I have recently acquired a P2K Heritage 0-8-0 and would like to add dcc control and sound. The engine is DCC ready. Any suggestions, helpful hints or suggestions are appreciated.
Before performing any sound install on this unit, make sure that you have tender pickups in place. The first run of these locos had NO tender pickups.
If you are thinking “well, there are 8 drivers and they all pickup”, you will be surely disapointed.
The proto 0-6-0 came with pickups in the tender in all cases. If you can find these trucks contact Walthers and see if they will either sell you trucks with pickups or a kit to add pickups.
David B
David is right about the pickups. I’ve got an 0-6-0 with tender pickups, and it works very well. The decoder will need to go in the tender, as there isn’t much room inside the locomotive body itself. This gives you lots of room for a decoder and speaker, but it requires running wires between the loco and the tender - 2 for power, 2 for the motor and 2 for the headlight. I would look into small plugs so that you can separate the two if you need to.
These are quality engines. They deserve a quality decoder, like a Tsunami. Yes, they’re more expensive than the Digitrax models, but the difference in performance, both motor and sound, is immediatly noticeable.
I have never had a Tsunami decoder, but I have 2 Loksound 3.5 decoders in a Big Boy and a Y6 b. Sound great and slow speed pulling is fantastic
Just remember the speakers and en-closer will make more of a differences in the sound quality than the decoder.
Try this link.
http://www.ulrichmodels.biz/servlet/StoreFront
Steve can program the decoder for the sound you want and knows is stuff. Great customer services.
Cuda Ken
Both are important, but I wouldn’t minimize the importance of the decoder itself. The Digitrax sound decoders use 8-bit sound encoding, while Tsunamis and most others use 16-bit encoding. Because it’s a power-of-two thing, that doesn’t make it twice as good, it makes it 256 times as good.
Fortunately, it’s not an either-or thing. You can have a great decoder, a great speaker and a great enclosure for your speaker. And since these Proto Heritage steamers are great engines, that’s the way you should go. So, have a great day!