Sound decoders

[Allegehney2666]

Does anyone know what sound decoders will fit the locomotives that DCC equipped such as the GP30 DCC on board model?

[Jim Banner]

I assume we are talking H0 here.  The Digitrax Sound Bug is a small sound decoder.  If necessary, you could remove the original motor decoder and replace it with a Digitrax DZ125.  This would make lots of room for the Bug.

The speaker is a different matter again.  Diesel sounds contain a lot of low frequencies that need big speakers to reproduce properly.  And yet there is hardly room for any speaker at all.  One solution is to mount a speaker (or better, two speakers) in a dummy unit.  If you also put the sound decoder in the dummy unit, there is much less restriction on decoder size and you can have sound in whatever lashup of locomotives includes the sound dummy.

On another thread, the author was complaining about the scarcity of dummies in H0.  One solution is to gut an old power unit, removing the motor, gears, and maybe some of the frame.  But keep the power pickups to power the decoder.

Jim

[Allegehney2666]

Thanks Jim but dummy's are not an option on my railroad, I'm the only dummy allowed. As I eventually will have some long steep grade helpers are the theme of my railroad weather it be steam or diesel powered. I am getting to like Digitrax a lot more after a couple of bad experiences with MRC sound decoders.

[ebtbob]

You may want to look at the Micro Tsunami decoders.   Again,  as Jim, said,  the speaker or speakers may be the bigger challenge to deal with.

[Jim Banner]

I too run multiple units up long, steep grades and don't have a single dummy on the roster.  But I am thinking of breaking that rule to build a sound only locomotive.  My thinking is that increasing a consist from two to three or three to four units makes very little difference operationally.

When times were good, we would often see a derelict (rusty old lease unit) mixed in with home road locomotives because of the power shortage.  I am not quite sure what I could use for derelicts on my layout which is a mythical bridging line between the CNR and the CPR in 1961.  The traffic is mostly pulled by CN and CP power with a few home road locomotives pulling locals that never leave the modeled portion of the layout.  Perhaps a few home road dummies would fill the bill.

Jim