DCC Sounds for Thomas and Percy - Help needed.

C

Cliff George

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I am intending to convert my Thomas and Percy to DCC and I thought that I may as well add sound at the same time so I started looking around for suitable sounds to use, but there doesn't seem to be much on the market. With the greatest respect to Mr Mookraker, although the sound itself would be suitable, I don't really think that MyLocoSound is particularly DCC compatible, I don't want to have to mess around with batteries to get the standing sounds when there is constant power to the track already.

I contacted my favorite Austrian dealer, Mr Peyker, who had a word with Mr Dietz. Here is the reply:

I asked Mr. Dietz for sounds of such a steam loco but he says that he does not know how this type of loco sounds.
If you have the sound in digital version he is able to make a file for the sound decoder.
Click to expand...

It seems that Mr Dietz is willing to create some sounds for his range of DCC sound decoders! The only trouble is that I/we would need to provide him with the sounds in the first place. So there is the challenge!

I'm guessing that ripping sounds off of Thomas DVDs/TV would be highly illegal.

So does anyone have, or know how to get, digital files containing sounds that may have come from Thomas and Percy?

I am led to believe that Thomas is based on an E2 class 0-6-0T tank engine, of which none are preserved, but there are versions of the E1 around.

Percy is supposed to be based (I am led to believe) on a rebuilt Avonside 0-4-0 tank loco.

Any suggestions or help welcomed.

Regards
Cliff
 
I see that someone has asked a similar question on the Massoth forum.....

...as of yet no reply.


Personally, I would want the sounds that they use on the TV series but I would expect that they would need to be licensed, which would probably be expensive.
 
Do you want real sounds or the TV style sounds is the real issue. For my Caledonia and Heidi I used ESU chips and selected a loco from the online samples that sounded about right and ordered it loaded. I have also now got the ESU lokprogrammer so that I can change the whistles to something closer from the online library. This is the approach I'll use for Thomas and Percy. Now if I was to do Ivor I would want the distinctive Pssst ti-cuff sound for the chuffs which would be more of a challenge.
The only thing I would do for the novelty is sample some of the characters words as wavs and replace things like the flange squeal and blower sounds with short quotes. If you own the DVD's you could do this but don't share or try to sell them, alternatively find a friend who can do good sounding impression of Ringo!
"Hello Percy", "Hello Bertie" and things like "come on trucks"
 
....just a related question.....is Thomas dcc ready or is a hard wire job required?

Just asking out of general interest - honest:nail:
 
Thanks chaps,

I would like authentic sounding chuffs, whistles etc, but maybe station announcements that said 'Thomas, you have caused confusion and delay' or 'You're a really useful engine'. Perhaps Thomas could be heard to say occasionally 'cinders and ashes', and Percy perhaps 'bust my buffers'.

It looks like perhaps the ESU route is the one to use. I had a look on the ESU website, I didn't see that the sound decoders had either power buffers built in or the ability to attach one. I'd want that facility on an engine with only four pickups, working a garden railway, with track that doesn't get cleaned that often and which uses LGB style dead frog points. Also having to buy the sound programmer makes it an expensive route, but perhaps a group of mates could get one between them, or borrow/hire one from a retailer.

Mark that would be me asking on the Massoth forum!

Regards
 
Cliff George said:
... I don't really think that MyLocoSound is particularly DCC compatible, I don't want to have to mess around with batteries to get the standing sounds when there is constant power to the track already.
Click to expand...

Just to say that I have a MyLocoSound diesel sound card working fine under DCC (in a Playmobil diesel). It was no problem to wire up. One decoder function switches the sound off and on, another operates the horn. Revs sound follows the motor speed quite well.

I wrote this up on the old GSM forum. I don't have any experience of the Steam sound card but hopefully it would work in a similar fashion.
 
Hi Nick,

So when your engine stops, what happens to the sound? Doesn't that stop as well, unless a battery or some kind of power buffer is used? I'd want to still hear sound when the engine stopped.

Regards
 
Cliff George said:
So when your engine stops, what happens to the sound? Doesn't that stop as well, unless a battery or some kind of power buffer is used?
Click to expand...
Hi Cliff,

the sound card is fully powered by a decoder function output, so the sound continues to "tick over" all the time that function output is switched on, just as you'd want it to. No battery or power buffer required.

I should add that the little diesel has a LokPilot XL decoder in it, this is a 3 amp decoder (overkill!) but with function outputs that can drive 600mA which is enough for the MyLocoSound card.

The sound card is also connected across the decoder motor outputs, it senses power being applied to the motor and revs up as expected. I would imagine that the effectiveness of the speed sensing with DCC depends on the smoothness of the PWM drive used to drive the motor and how the sound card interprets this output (it's presumably expecting pure DC). The effect I get is a build up from tick-over that reminds me of a hydraulic or electric transmisison rather than direct mechanical drive.

I've been very pleased with the diesel sound card, except for the horn which is a bit weak in my early version of the card: I understand this has been improved for the current production cards. I really must try one of Peter's steam sound cards with DCC sometime.

Here's the decoder and sound card installed in the Playmobil loco:

124499305c8b43fdb69e96817f1fb767.jpg


Wires to the sound card are:

orange & grey = decoder motor outputs, to sound card motor sense inputs.
blue = decoder function common (+), to sound card power input (Vs)
green = decoder F1 output (-), to sound card ground
violet = decoder F2 output (-), to sound card horn input.

2x red wire from soundcard to speaker

Ignore the yellow wire, that's in case I want to fit a rear headlight (theres a white & blue going to the front headlight).

The black tape on the sound card is covering a flashing LED which was shining through the bodywork!
 
Thanks Nick,

Now I see how it could work, power the sound card from the function output, good idea.

Thanks for explaining it in the detail that you did.

Regards
Cliff
 
Cliff George said:
Mark that would be me asking on the Massoth forum!

Regards
Click to expand...
Sorry Cliff, I didnt make the connection :)
 
Nick,

Thanks for the great explanation. Would you mind if I include it on the MyLocoSound web site and mention your name?

Regards
Peter
 
Moonraker said:
Thanks for the great explanation. Would you mind if I include it on the MyLocoSound web site and mention your name?
Click to expand...

Hi Peter.
Yes of course, no problem at all. Hope others find it useful.
 
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