Sound Beginner

[Glengrant]

That just about sums it up as far as I am concerned. A spin-off from the trailing point thread of a coupla days ago was that delightful little video of Giz's showing a diesel shunt. My attention was drawn to the sound emanating from the loco. Now I am having a lot of difficulty getting trains to run, points to switch, wires to join etc etc etc, so for me to think about entering into the sound world is a little crazy.
But I am thinking I'd like to give it a go, so I, as usual, turn to the experts, rather than try to find out for myself.
Let's look at the situation
Fairly simple (apart from my wiring) analogue layout. Control done by a 2nd generation TE, usually works. Could I fit a sound unit into one loco without having to go into complex DCC or whatever that is operation? I only want to do a sort of trial, keeping costs down. I mean, where does the sound come out? (Don't tell me, Walt). It will be obvious to you that I know nothing about sound. Maybe that's how it should stay. This making any sense to anyone out there?

 

[Zerogee]

Hi Cyril!
Quick answer is yes, you can fit a sound unit that will work fine on analogue. You can either use one of the LGB "black box" sound units that are self-contained (speaker and electronics in one case) and simply need connecting to track power via two wires - or you can use a Massoth "S" module which works just the same, but is a separate little electronics module which is then wired to a speaker. Each has pros and cons - the LGB black box is easy to install IF you have the space in your loco (quite often the only option is in the cab, depends if you mind the look of that), while the little S is much easier to squeeze into the available space. The LGB one is also considerably more expensive than the S. The big difficulty with the S is that right now you can't get the little blighters, because Massoth are out of stock while they apparently redesign it - but all being well it should be back on the market eventually. An S will cost you (when available!) around £100 plus a few quid on top for a speaker. The LGB unit is more like £150 plus, though you do see them second-hand now and then.
With either, you should get a speed-dependant engine noise, including start-up if you are very gentle on the controller, probably a toot on the horn as it pulls away, and brake squeal on slowing down (again, you need to be gentle on the controls to get the full effect of this). You can also use track magnets to trigger bell/whistle/horn functions, but to do that you will have to mount reed switches under the loco and connect them to the sound module.

Just one question - do you use your TE switched to "Linear" or "PWM"? Both of the modules I mentioned should be fine on the linear setting, but might give trouble on PWM, like DCC-chipped locos do (we've had that discussion a couple of weeks back, I think).

Jon.

 

[Gizzy]

Hullo Cyril.

The V52 in the video uses the LGB black box, obtained second hand.

I filmed the video during my own TE days, before I went down the dark side of MTS operation. If you turn the power to zero on the TE you loose the sound, but if you keep just enough juice on and use the direction buttons, I found I could do shunting as in the video.

The loss of sound though was one reason I went for MTS/DCC operation, with constant power to the track....

 

[Glengrant]

OK chaps, I'm with you so far, but in all honesty, I think that with my limited amount of cash, there are probably more important things I want to do before I indulge in the extravagance of sounds. I do appreciate your input, very grateful, and it may well be that I do file this away for future reference. Let's get the bloody trains running first, eh? Thanks a lot you guys (I used to be able to make quite a good own voice noise of a Sulzer, and of course, when slightly intox, I could do a Gresley 3-cyl loco easily)

 

[playmofire]

I've just bought and fitted a fully assembled mylocosound steam kit and I am very pleased with it, and they do a diesel one too. I've fitted it in a box van fitted with "pick-up" wheels.

 

[Glengrant]

To answer your question Jon, always Linear, yes, I've read it too