I just got a LokSound decoder for my Brawa talent ( in the mail ) and have a few questions. It comes with a type of speaker mount that looks like a bottle cap. Am I supposed to put the speaker in membrane facing in the cap, or membrane facing towards me. After I put the speaker in the cap, does it matter where I put it?? Any other tips for mounting the speaker appreciated. I am doing a sound install for the first time.
Thanks,
Nataraj
I don’t think it really matters, I always put the membrane facing out, but if you think about it, both sides of the membrane are moving the same so it should not make much difference.
Depends on the engine, for diesels it is often best to have it facing down over one of the trucks, the sound will come out of the hole in the frame that the truck sits in. But on the other hand, I have a Loksound decoder in a dash 8 and the speaker is mounted in the cowling facing up. It sounds just as good to me. So basically wherever you can.
Use some kind of putty to seal the speaker into the housing, and close up the slits where the wires go in. The more air tight you make your speaker housing the better your sound will be.
Good luck. I think you will not be dissapointed with Loksound.
Thanks. I will try that. I will let you know what happens. Since it is a DMU, I think I will have more space and holes for the sound to go through in the bottom, So I might mount in in the floor. The guy I bought it from in germany says it is about 2-3 weeks till it gets here, so I will let you know when it gets here.
Well, I went and tested my new decoder. I put the speaker in the cap, facing me. I mounted it in a spectrum f-40. ( i know, the sounds don’t match ). I mounted the speaker on the inside of the roof, facing up through one of the fans. The sound was great, and the decoder worked perfectly. Does sealing the speaker cap make the sound louder?? Because it is VERY loud right now. The manual is very generic, and is not that helpfull. How can I make the volume lower??
It will make it a little louder, yes. But you want to do it because it will improve your bass quite a bit. I found mine loud out of the boxes too, and I love that you can set the volume for prime mover/bell/horn seperately.
If you look near the back of the manual there are several pages of CVs. I dont have a manual handy right now but it should say in the table of contents where the CV assignments are.
I just looked on the ESU website and you can download the manual there. It says here:
CV #121 is horn volume. Range is 0-64 and factory setting is 64
CV #122 is bell volume. Range 0-64 and factory set to 64
CV #123 is everything else. Range is 0-64 and factory setting is 64.
So you see that it comes cranked way up. The sound is much clearer at a reasonable volume. Also if you poke around that CV chart you see that you can set things like how many RPM you want the diesel engine to be running at idle and other such adjustments. This really is an awesome decoder.
Those CVs set the individual sounds relative to the others. Push F8 a few times and it should start to cycle through different volume levels for all the sounds.
F8 is the brakeman’s whistle
According to My Loksound manual (pg 20 column 2 heading Mute/Adjusting volume by function key)
You can enable the mute by pressing the F8 button.
For Loksound V3.5, you can also easily adjust the volume during normal operations by the F8 function button: Press th F8 button two times quickly in series. Each time you do this, the volume is increased by one step up to the max. After you have reaced the maximum value, the volume is reset to the lowest value again. You can toggle through four different volume levels.
It works on mine
You can also use CV63 to set the overall volume after you get the independent volumes (121, 122, 123) adjusted to your liking. I usually use some blue RTV to seal the speaker to the enclosure. So far it doesn’t seem to matter that much how the speaker is oriented within the locomotive, but having it in the enclosure matters a lot.
I tried F8 – press it once nothing happens. Press it again, brakemans whistle. Remember, I have one with european sounds, it may be a bit different from the US ones. CV i23 seems to work for volume. Have not tried cv 63, but will give it a shot.
I can’t see the two decoders being different because they should all be the same decoder. Pressing F8 once, waiting for a response from the sound and then pressing it again is different then their recommedation of pressing F8 twice quickly. But if you tried that and you get the brakeman’s whistle then I guess that maybe they are different. As long as you can change it using the CVs then I guess the end result is ok.
Even when I press it twice I get a brakemans whistle.
The ‘bottle cap’ is an attempt at baffle-ing (Separating front wave from back wave) that raises the high frequecy resonance. OK for hissing steam, but loses out on diesels.
BEST is to fire the speaker through an an open fan - sealing off any others - so the back wave can travel out the wheel wells onto the track. This allows the body to act as the whole baffle instead of the ‘tinny’ bottle cap.
The benefit is using the body to separate both front and back waves = more efficient lower frequencies. I even sometimes use a rectangular speaker this way to move more air. The more efficient the speaker install, the less the 1 watt amplifier has to work and reduces distortion., What is often called “too loud” is actually distorted sound.
Professer Robert Carver U.W., Phase Linear, Carver Electronics, proved that.
So you are saying not to seal the “cap” and leave it just placed in there?? I will use this in a DMU ( Brawa talent ) so there are no fans to work with. Most likely I will put the speaker facing down over the trucks or drill holes in the flloor. If I put the speaker down on the floor ( facing down ) and seal it down along the edge of the circle, will that use the body as a baffle??
Thanks for all the help
Probably not. Even if you seal it well the front wave would come out of the hole but the back wave would come out of the truck holes. They would be very close together and bounce around and mix under the loco. Or at least that
[quote user=“JPM335”]
Probably not. Even if you seal it well the front wave would come out of the hole but the back wave would come out of the truck holes. They would be very close together and bounce around and mix under the l
I think thats the best idea. Also depending how close to the track the speaker will be you might want to cover it with a piece of plastic window screen. Bottom mounted speakers that are too low will pick up all kinds of metal shavings and stray spikes causing you to have to clean the speaker every now and then. The screen wont stop everything but it helps. What a pain on my BLI AC6000[:(!]
Thanks for the tip!!
OK, my brawa talent came in, and I installed the decoder ( loksound ). Workes perfect. Except the top speed is not at what I want it to be. I am using this as a high speed railcar for commuter service on my layout. As of now, it aint going to fast I tried entering 100, then 255, under CV5, but after I put in the value, read it to make sure it is the new one, it is still 60, the factory value!!! Every time I enter a new #, it goes right back to the factory value.!! How can I change the v-max?? ( I need it higher )