Plenty of trains running :D
Have a major problem with Tam Valley Servo point control, awaiting on answer from them.
And running trains in both directions, crosses etc. Its becoming much more like a railway, day by day!
But now I have the other end to fix. That is trains all eventually arrive back at "Bowser" and terminate, because I need to get the branch up and running again . Show my plans next time :)
Here is a question I posted on DCC Downunder. Would appreciate advice?
Has anybody got an Explorer?
I have a three car early version Southern Models Explorer to which I want to add sound.
As you might know the lead driving car is powered and the trailing one a dummy. When you reverse the headlights and tail lights swap ends as you would expect. But the sound only comes out of the motorised end car. When a long 3 car Explorer passes you it is obvious that the two trailing cars are shut down
How to fix? Well I got 4 cell phone speakers arranged in series and two pairs in parallel returning the load to 8 ohms as required, and hard wired the speakers into the three cars. Two in middle and one each in the ends.
It works!! But the volume is so low that I had to build a small amplifier to boost the signal. That really does not work, and I need a big amp and the space is not there. Plus it is becoming an expensive proposition.
In fact at $415 it is probably cheaper to buy a two car set and use the motor to double power the 3 car unit.
Having said that I will need to operate two speakers in series (?) create a 4 ohm load and as before supply a speaker in front and a second in middle motor and the same from other end.
I presume that I will need to permanently assign the two Loksound V4.0 decoders to an address and lock them after tweaking the CV's.
Now what about the lighting? I guess do not use the second Loksound
lighting at all. Wire up the second motor the same as the original
dummy, and hope that the car lights all respond as the original set
using the dummy. . That is headlights changing ends and marker lights
rear lights and saloon lights?
Am I missing anything?
Cheers
Rod
Am I missing anything?
Cheers
Rod
Well I could be nasty & say that it serves you right that you are modelling deseasels & similar but I wont.
ReplyDeleteDoes the model come with 2 speakers in the power car? If so, could you remove one & run wires from it to the lead car & see how that works?
Hello Col. Not sure I want to strip the carriage down that far :( At the moment I am ignoring the built in speaker(s) all together, and using sugar cubes. I think the problem is the little amps in the sound decoders are just too small to drive enough speakers to have sound appear to come from each carriage... And yes I know if I could do it I would have exhaust shimmer as well :D
ReplyDeleteTwo decoders will certainly give two different engine noises I guess. More interesting is to keep the lighting controls.
Rod
You can't take another power car and swap for the dummy car in the three car set. Have a look at the intercar connectors and you'll notice that the gender wont allow that config. If you want to start swapping wiring looms and connectors, good luck.
ReplyDeleteThanks Paul,
ReplyDeleteHave you tried this your self? My Explorers are still stripped down waiting further developments. But from memory the power car runs ok on its own?
I was hoping to hard wire a decoder to the power unit and disconnect the light board all together, then simply wire the headlights, marker lights and interior lights exactly the same as the dummy driving car. I need to look into it further, appreciate your good wishes :)
Rod
edit
after reading this again, I wonder if I could move the dummy light board into the new power car? and separate wiring of the motor might do the trick? Need to go find the models and check again.