Installing ESU Loksound 5 in a Kato Budd RDC-1

[EL3632]

I am beginning to really enjoy installing sound decoders. I recently got back my custom decaled Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines Kato Budd RDC-1 from my friend who decaled it for me, and I was wanting to put sound in it, after being successful with the KiHa 40 (here: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=51307.0), which is essentially just the Japanese prototype for an RDC, I went to work with PRSL M-403.

I installed an ESU 58823 decoder in the RDC-1, with an ESU 50321 11x15mm speaker.

I used a lot of the same techniques in this install as I did in the KiHa, but this unit had it's own unique quirks that made it different.

Starting off with the blank mechanism, I determined that I wanted the speaker to go in the large flat space, as that made the most sense, and worked around that for installing everything else.



The first thing I did was take out the lights, and the small power strips that power them. These are not needed for this installation. They simply pull out, and are easily removable.



Next, I took the floor off of the car enough to wrap Kapton Tape around the motor mounts, I made sure to wrap the tape enough to get the sides of the contact strips, as this is where the tabs touch the strips for normal operation.



Wiring the motor tabs to the adapter board, giving an idea of where the decoder will eventually sit.



After wiring the motor, I wired the track pickups to the contact strip, I chose the closest open area on the contact strips, but if you are doing this install yourself, you can put the track pickup wires anywhere, as long as it is exposed to the inside of the car.



Next I placed and wired the speaker, the speaker is held down with double sided tape, and is only enclosed on the bottom. I would like to enclose the rest eventually, though for today I feel it is fine.



At this point the car was test run and everything checked out, it got power, made noise, and ran.

Next I moved on to the lights. I chose to keep the existing headlights and wire in new LEDs for the red marker lights, as I did in the KiHa. I wired the front and rear headlight wires to the existing light boards, making sure to wire them correctly, as these boards are wired for DC, wiring them backwards will turn on the light in the other direction, either red or yellow.



I then just slid it in to its original spot, there is enough room underneath the board to solder the wires in and have the board sit in its original position.



With both of the original boards taken care of, I turned my attention to the marker lights. What I ended up coming up with was soldering the wires onto Aux1 and Aux2 (and common), and sliding the headlight into the original housing for the marker lights, however I hit a snag when trying, as the wires were too stiff, keeping the light from staying in for placement, and I feared it may pop out during transport or operation as well. My solution, therefore, was to enlarge the gap on the top of the housing, allowing the LED to sit flat for easier installation and hopefully transport as well. Here is the light I am using for my marker lights, an 0402 LED, tested successfully and awaiting installation in the car.



Here is a photo of the enlarged gap in the housing (right), compared with a stock housing (left).



With the gap enlarged, the LED sits in without flying out immediately.



I secured the LED with black electric tape, to ensure no light leakage.



After securing the other marker light LED, the installation is complete! Here is what the car looked like prior to putting the shell on:



Make sure to check and make sure that the shell is going on the correct way before the lights get put in the housing inside the car. Guess how I found that one out? If you do put the housing in wrong, not a problem, as they can be used on either side of the car, just pop them out again and turn the car around.

With the shell on, the installation is complete! Here is one of the marker lights with the 0402 LED in:

[EL3632]

For the programming of the decoder, I used the ESU Loksound 5 Detroit Diesel Dual 6-110 file, which is correct for RDCs. I installed the sound file, programmed the address, and did other normal programming things for each decoder I install, however, due to the unique way I installed the lights in this one, I had to remap the functions to get the lights to work the way I wanted them to.

Due to the nature of what I eventually plan to do with my RDCs, I wanted each light to be independently controlled. I mapped each light to a separate function, and left each light on regardless of direction change. F0 is the front headlight, F3 is the rear headlight, F5 is the forward (car is going forward) marker light, and F6 is the rear (car is going reverse) marker light. I chose these functions as I have easy access to them on my Digitrax DT series throttles that I use primarily (DT500D & DT602D), and remapped what was on those functions to other functions (for example, I remapped the coupler sound, usually F3, to F12, which was empty). If you are using the same decoder I am, and the same wiring harness I am, your marker lights should be on Aux1 and Aux2.

Here is the car with both the headlight and the marker lights on on the same end:



With that programming out of the way, I adjusted the sound levels to my liking, and changed out the horn from the Leslie A125 to the Leslie A200, as I remember the PRSL RDCs having a lower pitched horn when I rode them (late 90s-early 2000s).

Here is the sound demo:

[peteski]

Thanks for posting this info - nice install.

So instead of using the red LED on the original board you wired in separate red marker LEDs?
I'm also surprised that since you had the model all apart you didn't change the amber headlight LED to a warm-white one.  The amber LED that Kato used looks a bit unusual for a headlight.

[EL3632]

I chose to keep the original amber LED because I did not have a good idea of how to replace it. I will look at that in future installs and if it works go back and adjust in this one.
I technically wired in new white LEDs to the red light pipe, making a white LED appear red.

[peteski]

I chose to keep the original amber LED because I did not have a good idea of how to replace it. I will look at that in future installs and if it works go back and adjust in this one.
I technically wired in new white LEDs to the red light pipe, making a white LED appear red.

Thanks for the info.  The Kato LEDs are standard 3mm (T-1 size) LEDs with leads.  I don't know how much soldering equipment you have, but you could easily desolder those LEds using just soldering iron,and solder wick braid, and some extra gel or liquid flux also helps.  You use the braid with flux, anf the iron, to "sop up" the solder from the LED solder pads,. .then the LED should just come out. Then install a replacement LED.

If you don't have even the basic set of soldering tools and supplies, since it looks like you will be doing more custom decoder installs, it woudl make sense to pick up some more soldering supplies.  The right tools for the job make the job (or hobby) easier and more fun.

Also, I'm not sure of you are aware of the fact that those RDC light boards are designed to be easily converted between DC and DCC.  The cleverly use small screws as electrical shunts/jumpers. To convert you simple move the screws to different set fo holes.  It's been a while since I last did that, so I don't remember the specifics.  You could probably have used both the red and amber LEDs on the original Kato LED boards without needing to have wires running to the shell.