SW-1 tight fit


Bread&steel

Bread&steel

Member
I have a Walthers, HO scale, EMD SW-1 which I would love to convert to sound ...but there is just no room. Question.....Will an N scale board work or will the motor burn it out.

Thanks
 
I would say you would have a bigger chance of the decoder burning out before the motor. I will have to take a look at the one I have and see if there is a place to mill out an area for a speaker.
 
MGWSY said:
I would say you would have a bigger chance of the decoder burning out before the motor. I will have to take a look at the one I have and see if there is a place to mill out an area for a speaker.
Click to expand...

That's what I meant to say. The motor would burn out the decoder
 
Well I know I will be milling out an area for a NCE N12SRP 1 amp decoder which should work fine with a loco that small. As for sound its hard to say but it is doable with the correct decoder / speaker combination. You wont be fitting a large speaker in the unit unless you want it in the cab so a smaller one can be mounted in the fuel tank area but now you sacrifice weight so it depends what you want. Its not like you will be hauling around 40 car trains with one anyways.
 
you will have to mill out fuel tank weights or the weight in the hood aera. I put 2 decoders in a P2K S1 the motor decoder is in the nose and the sound decoder at the mid section. speaker is where the fuel tank is.

the loco was DCC ready but I had to lightly mill the top part of the weight to get the sound decoder in. the speaker fit under the frame but I had to mill the 2 small side tank weights.

I used this style motor decoder

http://www.amazon.com/HO-DCC-Decoder-JST-Adapter/dp/B000MKPI7I

and a cheep basic MRC sound decoder.

I would have only used one decoder but I had 2 alcos that needed sound and already had motor decoders.

Trent
 
Some very good info here. Thanks guys. I think the manufacturers should start thinking sound when they design a loco. I know this doesn't apply in this case because my engine is many years old,... but in the future, a small switcher like this one should be designed with a smaller motor driving one truck only and leave room for the electronics on the other end. Also fuel tanks should be designed as speaker baffles. After all, you are right when you say I won't be pulling long trains with that engine. Thanks again for your input

Larry
 
Bread&steel said:
Some very good info here. Thanks guys. I think the manufacturers should start thinking sound when they design a loco. I know this doesn't apply in this case because my engine is many years old,... but in the future, a small switcher like this one should be designed with a smaller motor driving one truck only and leave room for the electronics on the other end. Also fuel tanks should be designed as speaker baffles. After all, you are right when you say I won't be pulling long trains with that engine. Thanks again for your input

Larry
Click to expand...

Well Bachmanns 45 tonner , which is half the size of the SW1, comes with a speaker cutout in the fuel tank and enough room for the electronics so there are Co.s that listen and do design new models with sound in mind.

BachmannGE45Tonner12.png


BachmannGE45Tonner8.png


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