irishthump

To hell with that!

The F7 chassis is a good fit if you're not concerned about using a Bo-Bo. I've been dabbling with trying to fit Co-Co bogies to the chassis... It's going to be difficult to fit the driveshafts but it certainly looks the part. You'd even get away with the fuel tank.

First of a couple of questions.... 1) Does the loco run ok on DC or with a different decoder on DCC? 2) Have you tried resetting the decoder?

Same here.

The BEMF adjustments are limited on the Sapphire, but CV 150 has 2 settings to suit different motor types. CV 150 can be set to either 0 or 1 and if I remember correctly a value of 1 is for older motors. Might be worth a try.... But you have to bear in mind that this motor will never run as well as the MM locos. MM's are equipped with a good quality can motor and flywheels which improve slow running considerably, you will probably get the 58 motor running smoothly but it's slowest (reliable) speed will be higher than an MM. I would concentrate on getting the loco to run steadily at speed step 1.

No arguement there!

When I eventually get round to getting an A class kit I'll probably try and find an engine sound that resembles it on the ESU website. There would have to be something that would be close!

You're right there. The Select seems mainly aimed at US modellers.

Yes, they have the equivalent Select versions for each of the sound files. But I don't think you can alter specific sounds like horns or engine sounds with the Select versions.

And I thought it was just me! I always thought the A's sounded more Sulzer-ish myself.... They just did'nt have that whine when notching up.

I recently splashed out on a Lokprogrammer myself and ESU have several engine sounds which are suitable for Irish diesels in the library of US sounds. I've programmed 3 V4 Loksounds for my Irish locos already. The Lokprogrammer also allows you to programme Loksound Selects with these files.

Nice neat conversion job, Billyboy. What decoder did you use in the loco? Did you also connect the lights?

Also available from Digitrains in the UK - http://www.digitrains.co.uk/ecommerce/search/827109-tsu-1000-sond-decoder-for-emd-645-non-turbo-diesels.aspx The engine sound will be great, the Tsunami's are probably the best sounding decoders available, but you might find it hard to get the horn sound right. Tsunami's come preloaded with a selection of US horn sounds but none of them are really protoypical for Irish locos.

Sorry, forgot to mention that I don't use JMRI myself but I've seen threads that say function remapping is quite simple with DecoderPro.

It's in the manual on page 56 but it uses indexed CV's. To be honest the real problem with the manual is the language used! I tried searching the web before about this but to be honest nobody seems to have gotten their head around it and they all just suggest buying a Lokprogrammer! Anyway, here's a screen capture from the Lokprogrammer software, the left box lists all the slots for the 071 file.

I have to agree! That's why I move notching to keys 4and 5. It's a breeze with the Lokprogrammer but to do it with CV's you need to know which soundslot controls each sound. If you like I can give you a list of the soundslots, but you'll have to consult the manual for the actual remapping process.

Sorry Mods, can you move this to DCC section, I posted it in the wrong place!

Lads, Here's a couple of short videos of a couple of Loksound decoders that I managed to get reprogrammed over the weekend. Using the ESU Lokprogrammer I've programmed the decoders so that all 3 of my 141's have different sounding engines. I programmed 161 using a sound file with a different version of the 567 engine. (These can all be downloaded from the ESU website). This engine sounds like it might need a service! 182 has the 645 engine sound... I think Health and Safety might have a word with that CIE employee hanging out of 182!

Yeah that's the problem. The last 2 functions are the front and rear cab lights.

What decoder are you using? The 071 needs a decoder with 6 functions to make all of the lights work.

Well that changes the game a bit! Legomanbiffo's sound projects are probably the best out there.

These are now sold. Thanks for all your interest, lads.

Nice! I believe I was watching these on Ebay myself.... I have a couple of Athearn RTR's and although they were a bit growly at first they quietened down after a while. My ones have the newer can motors so any noise is only coming from the gears in the trucks. I tried that trick with the Pearl Drops on some older Blue Box Athearns, did'nt really help. I found filing between the teeth of the gears worked much better as you can get a lot of flash and rough spots on the plastic.

I posted a link here showing how to change the individual sound settings on Zimo decoders, don't know if it's any use to you. http://irishrailwaymodelling.net/showthread.php/3357-Adjusting-volume-levels-on-Zimo-sound-decoders

Like you say, Noel, it's comes to which personal preference. As I said, Mr Soundguy's sound recordings are probably the best available, but I'm swaying towards the Loksounds. The main reason(s) for this is that I prefer the way the Loksound "drives". The hard acceleration is very good, you turn the throttle rapidly up to notch 5 and the engine sound goes straight to high revs (around notch 6-7) then settles back down to notch 5 once it reaches that speed. The ability to notch up or down with the function keys independent of speed is also great. There is also a brake and acceleration function which I have yet to get to grips with. Also, now that I have a Lokprogrammer I can download my own files from the ESU website and customise each loco; different engine, horn, brake sounds etc. can be programmed to each loco. All functions can also be remapped as I choose. That's the reason I'm selling the MSB decoders, to fund more Loksounds! Having said that I still have one of each the 141, 071 and 201 chips from MSB that I will hang on to, the 071 and 201 in particular are very good.