Advice on sound for steam locomotives

[Bart1701]

I have two steam locomotives - a Kato Mikado and a Bachmann Consolidation. Both have had DCC decoders added to them in the boiler section. While I would never want to equip every locomotive I have with sound (it's kind of a novelty to me that wears off after a little while of hearing it, but the visitors sure enjoy it!). I have a couple of diesels with sound, but would really like to add sound to one of the steam locomotives I listed.

I see that Digitrax, and probably other manufacturers, offer decoders like the Digitrax SFX0416 - which has no motor functions but can be used to add sound to a decoder-equipped locomotive.

My questions are:
-What recommendations would you have on a decoder to use? In terms of sound quality, ease of installation, etc.
-Will it easily fit into the tender of either locomotive listed above?
-Would one locomotive be better/easier to add this to?
- ...and of course, any other advice you might have to offer!

Once again, I am coming to this outstanding community of model railroaders for their wisdom and experience! I always appreciate everyone's willingness to help.

Thanks,
Bart


 

[robert3985]

In my experience so far, Digitrax sound lags a bit behind other manufacturer's (Sountraxx, ESU) sound quality.  That said, Digitrax and ESU allow you to program sound files if you purchase their programming equipment and the proper program.  Soundtraxx's sound is pretty good (very good), but you have to go with what Soundtraxx programs into your decoder, which, if you're not really picky, is probably going to be fine.

However,  seeing's how you already have decoders installed in the boilers of both engines, most of the hard work of installing decoders has already been done and I see no valid reason to not just replace the existing decoder with a sound decoder, then run the speaker wires to the tender where there will be more room for an airtight speaker enclosure and venting.

Seems to me that it'd be a LOT more work to install a sound-only decoder in the tender than simply unsolder what you have now, and solder in another sound decoder.

The Bachmann 2-8-0 is pretty small and for better sound, I'd install as big an oval speaker/enclosure combination as I can find into the Kato Mike's tender...replacing the already installed non-sound decoder with a TSU-750 Micro Tsunami medium or heavy steam sound decoder.  It's advertised as the smallest on the market at 1" X .5" X .22" and the sound and running capabilities are excellent.

OR, install the ESU LokSound Select Micro, which is actually smaller than the Tsunami at .980" X .417" X .15" and order it with the "Steam Locomotive Selection", which I assume will have a Heavy Mike in it somewhere.

The nice thing about either the Tsunami or the Loksound decoders is that they've bot B-EMF, which will allow you to get the chuff sync pretty close, as well as change the intensity of the chuffs as the locomotive labors more or labors less...which is a very nice effect.

Before I ordered anything, I'd take the engine apart and see what your clearances are and how big the presently installed decoder is.  Never order blindly.

That'll about do it methinks

[SkipGear]

There is nothing wrong with a dual decoder setup. John Columbo who posts on here does it on most of his locos as he has better luck with chuff matching. The SFX decoder you mentioned is really meant for HO and is a little too big for your applications. The Mikado and Consolidation both have the same size tender so if you can do one, you can do the other. I just completed a Mikado with a Tsunami in it for a friend with speaker, decoder and stay alive cap all in the tender with no real problems. I did remove a plastic clip that holds the weight in to make some extra space.

There is no perfect decoder, you need to decide for yourself which has the limitations you can deal with.

Digitrax is the least expensive, one of the smallest, and the most programable but it only has 8bit sound and the BEMF does not work properly. In a dual decoder application the lack of BEMF does not really pose a problem. You need a PR3 (or a friend with one) to upload sound files to the decoder and recently there have been a ton of new sound files created for them that expand the ability of the decoder.

Soundtraxx Tsunami has the best pre programmed sounds and sound function control. It is on the higher end of the price range. It lacks BEMF control of the chuff sync but does use the BEMF to change the tone of the chuffs which is a nice effect. Lighting effects are very good but you have to chose the right decoder to get the correct preloaded sounds for your application. Motor control is a little sloppy and it is suggested that you use an extra heat sink with them as they tend to run hot.

Loksound Select is new to me and I am waiting for one to arrive to try out. They come with preloaded sounds, BEMF control of driver sync and other nice features. I didn't like the Chuff sounds on older Loksound decoders I have installed. The decoder didn't transition well from one speed to the next, it almost sounded like steps. Hoping this one is better. With their $200 programmer you can upload your own sounds.

MRC decoders have improved a lot. Motor control is pretty good, sounds are loud and crisp but you have to accept generic steam sounds. You have a few options in both chuff, whistle, bell and other sounds but you are stuck with what they offer you.

[rogergperkins]

Tony et. al.,
Thanks for your comments.   I am pleased with the BLI E-6 and E-7 locomotives I have; they came with sound installed.  Having these has increased my interest in getting sound installed in one or more of my steam locomotives.  The Kato GS-4s are at the top of my wish list because I have watched YouTube videos of them with sound.
The problem with watching and listening to a YouTube is that I may be getting fooled; I have Bose speakers on my computer, and using them with Skype gives sound as if the person was in the room.
I have explored getting sound installed and the cost quoted so far is about the price of the locomotive.

I am 73 years old, so I remember American Flyer and Lionel trains with functional boxcars, and this makes me wonder if steam sound could be used in a boxcar that would be run in consist with a steam locomotive. ???

[CodyO]

roger,
you could put the decoder in the boxcar and trick the DCC system into thinking its an engine and just MU it with an engine and you`ll have sound, plus the boxcar will allow more space

I`ve planned on doing it but never carried it out

[jdcolombo]

As Tony noted above, I've used dual decoders on virtually all my steam.  I just haven't found the "Holy Grail" decoder that is both excellent sound-wise and excellent motor-control wise.  Right now, my pick for sound is the Soundtraxx micro-Tsunami (TSU-750), that I mate with the largest speaker I can.

I've done both the Mike and the 2-8-0 as dual-decoder installs with the TSU-750 in the tender.  Both these tenders are very small, but in the 2-8-0 I managed to cram in a 14x25mm speaker in a custom enclosure made out of 1mm lead sheet; in the Mike, I used a 15mm round speaker in a round enclosure (also sold by SoundTraxx, and available from a variety of on-line vendors).

Here's a couple of videos that will illustrate what I've been able to get out of these installations sound-wise.  First, the Bachmann 2-8-0:

Next, the Mike:

Not a valid youtube URL
Now for a couple of photos showing how this stuff is packed into the tender:

2-8-0 tender:



Mike tender:



In both cases, I strip out everything inside the tender.  In the case of the Bachmann tender, I fashioned new pickup strips from .007 phosphor-bronze sheet; although with the newer tenders you may just have to take out all the electronics stuff inside.  Here are two photos showing the "stripped" tenders before component installation:

2-8-0:



Mike:



It looks harder than it is, and I've abandoned the round electrolytic "keeper" caps in favor of tantalum chip caps, which take up a LOT less space and are therefore much easier to install.

One day, someone will make a sound decoder that sounds as good as the TSU; has an equalizer like the TSU (which I find essential to decent sound for the tiny speakers we use in N scale); and has the motor control of a Lenz or TCS.   Until then, I'll continue on with my dual-decoder installs.

John C.

[robert3985]

John, WOW...thanks for the videos and pics!  I've got hope for installing TSU's in my brass UP USRA 2-8-0's now!...which I've been worrying about for about two years...

I'm convinced the biggest improvement to sound is the airtight speaker enclosure...and having it made from as dense, non-resonant material as possible.  Do you think your sheet lead enclosures allow you to fiddle with the TSU's sound settings enough to get it "right", because every engine I've heard that you've presented sounds exceptional.  I'm sure the equalizer in the TSU-750 and the 16 bit sound really help too, but if the speaker setup is subpar, all the tweaking in the world won't help past a certain point.

Truthfully, I was more impressed with your 2-8-0's sound than with the Big Boy's since I frankly didn't expect such good sound to come out of such a small engine!

Impressive indeed! ...now I gotta get at least one of my brass 2-8-0's ready for the upcoming Evanston Roundhouse Festival in August...

[jdcolombo]

John, WOW...thanks for the videos and pics!  I've got hope for installing TSU's in my brass UP USRA 2-8-0's now!...which I've been worrying about for about two years...

I'm convinced the biggest improvement to sound is the airtight speaker enclosure...and having it made from as dense, non-resonant material as possible.  Do you think your sheet lead enclosures allow you to fiddle with the TSU's sound settings enough to get it "right", because every engine I've heard that you've presented sounds exceptional.  I'm sure the equalizer in the TSU-750 and the 16 bit sound really help too, but if the speaker setup is subpar, all the tweaking in the world won't help past a certain point.

Truthfully, I was more impressed with your 2-8-0's sound than with the Big Boy's since I frankly didn't expect such good sound to come out of such a small engine!

Impressive indeed! ...now I gotta get at least one of my brass 2-8-0's ready for the upcoming Evanston Roundhouse Festival in August...

Hi Bob.

Thanks for the encouragement!

The speaker is the key.  The combination of sheet lead for its non-resonant qualities and weight plus the sealed "bass-reflex" design that Acoustic Research "invented" 40 years ago in the home stereo market makes a huge difference.  The 14 x 25mm oval in a completely sealed lead enclosure is pretty amazing for the size - no real bass, but you get some illusion of bass with it's excellent output in the low midrange region (between 250-500hz).

I do think that the TSU's equalizer also plays a big part.  I don't remember offhand what settings I used for the EQ in the 2-8-0, but they were probably typical of what I've used in other installations: zeroing out low bass, since that isn't going to be reproduced anyway, and no reason to waste amplifier power on that; boosting low midrange a lot; less boost for mid and upper mid; leaving treble at the factory default or close.

Now that I've found tantalum chip caps to use for the stay alive, I can use the 14 x 25mm plus TSU combo in pretty much anything from a 2-8-0 on up.  I've stuffed it into my most recent Mike conversion, as well, but I don't have video of that one.  Sounds pretty good in person, though.  And I just put the same speaker in my Big Boy, which made a huge difference from the 15mm round that comes from the factory. 

John C.

[Bart1701]

John,

Thanks for the detailed information on the installs in your Consolidation and Mikado. They both sound great in the videos. This will likely be the approach I use with my steamers.

However, there were a couple of new terms you used that I am not familiar with. Can you explain these in a little more detail - what are they and where are they used in your installation...and where are these obtained from?

- round electrolytic "keeper" caps
- tantalum chip caps

Thanks,
Bart

[jdcolombo]

John,

Thanks for the detailed information on the installs in your Consolidation and Mikado. They both sound great in the videos. This will likely be the approach I use with my steamers.

However, there were a couple of new terms you used that I am not familiar with. Can you explain these in a little more detail - what are they and where are they used in your installation...and where are these obtained from?

- round electrolytic "keeper" caps
- tantalum chip caps

Thanks,
Bart

The Soundtraxx after-market decoders, like the TSU-750, have an external capacitor that supplies power to the decoder board when there is an electrical "dropout" because of dirty track, an unpowered frog, or whatever.  These are sometimes referred to as "stay alive" capacitors, or "keeper" capacitors (as in "keeping the sound on").  Without this "stay alive" cap, you'll get annoying sound dropouts, no matter how clean your track (electrical conductivity is simply not perfect even in near-perfect conditions, and none of us live in that world).

The typical "keeper" cap is a round electrolytic capacitor that has a 20 or 24v working voltage and 220uf (microfarads) of capacitance.  You can see the standard capacitor in my photos of the Mikado sound install above.  Electrolytic capacitors are cheap and effective, but fairly large.  In my quest to squeeze bigger speakers into smaller spaces, I decided to see if there was a smaller alternative to the standard round electrolytic cap.  I found a replacement: the tantalum "chip" capacitor, used in surface-mount applications.  You can get a tantalum chip cap with a 16v working voltage (plenty for N or HO scale, but don't use the "O" scale voltage setting on your DCC equipment if you have such a thing) and 220uf of storage that is about 2mm high, 3mm wide and 7mm long.  They are rectangles, so they can fit in places like the corners of a tender shell and suck up only about a quarter of the space of a typical round electrolytic.  They are small enough that I can put two of them in less space than one electrolytic, doubling the "stay alive" capacity and ending sound dropouts on all but really dirty track or very lousy trackwork.  The downside is that they are expensive: about $1.50 each, as opposed to maybe 20 cents for an electrolytic.  My source for these tantalum chip caps is Digikey or Mouser Electronics, whichever seems to have the cheaper price when I'm ordering.  Here's a link to the ones I recently ordered from Digikey:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/T491D227K016ZT/399-5124-1-ND/1681768

Here's a photo of my sound install in the tender of Kato's GS-4.  The tantalum chip caps are the yellow things right behind the speaker:



You can also use capacitors to keep an engine from stalling over dirty track or unpowered frogs in a regular (non-sound) DCC installation.  TCS has released both decoders and external keep-alive units for this purpose, which purportedly can keep an HO-scale loco running for 3 seconds after power is removed.  Not sure we need this kind of capacity in N scale, but "the possibilities are endless" as the saying goes.

John C.

[eja]

Just thinking about this, I wondered if anyone has experimented with the speaker from a cell phone.  They seem to have fairly good sound quality.

eja

[SkipGear]

For those that want to experiment without buying a bunch from one of the electronics supply houses, you can get 100uf 16V caps from Ngineering now for less than $1 each. They come in 6 and 24 packs. The 24 pack retails for $17.80.

http://www.ngineering.com/accessories.htm

[peteski]

Just thinking about this, I wondered if anyone has experimented with the speaker from a cell phone.  They seem to have fairly good sound quality.

eja

Most of the speakers used with N scale sound decoders are already speakers made for either laptop (notebook) computers or cell phones.  They are not custom-made for sound decoders. 

[TiVoPrince]

Considered
VSD (Virtual Sound Decoder) currently being developed within the JMRI programme?  I find it adequate to the task (for the moment in development cycle) but your mileage may vary.  You will eventually need some sort of detection/transponding to track loco position on the layout, but the sound does sort of follow locoomotives around, at least to my untrained ears.  Sounds seem quite nice with cheap PC speakers compare quite favourably to tiny little speakers inside locomotives.

Adding hardware to layout and PC that makes this work has a price so tread lightly and do some diligent calculations to make your own decision.  Price of software is free, but there will still be a time investment involved.  Free to test/try is a very good thing.  Even a very basic PC with speakers can be used as a test bed.  Like all things JMRI, it is addictive, this is your fair warning...

[VonRyan]

Considered
VSD (Virtual Sound Decoder) currently being developed within the JMRI programme?  I find it adequate to the task (for the moment in development cycle) but your mileage may vary.  You will eventually need some sort of detection/transponding to track loco position on the layout, but the sound does sort of follow locoomotives around, at least to my untrained ears.  Sounds seem quite nice with cheap PC speakers compare quite favourably to tiny little speakers inside locomotives.

Adding hardware to layout and PC that makes this work has a price so tread lightly and do some diligent calculations to make your own decision.  Price of software is free, but there will still be a time investment involved.  Free to test/try is a very good thing.  Even a very basic PC with speakers can be used as a test bed.  Like all things JMRI, it is addictive, this is your fair warning...

You can do the same thing with an old DC sound system, a bunch of speakers, and a rotary switch. Actually sounds quite convincing if you set up baffles and such depending on the location of each speaker.

-Cody F.