I hope you all can forgive me for what may be a very silly question, but I just wanted to double check before committing to something.
I’ve had a Bachmann Acela trainset since it came out in the early 2000s and it runs flawless. This is the DCC-ready first run, so no decoder on board. However it does have this PCB board in the power unit.
I understand that I can just very simply plug in a motor control decoder into the NMRA 8-pin plug there and it should work just fine. Now, my very silly question is: is this the same for a sound decoder? I just solder a male NMRA 8-pin to the decoder wires corresponding to the 1 through 8 pin locations, and assuming I don’t need any other functions, it should just fire up with sound as long as my speaker is also wired up? (The only other function I think I’d like to add is a micro LED at the pantograph for that arc effect on Soundtraxx’s electric loco decoder offering).
I’ve only done hard-wire DCC installs so far on some 90s redbox Rivarossi steam, so this is a little different for me.
Just like with motor-only decoders, you can either use the on-board 8-pin NMRA socket or hardwire a sound decoder to your locomotive’s chassis. What you will need to determine, however, is if your decoder has on-board resistors for the LED lighting…or if you will need solder in your own 1K resistors.
Do you already have a speaker picked out for your sound decoder? Does your Acela have space for a speaker?
And they work great, even in a temporary work up to see if they fiot my need. It will work even better when I install it correctly (it is just taped in place now and have not built the speaker box yet).
Thank you for the suggestions folks. I don’t mind soldering decoder wires to an 8-pin male plug but I’ll take a look at the Digitrax offering. I do like the sounds available on the Soundtraxx Tsunami2 but I haven’t committed yet.
Excellent, I was hoping to just plug in an 8-pin rather than hardwire this one, considering it’s already ‘ready’ for a decoder. The LED resistor question is something I did not think about, so thank you for bringing that up. I may just contact Bachmann directly to ask. The other thing is, the lights are in a plastic housing that uses clear and plastic pipes to pipe the light to its proper place on the shell, and I’m not entirely sure they are LEDs verses bulbs so I will have to check that as well. Considering this was made in the early 2000s, it may be bulbs and I’d replace them with LEDs if they are.
As for a speaker, I haven’t picked one out yet but there’s a channel about 20mm wide by 90mm in length, and is about 10mm deep under the roof of the shell directly in front of the PCB board. Most of the body is metal for weight - I could mill it out to make room but I don’t think that will be necessary. The speaker(s) will have to be flat and face upwards but I don’t see much issue with that.
I am suspecting the loco might have light bulbs, maybe. If set up for a decoder. Looks, ready to go. What looks like two resistors, are inductors. No resistance. Cut the capacitor out.
I have Bachmann DCC ready locos.
There is a Bachmann site, forums with Repair info, loco diagrams, company rep, all kinds of good info. Search for Bachmann forums. It will pop right up.
Before you do that, check out that decoder wires aren’t actually coming from a 9-pin plug-in. Many decoders that look they just wires coming out of them actually are connected to a 9-pin; on some decoders (particularly sound decoders for some reason) the joint is covered by the tape covering the decoder. Anyway, if that’s the case, you can just buy a 9-pin to 8-pin decoder harness and plug it in that way. LOT easier than soldering wires.
Here’s a link to a Soundtraxx decoder - it looks like the wires just come out of the decoder, but if you took a razorblade or X-acto knife and removed the last 1/8" or so of the covering, I believe you’d see the wires are actually attached to the decoder via a 9-pin harness. You can just unplug that and plug in a 9-pin to 8-pin harness. They come in a variety of wire lengths depending on your space.
Forget sound for this loco. The only sound is from the wheels. I looked at the Bachmann forums for this loco. A couple members said they heard this loco come by at a station. All they heard where the wheels and felt a whoosh. Electric power.
I do have a link to one one fellow cleaning one up from ebay. The switch is for overhead or track power.
Just plug in a decoder that has eight pins. Cut the capacitor. The two inductors are not an issue.
The link I have shows very little room for a sound decoder and speaker, dated 2017 in the Bachmann forums with six passenger cars, all with seats and lighting.
Thanks for the heads up on the harnesses! I didn’t realize that an 8 to 9 wire harness was an option.
As for sound, the bell and horn/whistle are half the fun! I’d like to add sound and if there are options for electric locomotives with K5LA horns, I’m all about it.
As far as space is concerned, I think there is plenty of space available IMO. It would have to
The Bachmann Acela train has an engine at each end, one powered and one dummy. It appears both have 8-pin DCC receptacles - the unpowered dummy does have lights. If nothing else, I’d think the dummy would have room for a sound decoder and speaker. However, I think you could fit it in the powered one too, even if you had to use sugarcube speakers.
I forgot about the dummy engine. If he puts a decoder in there, put a 100 ohm, 1/2 watt resistor across the decoder motor leads so the dCC contrller sees the decoder. Reduce a couple CV’s tp zero so the resistor does not over heat. I did that about nine years ago with a SoundTrax Micro in a tender. Just no BEMF because no motor feedback.
I did notice SoundTraxx has no suggestion for this loco so far.
I’m surprised there doesn’t seem to be any images of a disassembled Acela (unless you’re looking for the HHP-8 apparently).
Once the wires are tucked away I think there should be no issue putting a flat speaker, or even a sugarcube or two in there. I could mill a bit of the weight from above the front truck on the left, where it gets narrower to make room.
Putting the speaker and decoder into the dummy unit would work too, but I’m going to exhaust my options installing it in the motorized unit before then. The dummy will have to get a decoder of some sort eventually to consist with the motorized for the lights.
Good luck. Looks like a nice project.Looking at the photo I have from a link at the Bachmann forum, I can see a little grinding might be necessary in the lead loco.
The front loco photos show the loco broken down nice.
