Was looking at my Athearn RTR SD40-2 and the box says DCC and Sound ready. Whats the difference over just DCC ready?
There is no standard for how producers label nondcc/sound equipped locos.
With recent vintage locos in the past couple of years, it tends to mean that the loco comes with a 21 pin dcc ready lightboard so that you can simply plug in the decoder of choice. It also may have a portion of the weight that can be removed for a speaker, or a space carved into the weight to install a speaker.
Lately, I hear that producers may be simply installing speakers into their dcc ready locos, wired to the light board, and all you have to do is plug in a sound decoder.
All of those versions could be argued they mean dcc and sound ready.
The Athearn Website:
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH11399
suggests that the frame has a place “ready” to receive the sugar cube speakers, that are sold separately.
Simon
In olden days, they might have not been very DCC ready and there was no place to put a speaker.
This is a Life Like board for a GP 9.
Below the GP9 you can see a “Cut here for DCC” That’s far different than today’s circuit boards which have a plug in connector available.
Current production will have a DCC with sound model so there is a place to put a speaker without milling the frame.
SD40’s are too late for my time period but I assume Athearn has produced various versions for quite some time. I’m guessing there could be a transition SD40’s that have been produced over time.
If you look at TCS handy installation site and click on the Athearn RTR SD 40-2 you’ll see part of the rear weight is screwed in and removable to put a speaker in. The Athearn site showing the newer SD 40-2 shows the chassis with this weight already gone. It looks like Athearn added another weight right at the end of the chassis presumably to compensate for the loss of the part removed.
Which age of RTR you have will determine how sound ready it actually is. The newer one is basically plug and play. Speaker wire connections wil need to be made.
Thanks for all the info. I had never seen it before and was a little puzzled. I thought maybe it had a speaker already installed [(-D]
Like Douglas says, I believe there is a manufacturer who has “DCC Ready” engines that come with a speaker already installed, but I can’t recall who right now. I know Bachmann On30 steam engines come with a non-sound DCC decoder and an installed speaker; you need to buy their “Plug-and-Play Sound Module” separately and install it for sound.