Atlas HO MP15 Silver to Gold (an upgrade)

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

Update 12/20 -

I installed the speaker and as you can see there was so very little room. Over the speaker I glued in a piece of styrene to complete an enclosure. Probably not needed as there is so little room.Speaker installed

Update 12/19 -

Finally got the parts and some time to work on my loco. After getting the ESU Loksound 3.5 decoder and speaker, it became very evident that space was still going to be an issue. I tried every configuration I could think of while trying to retain the PC board and the speaker stand. No go Space

So with that, I stripped all the components and fabricated a speaker enclosure from the existing speaker holder and some styrene. Also made a styrene holder for the decoder. This will help to keep it away from the moving parts, etc.parts

Tomorrow I will start assembling the unit.

Original post >>>

Hello all,

I really enjoy reading other’s how-to posts and I am starting a project to upgrade a recently purchased Atlas MP15 so I figured I would post it. There was a similar post on the Atlas Forum but I think that loco was an older model and not quite the same. I would have purchased a Gold version but couldn’t find any in my prototype and road number. I have a Atlas GP40-2 Gold and I am very happy with the QSI

2

This loco will have a very small amp draw when loaded…the micro would have worked just fine and fit much easier than the 3.5. In fact, this past weekend, I installed a Micro into and old Atlas/Roco S3 wich has a much, much larger amp draw than your loco. Also, the Micro comes with the speaker you purchased seperately, and I must say that the sound from the Micro/Small speaker combo is very close to the 3.5/Round speaker combo.

I am happy, though, that you went with my advice and got the LokSound decoder. Enjoy and keep us posted.

David B

3

Question: why are people afraid to remove the factory circuit board when all it does is handle some diodes for directional lighting under DC? It’s all but useless when a decoder is installed, and in many cases it’s just a huge expanse of wasted space. When there’s a ton of room under the hood - sure, leave it in - sometimes it makes a handy shelf to tape the decoder to. But on smaller locos, if the decoder itself doesn’t replace the factory board, you can probably gain additional room for a slightly larger sound decoder, or room to use a slightly larger speaker, if the factory board is removed and the wires simply soldered on.

–Randy

5

Push