Hello Friends,
I’ve spent the last year or so upgrading several of my conventional locos with sound (from electric RR), and I thought I’d share them. The latest is a Lionel Docksider 0-6-0, which was a tight squeeze. Sorry about the poor video. My next investment will be a good video camera. These were shot on my Christmas layout, modified for summer running. Shown here are a: 203, 2026, RMT Beep, Polar Express (SC and air whistle), Docksider (2 and 4 chuffs) and an On30 Bumble Bee loco. Yeah, the ON30 is a DCC upgrade I did for my youngest son for Christmas, but it is O scale, soooo… All have the upgrades in the tender, except the Beep and the Docksider. The Docksider has yet to have all its details re installed in the video.
Which loco are you inquiring about? Or just in general? The Beep was by far the easiest, taking only about 15 minutes. No sweat at all. Most of the rest were each a unique experience. Overall the sound commander itself is easy to install. The chuffing mechanism can be tricky at first (mounting the magnet(s) on the wheel and the reed switch on the truck), but it’s pretty straight forward. Finding a place for the speaker can be the challenge if space is limited.
Three hints that immediately come to mind are:
Plan ahead for speaker placement (the enclosure is about 2.25" across and .5" tall). I did use a different speaker than the one supplied on a couple of them, but I was sure to match the characteristics of the supplied speaker (8 ohm, at least .5 watt). Using a different speaker will probably void any warrenty.
Be careful with the reed switch for the chuff. They are glass and can break if twisted the wrong way (which I did on the very first one). I’m not saying their fragile. Just not gorilla proof.
Be careful with the magnet(s), as they can be dropped and roll away (another of my experiences). You hear it roll away and SNAP to something metal, but don’t expect to find it.
You may or may not need to add a pair of diodes to the motors on newer locos to have the sound start working before the loco starts moving. I just bought 100 1N4004’s from Mouser.com. They’re pretty cheap, and can be used on plenty of other projects. I added them on some locos just so that the smoke output improved (Polar Express).
Is that the kind of thing your looking for Chief? Or are you interested in a particular loco?
Thanks for taking the time to make the video. I was surprised to hear different sounds in each of the engines. I haven’t shopped for any sound or chuff electronics, so I never thought about the different sounds available.
I really like that Kline! It’s small, but the sound makes it so much more fun than in stock form.
Bobby, that was freakin’ awesome!!! Those upgraded locos all sound great! Every single one of them. The Polar Express sounds incredible. They all do! I book marked your videos! Sign me up!
I don’t have TMCC, but I think Jon also makes a TMCC upgrade for the Docksider that is a direct swap in (size wise), so I guess you can make your Docksider have command and sound??? I may have to look into TMCC just for that!
Electric RR offers 3 different steam sounds. Which is plenty for most. Unfortunately I have three times that in steam locos, and I like all my locos to sound different (Jon, if you ever get some free time, please add more steam sounds[8)]). It gives them each their own personality I think. So I started mounting the speakers differently to get a little different sound. In the 2026 for example, I mounted the speaker facing out the bottom of the tender as would be normal SOP, but I did not use the included speaker baffle. Instead I sealed the tender shell with rubber cement, which makes the shell become the baffle. The result is a very deep sound from that one loco.
I really like the Porters too. I still have a couple new ones stashed away for possible kit bashing later.
I know the RMT sound is muffled. My kids were rite behind me playing their Star Wars PC game and I think that audio may be coming across there. They did stop to watch me a couple times when they heard a new whistle. I had to laugh when they finally asked me to “Keep it down” so they could hear their game!!! [swg]
WOW!!! those sound great!!! [tup] I have a few locos that I will be doing TMCC and sound upgrades to. I noticed the smoking NYC caboose. Very cool! [tup] It looks like it might be O-scale as it’s so big. Can you tell me what part number it is? I’m still waiting for Lionel to release their bay window scale NYC this October.
I have not, and they are pretty big, but you might be able to get them to fit in a tender vertically. It seems like a tactile speaker would be pretty neat in a train, if you can cram them in there.
Yea, I figured it would be a little big. I bet you could chop off one of those legs and still get good results. You don’t need that much volume. of course, you also don’t have 25 watts coming out of the sound board on these trains either…
John (jefelectric) - This link shows the video of the Docksider without the shell, and you can see the Sound Commander board hanging on the back for dear life [;)].
The shell fits rite over the Sound Commander just as you see it, AFTER I removed the bottom half of the backhead (is my terminology correct) that normally goes down to the frame in this area. This is no biggie, since the bottom half is not visible anyway. I did have to remove the plastic deck inside the back of the cab to make room for the capacitors, so the caps can be seen in the cab rite now. At least until I get around to painting them flat black. Then they should disappear. There were a few other things I had to do which are important. I’ll try to get that info posted here ASAP. Probably not till Sunday or Monday night though (my weekend) in case anybody is interested in doing the same to their Docksider.
Deputy - That caboose is a K-Line Wood Sided Smoking Caboose that unfortunately I had to modify to get it to smoke. Previous to that the smoke was abismal at best. But I must say that K-Line did a fantastic job with it detail wise. Lots of details. It blows my Lionel smoking Caboose away completely (which also does not smoke…YET).
Wes, Yeah, that speaker is way too big of course. But always keep your eyes open for deals on small speakers if you plan on adding sound down the line (in locos or stationary). I’ve accumulated a shoebox load of them (all different) so I’m covered for the next ten years worth of projects!
Thanks to all who have commented. Just a couple more locos to go and then I can turn my attentions to the mess in my garage I call a layout. It’s been held together with bubble gum and bandaids for over a year now. It needs attention badly!
Bobby,
Let me know what you do to your Lionel Caboose to get it to smoke… mine doesn’t do anything either and I have taken the shell off and dried out all the smoke fluid and then rewetted the wick… still no smoke… Don’t know why Lionel can’t get this right… [banghead]
Brent: Are you running the caboose in conventional mode or TMCC/DCS mode? There have been posts about the Lionel smoking cabooses and the problems they had running in TMCC/DCS mode. Some of the heating elements got so hot they melted parts of the caboose. Wiring fried too. Some of the older smoking cabooses were wired to run in conventional mode and can’t take the high voltage of TMCC mode. just a heads-up [;)]