Installing sound cards for DCC.

[ianp]

Do you know of anyone who has had great success installing DCC sound chips and loudspeakers on old DC locos? I have been advised by one person with expertise in this area that it is fraught with difficulty because, among other things, short circuits in the motor will blow the sound chip very easily, writing it off at the cost of more than £100 per card. Non-sound chips are apparently much more forgiving. My expert adviser has given up doing this sort of sound chip installation work because it takes too long and is too risky. Do know of anyone who thinks they can do better?

[Steven B]

What locos? What scale?

 

Steven B

[ianp]

A French railcar model in HOm made about 30 years ago.

[pheaton]

On 27/01/2022 at 10:56, ianp said:

Do you know of anyone who has had great success installing DCC sound chips and loudspeakers on old DC locos? I have been advised by one person with expertise in this area that it is fraught with difficulty because, among other things, short circuits in the motor will blow the sound chip very easily, writing it off at the cost of more than £100 per card. Non-sound chips are apparently much more forgiving. My expert adviser has given up doing this sort of sound chip installation work because it takes too long and is too risky. Do know of anyone who thinks they can do better?

As far as i know most sound chips are fitted with motor overload protection, i would suggest a loksound v4 or v5 or zimo are just as robust as a standard decoder, the amplifier will not tolerate being shorted yes but thats nothing to do with the motor.....as with any dcc installation a poor installation will risk damage to the chip.

For example a lima loco with its notorious pancake its perfectly possible to fit DCC to it, yes it wont be as smooth as say a can motor fitted chassis, and there is the fact that the motor or gear train noise will affect the sound output by virtue of drowning it out...it takes longer yes because it has to be hard wired, but a lot of ebay sellers sell DCC socket boards to aid fitting dcc, and this lessens the risk of having to hardwire the decoder.

[Nigelcliffe]

Tied to all of this is "how much are you willing to pay ? "    

 

I've done some installs in models built for DC.  Tricky ones, involving moving things around, reworking stuff, solving pickup and motor problems,  etc..  They might take 4-8 hours to do.   What's a reasonable rate of pay per hour for a skilled person ?    Most of what I've done have been for friends, so no money changes hands and they'll do something for me in return.   
 

There's no fundamental reason why an old model can't work.  But it needs to be decent in the first place, and any inherent poor design, or age related wear, has to be fixed first.  

 

 

 

- Nigel