Installing ESU Loksound 5 in a Life-Like/Proto 0-8-0

[EL3632]

For my first real sound install I wanted to install sound in something that I really wanted to install sound in, and the one thing that stood out above the rest, that I thought was doable, was my Life-Like/Proto 0-8-0. I did so, and due to the nature of it being a haphazard first install, did not get many photos of the process. About two months after I installed the decoder in my 0-8-0, I found another one on eBay (that was a different number than the one I already had! Lucky find!) and bought it immediately. After I started working at my LHS, I picked up a ESU 58823 V5 Loksound decoder with harness for this second 0-8-0. With free time and the desire to do the install, I started on the sound conversion of the second 0-8-0:

Here is what the tender looks like from the factory:



This is actually set up for an 8 pin plug to fit in the tender, and while this works for a non-sound decoder, for the ESU 58828 type Next18 DCC Micro, the provided ribbon cable is far too large...



So, I determined on the first engine to install the Next18 adapter directly to the wires coming from the tender drawbar connection. This required the provided Next18 wire adapter board, and removal of the existing board inside the tender.



Luckily, the board is screwed into the weight on the tender floor, and comes out easily. I also removed the weight where the coal bunker is located, this will be where the speaker will be mounted. Also rather lucky for me was the fact that the wires were labeled on the original board. This photo was taken so that the wires could be rewired to the proper places on the new adapter board.

I desoldered the wires from the original board:



And desoldered the wires from the ESU Next18 adapter:



To resolder the wires in their proper places on the Next18 adapter:



With the wires eventually looking like this:



The white wire is the positive lead to the front headlight, hence why it has a resistor. I found the resistor hard to solder directly to the board on the first 0-8-0, so I made sure to keep a small part of wire on the adapter for this install, with the other end being the original wire. If you know your ESU wire colors, you will know that this is actually the positive lead to the rear headlight. I swore I tried the yellow one first last time and did not get it to go through, plus the existing wire was white, so I kept white with white. I remapped the headlight outputs in the decoder after I realized my mistake.

The brown wires go to the speaker, which is an ESU 50321 11x15mm sugarcube in this installation. I installed the speaker next to test that the wiring all worked and the locomotive actually ran. The speaker is enclosed on the bottom, and sounds good as-is, but I am considering completely enclosing the speaker at some point, though that is not vital to the installation, so if I decide to do that, I will update the thread when that happens.



Success! It runs, and I wired everything (except the headlight lead) correctly!

[EL3632]

After the successful test run of the 0-8-0, I turned my attention to the headlights. I decided to rewire the headlight in the engine and tender in this install with spare warm-white 0402 LEDs I have. The light on the front of the engine was less than stellar, and the headlight on the tender was on the original board, which was removed (and the LED of the first engine burnt out due to me not wiring resistors properly...).

Taking the shell off of the engine was simple enough, take off the footplate and push the shell forward. I desoldered the existing LED from the front of the engine and wired in the replacement:



This LED is bright, and it shows, once the front of the mechanism was insulated with Kapton tape, and the headlight was secured in the shell (also with Kapton tape), the shell was put back on and voila:



Much better. The locomotive shell was reinstalled and not removed again.

The same basic installation had to be done in the tender for the rear headlight, which was first secured with Kapton tape to the tender shell, for ease of soldering:



The wires were cut to size, and installed in their proper places, with the same situation for the resistor as the front headlight, and the negative lead getting a wire soldered to the lead on the decoder, as the front headlight's lead was soldered there as well, and in case I got it backwards, I did not want to resolder both leads multiple times.



Thankfully, I soldered it correctly on the first attempt. I also insulated the weight at the bottom of the tender with Kapton tape at this point, as well as secured the speaker with double sided tape, and permanently installed the decoder (some things mentioned are not pictured).



The tender light was tested prior to this point, to make sure it was installed correctly, and was able to be seen for the first time as intended at this point:



After the decoder was installed for the final time, and the speaker semi-permanently mounted, the installation was done! Erie 124 joined 132 in the sound equipped 0-8-0 fleet.



For the sound file I used, I installed the 132's sound decoder in October 2020, and at that time the sound file for the 0-6-0 was not available, so I used the sound file for the 2-6-2T instead, and that seemed to work fine, for 124, I wanted to use the same sound file as 132 so they did not sound too different from each other when running at the same time. I also gave 132 an ESU 50321 speaker, as it had a different one, and matched their sound levels. 132 and 124 sound identical at this point. They need tweaking in the chuff rate, but otherwise I can call both installations done!

Here is a video of 124's sound installation, showcasing the loco at various speeds, and featuring the bell, whistle, dynamo, and steam chuff sounds: