Model Railroading > TCS announces new sound decoders and motherboards

Pretty cool concept. You can buy a motherboard which supports both bulbs and LED's and plug their new 21 pin Sound decoder with 8 built in prime movers all in one. Boards come in footprints for :

RTR-MB1Fits most Athearn Ready-To-Roll Diesel Locomotives
GEN-MB1Fits most Athearn Genesis Diesel Locomotives
IB-MB1Fits the Intermountain SD40-2 and Bowser C-636 + many more
IB-MB2Fits the Intermountain ES44 and Bowser S12 + many more

With the use of a motherboard your WOW121 decoder gets the added benefit of a built-in KA2 Keep-Alive, as well as a simple form factor tailored to your specific locomotive. Simply remove the original lighting board, replace it with the WOWMotherboard (wired exactly the same as the original light board), and plug-in your WOW121-Diesel. You may need to install a speaker, depending on the locomotive, but all of the connections and power are handled cleanly and simply through the WOWMotherboard.

The available sound set contains the EMD 567, 645 and 710, as well as the GE FDL16, and 7FDL16, and the Alco 251 prime movers.

Competition is great.

Bruce

http://www.tcsdcc.com/Customer_Content/Customer_Info/Whats_New/What%27s_New.htm


 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/15 12:10 by brfriedm.

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Thanks for sharing Bruce. Thats an interesting concept they have which makes a lot of sense.

Andrew C

Thanks for the info.  I wish they would design one to fit the BLI Blueline models.  I would love to convert all of mine to a single decoder like this.

Neat! I might give this a try.

-Dave

It is nice to see motherboard connections for the 4 lighting connections beyond headlights included in the 21 pin decoders. These will really make using the 21 pin decoders easy for the modeler. The downside is it noticably increases the cost of installation.

Posted from iPhone

Darned nice idea!  Depending on price I may have to give this a try.  It would save a lot of my bad soldering connections and make it easier to advance a couple projects I have had on the back burner.

Gary B.
Waverly, NE

anyone know what 2 versions of the GE 7FDL16 they are offering?
also looks like they included a price increase along with the new sounds?

tom

RTR-MB1 will do what you want it to do for you. Isolate the motor from the frame then solder wires to the top and bottom spring clip and run the wires to the proper motherboard tabs. Connect wires from the trucks to the four corner tabs and you are ready to run when you plug in the decoder to the motherboard. Front and rear headlights use one or both of the middle tabs on the ends though you might leave on blank and route the + side (blue wire) to the 1.5v or 1.2v supply solder point.

Use double side tape to mount the decoder to the top of the motor or inside of the shell. Things will go quickly after you work through the first thing one or two.

This is assuming you want to use a 21 pin DCC or sound decoder. Otherwise there are drop in decoders from all the current manufacturers which function in the same fashion.


RFandPFan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the info.  I wish they would design
> one to fit the BLI Blueline models.  I would love
> to convert all of mine to a single decoder like
> this.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/15 14:52 by fbe.

OK - How do they sound as compared to Soundtraxx & LokSound??

Interesting. Could be useful for some installs. $150 total for both boards. RTR keep alive looks a little underpowered compared to the board below:-)

Chris

ChrisCampi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Interesting. Could be useful for some installs.
> $150 total for both boards. RTR keep alive looks a
> little underpowered compared to the board
> below:-)
>
> Chris

Appears to me that there are 5 super caps on the RTR-MB1 board, one visable on top and four on bottom, with thru hole solder points near the V in "1.5V" and "12V" for one cap.  Near the part marked "103F", second cap.  Two more on left side near the 21 pin connector.  It would place 2 of the caps in the space over each flywheel on RTR locos.
 

Michael Mosher
Millville, NJ

You could very well be correct. Hard to tell from photo and unmarked top of PCB.

Chris