worth clarifying if the volume control is:

- a DCC CV setting
- a "insert screwdriver here and twist" trimpot
- a "magnetic magic-wand" a la BLI/PCM

or "other"???

Given that Ath have said it "works on analog",
the term "works"
(IE operates without implied or stated restriction)

implies that one can adjust the volume on analog too,
which kinda knocks out the "CV setting" as a "covers all bases" option...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

where is the circuit drawing ???

Okay,

There was a circuit published years ago for such sound. Maybe it was not very good, but isn't there someone out here that could redesign that circuit?

How about using a cheap digitrax soundbug and loading your own file recorded at a local truck stop?

One of my many projects that needs finishing are conversion of the older BB athearn refers into modern ones with the Carrier truck unit.

Dear Kirk, Yes, there

Dear Kirk,

Yes, there was...

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/28008-diy-mech-reefer-sound-unit-circuit/
(The thread is 3 pages long...)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LayoutSound/
(use the Message Search box with the terms "Soundbug", "flange squeal", or "flatspot")

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Regarding reefers running or not on RR.

Typically railroad reefers may only run when going in one direction whether they are trailers on flat cars, containers, or refrigerated rail cars.  The Tropicana juice cars run loaded from Florida, but are returned empty, so out bound will be running, but returning cars will not.  Most refrigerated cargo originates in the South or West.  Going to the Northeast the units will be running.  I think most of the West or South bound traffic will be either empty or loaded with clean dry freight like paper, carpet, canned goods, or manufactured goods.  The railroad would be careful not to load anything containing oil or chemicals or anything that could contaminate food stuffs in case of a spill.

An example of this is United Parcel Service.  UPS ships about 30%-40% of their parcels going West to East.  The railroad charges UPS per trailer whether loaded or not.  UPS created Martrac reefer service to send trailer loads of produce from the West Coast to the Northeast.  Those trailers are then cleaned out and sent back to the West coast loaded with parcels.  That way UPS does not need to pay the railroad for shipping empty trailers back to the East Coast.

interesting possibilities

I read on one of the other lists that someone was working on integrating the Athearn cars into a JMRI operations system, which would know when the cars were loaded and when they weren't and would interface with the DCC and only have them running when they were supposed to be loaded.  Kinda neat, that idea.

JMRI-based sound adjustments

I saw that mentioned on the Modern Freight Car List, and I also think the idea is very creative.  However, whether it's workable would, I think, depend on the answer to my earlier question on how sound is shut off.  If it's through some physical means (such as the way the volume is apparently adjusted, by opening the roof) then I don't think JMRI could be an option.  Hopefully we hear an answer soon.

A model railroad isn't expensive

It's the expensive model trains you buy to run on it that shoot up the cost. And the usually very unrealistic way high ratio of cars/locos to track space that is encouraged by all the magazines.

Focusing on having lots of open track and having only the number of moving models that you can play with at one time changes things dramatically.

Turning the sound off

For those who were interested in how to turn the sound off - in order to model an empty reefer, for instance, according to Athearn you simply turn the volume adjustment screw down to zero. Current draw for the sound units will be 100mA.

The boards will have no DCC features.

I am suddenly less impressed

Well, that's disappointing.  I had figured this for one of the first mass market decoder equipped cars.  Not having remote control of the sound will make it less appealing to some people, certainly, and the idea of mixing sound and non-sound cars makes a lot more sense now.  It does explain how they work just as well on DC as DCC, though. 

Oh well, maybe next time?

Why wait?

Dear Jurgen,

If One is content to have a manufacturer hand the car one has always dreamed of, with the sounds One's ears accept as being _exactly_ the sounds required, sure, waiting may be a do-able strategy...

But, the gear is available to create a "DCC controllable" sound-equipped car right now,
and at a pricepoint/car far under the RRP of the Ath offering...
(IE One gets "DCC controlability", 
One gets "User loading" for _exactly_ the sound One's ears say the car requires,
_and_ One gets it at a far-cheaper price, which makes equipping a fleet much more attractive...)

Of course, even the greatest lump of audio playback hardware is nothing if the modeller in question cannot/will-not/does-not provide a _sound_ for it to play...
(and, as many modellers show a near-pathological aversion to touching an Audio Editing app,
this could be a more-potent "showstopper" than any of the above...)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

I hear you, Prof

I have read your previous posts on this subject, but I have to admit to not following up on it.  I like the idea and will probably look into it further at some point.  I just have too many projects on the go already to divert myself into yet another new technology.

I appreciate your point about needing the sound.  Obtaining usable sound is more of a deal-breaker than playing with audio equipment.  Most computers have all you need to make a usable sound file for this application.  But you need to corner a working reefer and get the sounds you are looking for without too much background contamination.  Just finding a 1970s reefer unit that's running would be an accomplishment.  Perhaps there's a file already out on the web that could be used...