Three Please

So about a decade ago I bought Kato's N scale CB&Q's "Silver Streak Zephyr" 5 car passenger train with it's EMD E5A loco "Silver Bullet".   Here is an E5A loco, not the "Silver Bullet", but the "Silver Pilot".

Nice train indeed.  I quickly converted her to DCC with a Digitrax DN163K0E decoder.

A few months later it got to me.  There were two empty slots in the case the train sits in - smart selling tactic Mr Kato! So I ended up buying the other two locos that can be run with the train, the "Silver Speed" and the "Silver Pilot".  These also got the Digitrax decoders added into their inards. So now the box was complete :-)

After a while I was really getting into sound decoders, so a few years back the Digitrax decoder in the "Silver Bullet" was replaced with an ESU 73100 decoder.  A bit of mucking about, but I got it in and a sugarcube speaker to boot. Great sound.  It's not a direct drop in decoder, but a sort of wire in type job.

So the other day I said to myself, "Self, the two other locos need sound as well - can't only have one with sound". So onto the interweb and two of the latest ESU decoders (ESU 58741, as the older 73100 is no longer available) that will work were ordered, as were some more ESU sugarcube speakers (ESU 50321). 

For this job I had to strip the loco fully down to bits.

The decoders have only SMD type LED's for the lights and that won't do as I need an LED with long legs.  AND the SMD's are too small to desolder and replace with a normal LED.  But ESU, on the new decoders, have put in solder pads for AUX1 and AUX2. So I snagged the AUX1 pads for a long legged lady, I mean LED (which ESU actually supply you in the box!). JMRI can fix what function F1 does and doesn't do later on.

Here is the loco with the old Digitrax decoder next to it, then the new ESU sound decoder (with a suitable LED soldered to the AUX1 pads) and then the old DC board. The DC board comes in handy to strap everything to it so gears and flywheels don't eat any wires.

So, I had the bare chassi now ready to work on.

The rear end is what I will be working on.

Because I need to make some room for the sugarcube speaker.  Here is the speaker and the large baffle and base plate that need to go in.

Now to go make some room on the manual arts workbench - I really need more room !

Just enough room was made around the vice for me to work, Then I got the hacksaw out.

Nah, too small!  Let's get the proper sized hacksaw to the jobface.

One cut vertically was done and then one horizontally. OK, I don't do horizontal, so the job was rotated 90 degrees and a second vertical cut made.

There - excess caboose removed - the derrière looks a lot more sexy.

After the cuts were made I had to clean them up.  So out with the bastard file!

Ok, OK, a did go with the more gentle approach and used one of my metal files.

So the required chunk of chassis was removed. The original chassis weighed in at 92.21 gm and after the bit of excess rear end was removed with the surgery, she weighs in at 87.15 gm.  Not too bad and since the chassis is heavy to start with, bugger all traction will be lost.

Next I glued up the baffle box and added the speaker to it.  I like to use the ZAP Plasti-Zap superglue. It seems to work nicely on the plastics and the job for me.

With the glue on the speaker drying on the workbench, I hooked the decoder up to my ESU Tester and fired up the ESU Programming software.  I pushed the relevant sound down to the decoder and then tested it on the rig - all things worked well - happy happy, joy joy.

Oh, the sound file I used was the ESU S0761 project - EMD Dual 12-567BC 2EXH NT.  I ended up using the Wabco E-2 horn and the default bell was fine.

After the ESU software had finished pushing the sound file to the decoder, I flipped over to JMRI for the last tunings of speed table, sound volumes and such - so much easier using JMRI.  I also changed the light settings so the SMD LED won't turn on and instead, the AUX1 will turn on/off when I use the loco headlight :-)

Now for the fun and games - installing the decoder in the loco... So I figured I would let the old DC board pick up the power from the power rails.

So I put Kapton tape only on the top side of the DC board, so that the decoder would be electrically isolated from the DC board.

Yeh, nah, didn't work in the end. So I wrapped the whole DC board in Kapton tape and will solder the power pickup wires to the decoder and to the two pickup rails.

A bit of solder on top of the relevant pads of the decoder for the power pickups and the motor pickups and we are getting closer.

Then a couple of wires onto the motor tabs.

Next we plonk in the DC board with it's Kapton wrapping.

Then strap the decoder in with Kapton tape and wire the motor in place and the power pickups to where shown.

Now for the speaker.  I use these Sticky Dots for holding them in.

Once the protective tape is off they sorta look like a drop of snot....

Speaker in place and then I soldered the two wires from the decoder to the speaker.

Almost looks like a professional job I reckon :-)

So on with the loco shell and a test lap or two of the test track.

All good. So the last loco was also then completed and now all three of my EMD E5A's have big voices :-)

Took Longer Than I Thought It Would

While sorting through a few locos last week I spotted a few more steamers.  This one in particular grabbed my attention - she's old, but good - one of the Con-Cor S2 class steam locos. She's a 4-8-4 in Great Northern colours.  Somehow she ended up in the back of a box and I had forgetten all about her.  She is a very, good runner and is a very good model, but she probably hasn't had an outing for many years - manufactured in 2000 I think - DC of course.  So she got a wheel clean and some DC running last week and is OK.  So it was now time to DCC her - in fact she is definitely worth having a voice - so a sound decoder was needed.

So the lid came off the tender, to find an 8 pin socket already in place - yippie !  This should be an easy and fast install I reckon!

I just didn't hear the devil just around the corner snickering "MWAAHAAHAA....", did I....

I chose to use an ESU 58823 which is a LokSound 5 DCC Micro with wires hanging out.  It is 21mm x 10 mm and about 3 mm high.

Of course I used a sugarcube type speaker for the noise output side of the installation. Luckily I had just received a few more into my own stock as they are always my go to unit - the ESU 50321, which comes with a baffle kit as well as the speaker.  So out with the ZAP Plastic super glue.

I selected to build the medium baffle size, as I find that gives a really good sound for N scale size locos, and still fits in most installations.

The completed speaker was now put aside for a bit to dry up, as the super glue takes a few minutes.

Now to make room in the tender for the installation of decoder and speaker. As you can see on the left side of the pic, there are two coils and a small surface mounted capacitor on the DC board. - off with their heads I said !

So the coils and capacitor were desoldered from the board as I would no longer need them.

Now to play around with the bits and see what is the best way to fit it all in.  I reckon the speaker can be double sided taped to the roof of the front of the tender and the decoder behind it, should work - measurements were tight, but the eyeballing seemed to confirm it.  (I never did hear the increased snickering from around the corner...)

So first to test the decoder and install the relevant sound file for the loco.  So I got out my ESU Test board and attached the decoder to it.  Then I hooked it up to the PC and fired up the ESU Programmer software.  I ended up selecting the ESU S0737 sound project as there was no "S2" file available.  The GS-4 sounds good enough for me :-)

Once the sound was installed and the decoder tested out all OK, I needed to solder the decoder to an 8 pin plug.  I already had stock of them, so I dug one out and soldered the correct coloured wires to the correct pins.

From the internet of all things, here are the colours and their positions:

I did have to bridge the PCB tracks down where the old coils used to live, so that was done, then the decoder plugged in.

So the decoder and speaker were just loosely positioned so I could try putting the top of the tender on.  Now I think I vaguely heard some loud mean and nasty laughter... I just thought it was the dog next door.

Yeh, right, well, that didn't go well, now did it....  The top was just thisssss close to fitting.  But I figured a hammer was not the answer. So "out", I said - "OUT !"  And the decoder, speaker and even the PCB were out.

Now to play around a bit and see what will fit.  I found the speaker definitely would fit now, even with my normal double sided tape to hold it to the roof of the tender.  And with the old PCB gone as well, the decoder would fit and not hinder the lid closing.  Only thing is, that without the PCB, I would have to solder the wires to where they needed to go - not hard though.

So some wires got soldered and heat shrink applied to protect the joins.  Excess wires were nipped off, leaving enough wire for any future changes if needed.

Then I had to tame the wires. As you can see, they are a tad messy.  But I managed it and then got the lid back on.

Then of course onto the test track and make some changes to the settings via the use of JMRI software. Like speed tables, selecting the correct bell and whistle types, volume of various things - and just things.

Now she's ready for a run down at the club and I reckon she can pull the Great Northern's "Empire Builder" passenger train.  She might have taken three days to do, but those extra two days are worth it.