Well, I purchased a diesel sound box for my small layout (5X7). I was looking in the history of the forum, and I didn’t see the question addressed. It seems easy to hook up according to the directions for DC: Blue& Green–go to speaker; Red& Brown–go to accessory terminals on the power pack (I use a MRC 260); Yellow & White go to the track terminals. My question is about the yellow and white. I have 4 electrical blocks in my layout. Do I need to have a yellow and white go to each electrical block since each block only has power when I turn the juice on with the selector?
Well, I answered my own question. As long as the wires are hooked up to a live track, I have sounds of a increase in throttle. Therefore, I should wire to each electrical block for best results. But since I have some extra track and a part of the table unfinished, I can just lengthen a remote siding, isolate the extension with insulators from the rest of the track, and make the small section always live with its own feeders into the selector switch. It isn’t as finished, but for me it will work since time right now is limited to rip up some ballast sections of the layout to wire it the most professional looking way. It is a siding that doesn’t have much traffic, just usually a lone locomotive sitting there for the power plant. Like all things, eventually I will get around to wiring it differently.
I’m thinking if you ran the white & yellow wires to each of your 4 blocks wouldn’t you be rejoining your 4 blocks back into 1 big block defeating the purpose of blocking out the layout? Example-When you power up a loco on 1 block,the power would travel through the sound system energizing the other 3 blocks? Maybe I’m not thinking right here but a red flags going up in my mind. Maybe the sound system has circuitry to compensate for this.I don’t know. You could always call MRC. Their pretty helpful on the phone.
How well does that sound box work? Is it worth it? I was thinking of trying one but wasn’t sure about them. Also most of my fleet consists of early Alco’s, I understand the sound is really for EMD’S is that true? Thanks
Well, I finished wiring up the sound box. I like it. Works great for my small layout. The extra block I added at the end of a siding worked well. Overall, I think it was worth the money. I am not sure how an alco horn sounds, but the 3 type of horn sounds sounds like EMD to me. That’s fine since all my locomotives are EMD.
Question about wiring the four blocks, I don’t think it should matter because each block is isolated from another through insulators/selector switches. I have one common feeder, with each block isolated having its circuit being completed at the selector switch. I talked to my father about what I was planning on doing for wiring the sound box, and he brought up the possibility of feed back to the other tracks. But since each block is only live when the switch is on, the selector stops feed back from occurring. The voltage change on the track causes the throttle to increase on the sound box. If the block has no power to the track, the sound box just idles since it draws its electricity from the accessory terminals. So although my wires are hook up to a track that has no train on it, it still works in sync (for the most part, I have to tweak the momentum yet with the locomotive) with the track that has the locomotive on it since both blocks are live.