How many sound decoders in an F unit consist?


Laurie McLean on Sugar Cube speakers

This is the name of the gentleman I spoke of who has done LOTs of experimenting with speakers. I'm sure you can find lots of them on Youtube.

This is one excerpt (of many) that I saved from a posting of his on the Soundtraxx forum (posted on Yahoo. wonder if those will be available in the future)

George's (TVW Miniatures) plywood enclosures work well however I like to add a coating of Aileen's tacky glue to be sure to fully seal the wood on the outside and when installing the speaker into the box - need a perfect seal.

As for are these big enough to install 1/16" foam tape to the inside - well I haven't tried doing this using his enclosures myself but I would think making a slightly larger enclosure box with the absorbing material lining the inside would be very worth the effort - and of course let your ears tell you if the sounds are better.

I'm using the foam tape that is used by automotive industry as it is a bit denser than the cheap foam tape and a little bit thinner too - saving space and the box size.

If you are serious about using these tiny speakers and really want to let your ears discover how you can make them produce slightly different sounds I suggest you experiment with one or two.

Make the enclosure (box) about 8.0mm deep and use styrene (0.015" thick) for the sides. You glue the styrene around the speaker and make sure youget a good seal.
This leaves the rear cover to be glued onto the box sides.

Try a balsa wood cover but seal the outer side with Aileen's glue or similar to ensure a good seal so air pressure can't push through the wood.
Glue the cover on and let the glue dry completely (overnight). Then hook-up the speaker and have a listen.

If your ears don't like what you hear remove the wood cover and try a cardboard cover. If this doesn't sound right then try a styrene cover - say 1/16" thick.

What I'm saying is trying different side and rear cover materials will give you slightly different sounds.

Next is adding sound wave absorbing material inside the "box" and I just use foam tape.

Of course it will all depend on the available space in a loco to accommodate the speaker with its enclosure.

The best I have so far found is to make the box at least 1.5 times as big as the speaker itself - 2 times bigger is better but will take up more space.

Where Detlef glued the speaker onto the loco body using super-glue if the speaker was to fail then removing it may be a problem.

In my Kato SD40 I use the very thin double sided tape which I purchased from an electrical sales store here in Australia. It comes 3/4" wide in a roll about 5 inches diameter and used to stick electrical signs inside power boxes etc.
It is very thin at about 0.003" thick and being so thin the transfer of sound waves into the loco body is good.

You may find a similar tape in an office supply company in the USA ?

The key is to get a perfect seal on the enclosure box so care needs to be taken when gluing the sides and the rear box cover. I cut the foam tape so it makes a "push-fit" on the rear cover into the box sides and glues I use are Pliobond or Loktite Super-glue GEL to seal the back box cover.

I usually mount in locos using the rear cover against the loco with the thin tape or the 1/16" thick tape.

I know folks here are serious about sounds and desire as good as they can get. I always make my own enclosures to suit the space but I still experiment and try different s tiny speakers and listen to how they sound.

I have 2 plastic kits part boxes full of speakers plus my Sound Sample demonstration panel and I have several speakers with different materials to try. This investment has paid off and I have shared much of this on my YouTube videos.

Do yourself a favor and make a few test speakers up and then let your ears do the talking (Grin)

Regards and good listening .....

Laurie
Click to expand...
 
beiland: After watching the video, I will use a cell phone speaker for a 0-6-0 that I plan on installing DCC and sound. I have a vintage SoundTrax sound decoder and a vintage speaker that I'll replace with the cell phone speaker.

This will be my first sound decoder install.

What's the best way to mount the speaker in the tender???

Thanks.

Greg
 
Greg@mnrr said:
beiland: After watching the video, I will use a cell phone speaker for a 0-6-0 that I plan on installing DCC and sound. I have a vintage SoundTrax sound decoder and a vintage speaker that I'll replace with the cell phone speaker.

This will be my first sound decoder install.

What's the best way to mount the speaker in the tender???

Thanks.

Greg
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert at this, just have a long time interest in the subject, particularly as I may soon be doing some installs myself (in next 6 months).
I'm going to take a guess that if its possible a speaker mounted in the loco itself might be a preferred location. OR as I have noted a long time ago a speaker mounted in the tender that projects its sound toward the engineer's cab was VERY effective in an old friends case a number of years ago.
 
beiland said:
I'm going to take a guess that if its possible a speaker mounted in the loco itself might be a preferred location.
Click to expand...
I agree, that was the stated advantage of that round speaker on the video.

As for mounting in a tender, it depends a lot on the shape of the tender. If it is a coal tender one can mount it firing up and or forward. If it has a nice flat area toward the loco cab one can mount it forward. If not, bottom firing is the tried and true method for a tender. That brand of 0-6-0 is this?

Are you getting the exact speaker shown in the video or just a similar one? The "transferring" of the sound into the board when he holds it against it is concerning. That means the back of the enclosure is not strong enough and it is itself vibrating. If you were to mount that to a wall of the tender the wall of the tender could vibrate and hence rattle.

BTW - Fidelity wise, a round speaker is always going to out perform any other shape of the same quality and size. The wonder of trigonometry.
 
digitrax and MRC have sound only decoders. If you use a differrent decoder it may have a slight differrent sound. Using the same decoder there may be a setting to slightly change the speed/frequency setting, that gets 2 decoders to get a slightly off sound so they don't sound exactly the same.
 
Thanks dinwitty for the heads up on the sound only decoders!

Interesting discussion on the issue of speakers and a very important follow up topic (what speaker to use).

Thank you all for your valuable input!
 
Sound in C&O Allegheny

Just in case anyone missed it I resurrected an old subject thread of mine on BIG sound,...that of a massive C&O Allegheny. At the time I was looking to find what decoder-speaker combo might even approach this sound. Never did find one, but at least I discovered some that 'chuffed' rather than 'chiffed'.

This was really before the moves to sugar-cubes and cell phone speakers. It would still take an awful amount of convincing salesmanship to have me believe I could get better sound in my Allegheny's with these small speakers as opposed to the older conventional ones.

beiland said:
I realize that this is a simulation, but I sure would like to find a sound installation for an Allegheny (Rivarossi) that even closely approached this husky-ness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvM_J-7HopI

Most every thing I've heard in the stock units just doesn't approach this. So where is the best??
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top