Model Railroading > Adding sound to On30 2-8-0. DIY tips?

Hey modelers, I'm an avid modeler of HO but wanted to dip a little bit into On30. Not much as I don't have a club to run any of it at. (My HO club only has standard gauge HO and HOn3 track.) Anyways, I got into it mainly for the holidays and have already started building an excursion train. I just acquired one of the very nice Bachmann (surprising for them) 2-8-0 outside frame steam engines that comes DCC ready. I would like to make a modification to it in the sense of adding Tsunami sound. I've added plenty of sound and non-sound decoders to my HO diesels with no issue but this will be a new challenge for me.

If I've done my research correctly, I need to get a Tsunami TSU-1000 Light Steam Soundtraxx decoder. Can anyone give me some tips/how-to's/any other DIY information I might need to do it properly? Is this the proper decoder for this engine? Does it have to be hardwired? Is it plug n' play? Etc, etc... Thanks guys and sorry for all the questions.

I would suggest watching the fit of the tender to make sure you get the right sealing around the speaker to produce the best sound. Also carefully test the plug to make sure it is wired properly. There will be a DC plug adapter in there that should make sense for what the tsunami plug will be. No fun letting the magic smoke out of a nice sound decoder.

nicknack Wrote:
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> I would suggest watching the fit of the tender to
> make sure you get the right sealing around the
> speaker to produce the best sound. Also carefully
> test the plug to make sure it is wired properly.
> There will be a DC plug adapter in there that
> should make sense for what the tsunami plug will
> be. No fun letting the magic smoke out of a nice
> sound decoder.

So the Bachmann On30 steam locos come with a DC board that has a plug for a Tsunami decoder? (Or any decoder) It already has DCC installed on it so I assume that the decoder is plugged into this board you are speaking of. I didn't realize it was that easy to install in these locos. Just a simple plug and play?

I re gauged my 2-8-0 to On3 and added a medium steam tsunami as well as adding a cam to synch the chuff to the driver revolutions. There is a pretty good tutorial here if you want to see how others have accomplished it. I just used one speaker (a high bass) which simplifies the installation somewhat
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/of_sound/

Posted from iPhone

I unplugged the Bachmann DCC unit had a plug soldered onto my Tsunami unit, mounted the speaker in the supplied area and off it went after assigning the loco number to it. Worst problems was soldering the plug as had to have someone with steadier hands than I to do it.

Finderskeepers Wrote:
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> I re gauged my 2-8-0 to On3 and added a medium
> steam tsunami as well as adding a cam to synch the
> chuff to the driver revolutions. There is a pretty
> good tutorial here if you want to see how others
> have accomplished it. I just used one speaker (a
> high bass) which simplifies the installation
> somewhat
> http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/of_sound/
>
> Posted from iPhone

The Bachmann unit is quite simple just to install a sound unit,it does not have a sound cam. I think that the person who asked the question didn't want to go that far as its quite a job unless you know exactly what is going on.

BAB Wrote:
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> Finderskeepers Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I re gauged my 2-8-0 to On3 and added a medium
> > steam tsunami as well as adding a cam to synch
> the
> > chuff to the driver revolutions. There is a
> pretty
> > good tutorial here if you want to see how
> others
> > have accomplished it. I just used one speaker
> (a
> > high bass) which simplifies the installation
> > somewhat
> > http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/of_sound/
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> The Bachmann unit is quite simple just to install
> a sound unit,it does not have a sound cam. I think
> that the person who asked the question didn't want
> to go that far as its quite a job unless you know
> exactly what is going on.

Yeah. I'm interested in just adding the Tsunami sound to the engine. Something simple. Speaker and decoder. I don't need the sound to be synced with the drivers. I just want bells and whistles. No pun intended. Lol.

Ok, I must be in the minority who sees an engine that chuffs once a driver revolution and is thinking "that's just all wrong". I have a Bachmann 4-6-0 that has the factory tsunami sound and it bugs me that the chuff isn't synchronized with the drivers and no amount of playing with CVs can cure it.

Posted from iPhone