I have some great running N-scale Kato engines (E8 A/B, PA-PB-PA) as well as a BLI Paragon2 sound equipped E8A/B set. But I was really interested in seeing how sound could be added to at least some of the Kato “A” units.
I had been looking at both MRC and Digitrax sound decoders that were recommended for installation in the Kato E8. During my search, I also discovered that Aztec had milled frames for the purpose of installing a Digitrax SDN144K0A sound decoder. I also remembered that I had an undecorated and powered Kato E8B that I could use as a test frame to find out if I could do the install myself.
Thus I chose an Aztec Trains DCC + sound milled frame. Their website is located at http://www.aztectrains.com/.They have some great links to Youtube on how to install the decoder in the N-scale Kato E-8 (same process for the PA and E-5). If you opt to do this project, I highly recommend watching the step-by-step video by ed260z at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ed260z.I am not trying to duplicate what the step-by-step video shows but only the result and a couple of things discussed but not shown in ed260z’s video.
The first step was to disassemble the undecorated E8B, carefully marking the right and left contact strips and anything else that seemed to need marking so I would be able to put it back together without any problems. I shipped the frame to Aztec and got the milled frame back in a few days. Meanwhile, I had also ordered some 16mm speakers (the one that was recommended by Aztec) for the install. The Digitrax decoder comes with a 13mm speaker but the Aztec milled frame comes with a 16mm opening for the speaker. Upon receipt of the larger speaker, I did a test fit into the milled opening and it fit perfectly.
In this picture, you can see what the frames look like before and after milling. The milled frame has two new openings, one for the speaker to the rear and another for the capacitor at the front.
In this picture you can see the new decoder installed with the larger 16mm speaker. A small bead of silicone was used for attaching the speaker to the frame. You will note that the wires for both the speaker and the capacitor were shortened so there wasn’t any excess wire.
The next picture shows the items that were removed: pieces of wire, 13mm speaker, and rear LED.
The next two pictures show the clear plastic that is used within the shell for the headlights. Because the capacitor is just under the LED, it cannot bend down enough and will hit the clear plastic used for the headlights and the shell will not fit properly. The clear plastic had to be trimmed about a 1/4 inch using a Dremel. This appeared to be just enough for the LED and the clear plastic to allow the shell to completely fit properly.
Finally, the video is in two parts, the first part shows the completed engine running without the motor tabs being soldered to the decoder. During the video you will notice that the engine suddenly turns off and back on again. This intermittent stalling was probably being caused by the motor tabs not making good contact with the decoder. I double checked to see if the tabs were seated properly and I found that one was and the other was not. So I soldered the tabs to the decoder very carefully. By the way, I use a Weller soldering station with a 1/32d tip for precise soldering. This is especially important for N-scale decoders since the pads on the decoder for re-soldering the speaker and capacitor were tiny and about the size of a sharpened pencil point. The second part of the video shows the engine running after the motor tabs were soldered to the decoder. That seemed to have fixed the problem of the intermittent stalling or turning off.
Overall, I am very pleased with the sound that this sound decoder equipped engine now makes. I plan on doing my two PA1 units in the future.
My YouTube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/user/tanzj
