I finally met with the guy who wants the install. His Kato loco has the early version frame.
He already has an MRC sound decoder ("0001808 N Kato SD80 drop in") that does NOT drop into his Kato SD40-2. It has a little round speaker with a very shallow enclosure that keeps it from fitting in the frame. The frame would need to be altered to make it fit. Not something that I want to get into for everybody who calls my club. But, I don't know anybody in this area who does that type of work.
Going to the Loksound option, Tony's trains will do installs of decoders it sells on locos that customers have obtained elsewhere. So, I am trying to make a list of the tasks involved to get some idea of the cost to the guy looking for help.
It looks to me like it requires the following:
1. an ESU 58741 V5 Kato USA decoder
2. installing sound file S0508 for the EMD 16 cylinder 645 turbo engine
3. an 8x12 or 13 or 15 sugar cube speaker
4. a speaker box of the proper height to fit available space
5. soldering the motor contact "ears" to the decoder (taken from either the DC board or the MRC decoder, which has them already)
6. 2 SM LEDs for the headlight and backup light, requires soldering wires to proper pads on the decoder board and gluing the LEDS into appropriate positions.
It would probably be easier and certainly cheaper to just mill the frame - if I could find somebody around here willing to do that. It can probably be done by just filing the material that is in the way. But, it also requires completely disassembling the loco and then reassembling it.
