I got a President choice anniversary Santa Fefor xmas. It is made by Mehano solvenia. Has anyone installed a decoder in one of these locos yet. New to DCC
From what I have heard, those are standard IHC 2-10-2 locomotives that have a DCC socket in the tender, and there are even holes in the tender floor above the rear truck to allow for the speaker. Of course, any standard non-sound decoder can also be installed. If you get one with the NMRA 8-pin plug, it is a simple matter of plugging the decoder in and programming it.
I installed a Tsunami heavy steam sound decoder into mine and it was really very simple. The instructions that came with the locomotive should explain how to open the tender by removing two screws from the bottom.
A Tsunami sound decoder has a solder-in wiring harness installed, but that can be removed by carefully cutting away some of the shrink wrap, and a harness with an NMRA medium 8-pin plug on one end and a JST 9-pin plug on the other can be substituted. The only soldering involved will be two wires to the speaker. I used an oval speaker with enclosure purchased from Litchfield Station.
If you do choose to use a Tsunami sound decoder, go to the SoundTraxx web site and download their Tsunami Technical Reference Manual for a wealth of information about all of the Configuration Variables that can be reset to customize the sounds.
Good luck.