A Class EMD Sound Decoder

[Fowler4f]

Has anyone fitted A Class EMD Sound Decoder to either MM 141 or 181 class ? The reason I ask, I purchased 3 EMD Decoders for A15, A42 & A55. Now that the Crossley Sound Decoder may be in production later this year hopefully I thought about fitting them to 141/181’s that may come my way this year. Is it possible to solder speaker wires to EMD Sound Decoder ?

[JasonB]

3 hours ago, Noel said:

@BosKonay Hi Stephen. Just wondering when the IRM A class Crossley engined sound decoders might become available to purchase. I've some lovely green, silver, and black livery A classes in need of a run on the layout. I'm not good at making silent layout movies  The existing EMD ones sound great on the later livery CIE/IR A class locos. Thanks in advance. Noel

I'm sure if there's something to report, we will all be made aware of it. 

[flange lubricator]

In Principal I would think the chip would fit however you will have to fit a speaker to the MM141/181 which is soldered to the circuit board not the sound chip!!

Class_141_Sound_DCC_MR130_058-061.pdf (murphymodels.com)

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by flange lubricator

[Fowler4f]

4 hours ago, flange lubricator said:

In Principal I would think the chip would fit however you will have to fit a speaker to the MM141/181 which is soldered to the circuit board not the sound chip!!

Class_141_Sound_DCC_MR130_058-061.pdf (murphymodels.com)

 

Thanks fl, that answers my question.

[Joe Keegan]

6 hours ago, Fowler4f said:

I thought about fitting them to 141/181’s that may come my way this year. Is it possible to solder speaker wires to EMD Sound Decoder ?

Should you get a 141/181 in the future , I would suggest that you solder/hard wire the speaker cables to the PCB as shown in Flange Lubricator  link  / photo below.

Yes , you can solder speaker cables to your sound decoder.

I would not recommend to solder cables for speakers on the sound decoder as you will have to unsolder them in the future to fit the sound decoder in the A Class and also the sound decoder may get damaged aswell from the soldering which may also invalidate the warranty too.

It should be interesting to a 141/181 as it is 12 cylinder instead of the 8 cylinder sound . 
 

I must try this on the next club night 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Joe Keegan
Spellcheck

[Fowler4f]

2 hours ago, Joe Keegan said:

Should you get a 141/181 in the future , I would suggest that you solder/hard wire the speaker cables to the PCB as shown in Flange Lubricator  link  / photo below.

Yes , you can solder speaker cables to your sound decoder.

I would not recommend to solder cables for speakers on the sound decoder as you will have to unsolder them in the future to fit the sound decoder in the A Class and also the sound decoder may get damaged aswell from the soldering which may also invalidate the warranty too.

It should be interesting to a 141/181 as it is 12 cylinder instead of the 8 cylinder sound . 
 

I must try this on the next club night 

Thanks Joe, the easier the better. Solder to PCB is simple procedure compared to tiny solder tabs on SD.   Let me know how you get on at club with fitting. I’m sure others maybe interested as well.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Fowler4f

[irishthump]

On 10/2/2022 at 6:34 PM, Joe Keegan said:

 

It should be interesting to a 141/181 as it is 12 cylinder instead of the 8 cylinder sound . 
 

 

Have to point out that the engine sound of the A class is NOTHING like the 181 or 141. a better bet would be to purchase a decoder for the 121 loco. They work great in the 141/181's.

[murphaph]

True and care should be taken to choose the right 121 sound (567 or 645 engine) if bothering to spend the money. Almost all the 181s had the 645 engine for their entire lives but wikipedia says 186 got a "downgrade" to a 567 engine at some stage. The 141s would originally have had the 567 engine but some received an upgrade to a 645 engine later in life. Not sure how accurate the wiki is. Either of these chips will sound much closer to a baby GM with their 8 cylinder engines than the A Class which had a 12 Cylinder 645 engine after the EMD rebuild so a quite different sound.

[irishthump]

21 hours ago, murphaph said:

 Almost all the 181s had the 645 engine for their entire lives but wikipedia says 186 got a "downgrade" to a 567 engine at some stage. The 141s would originally have had the 567 engine but some received an upgrade to a 645 engine later in life. Not sure how accurate the wiki is. 

Yes 186 did receive a 567 "downgrade". As for the 141's I'm not sure how many of them were actually fitted with a 645 or merely had the 567 engine fitted with a 645 power assembly for parts standardisation.

[Noel]

For 141/181 and even 121 from experience using these I'd recommend these ESU decoders. They will plug in, all you need to do is install a speaker in the cradle and solder two wires to the loco's PCB SP+ & SP-1 holes. No need to unscrew or dismantle anything nor remove hand rails just remove the loco body shell. Its a 15minute job. The wheeltappersdccsounds 141/181/121 sound projects aside from sounding like the actual prototypes, DRIVE like the prototypes by making full use of ESU LokSound V5's new 'Full Throttle' software features that facilitate prototypical accelaration and decelaratio, coasting and driver commanded braking just like the real thing with scale like distances to stop a heavy train. Much more engaging than just using throttle speed steps to simulate slowing a heavy train very gradually well in advance of stopping at a station platform or danger signal. Also has F7 Throttle hold for manual notching control and manual simulation of different driving scenarios. BTW no connection, just a very happy past customer. 

http://www.wheeltappersdccsounds.co.uk/page78/index.html

http://www.wheeltappersdccsounds.co.uk/styled-5/index.html

[flange lubricator]

I recently fitted a iphone speaker to a MM 181 and it was easier than I thought .

 

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by flange lubricator

[murphaph]

56 minutes ago, Noel said:

For 141/181 and even 121 from experience using these I'd recommend these ESU decoders. They will plug in, all you need to do is install a speaker in the cradle and solder two wires to the loco's PCB SP+ & SP-1 holes. No need to unscrew or dismantle anything nor remove hand rails just remove the loco body shell. Its a 15minute job. The wheeltappersdccsounds 141/181/121 sound projects aside from sounding like the actual prototypes, DRIVE like the prototypes by making full use of ESU LokSound V5's new 'Full Throttle' software features that facilitate prototypical accelaration and decelaratio, coasting and driver commanded braking just like the real thing with scale like distances to stop a heavy train. Much more engaging than just using throttle speed steps to simulate slowing a heavy train very gradually well in advance of stopping at a station platform or danger signal. Also has F7 Throttle hold for manual notching control and manual simulation of different driving scenarios. BTW no connection, just a very happy past customer. 

http://www.wheeltappersdccsounds.co.uk/page78/index.html

http://www.wheeltappersdccsounds.co.uk/styled-5/index.html

That's a good point. As someone who buys blank ESU decoders and programs them with ESU files that include drive hold, I keep forgetting that the MM ones don't have that feature enabled and it's definitely something I would miss if I lost it. If the wheeltappers ones have it then it's a solid recommendation to go with them if possible.

[Noel]

43 minutes ago, murphaph said:

That's a good point. As someone who buys blank ESU decoders and programs them with ESU files that include drive hold, I keep forgetting that the MM ones don't have that feature enabled and it's definitely something I would miss if I lost it. If the wheeltappers ones have it then it's a solid recommendation to go with them if possible.

. . . And even better than drive hold, they have coasting and train braking for long gradually controlled decelerations to halt. It’s fun coming off throttle to notch zero, trains coaching on a mile or two before station and gradually applying brakes in attempt to stop the train at the correct position on the platform without over running or stopping too soon. Very prototypical. Departing with a heavy train load notching up to not notch 8 gradually as loco is thrashing as train slowly starts to move off and very gradually accelerates taking a scale mile before attaining cruise speed. 

[irishthump]

22 hours ago, murphaph said:

That's a good point. As someone who buys blank ESU decoders and programs them with ESU files that include drive hold, I keep forgetting that the MM ones don't have that feature enabled and it's definitely something I would miss if I lost it. If the wheeltappers ones have it then it's a solid recommendation to go with them if possible.

The Drive Hold feature is part of the firmware on the V5 decoders so it is always available. In the case of the MM121 decoders it just needs to be assigned to a function key.

22 hours ago, Noel said:

. . . And even better than drive hold, they have coasting and train braking for long gradually controlled decelerations to halt. It’s fun coming off throttle to notch zero, trains coaching on a mile or two before station and gradually applying brakes in attempt to stop the train at the correct position on the platform without over running or stopping too soon. Very prototypical. Departing with a heavy train load notching up to not notch 8 gradually as loco is thrashing as train slowly starts to move off and very gradually accelerates taking a scale mile before attaining cruise speed. 

Again these are all intrinsic features of the decoder, they just need to be activated.

[murphaph]

Can that be done through a CV edit by a "normal" end user without a Lokprogrammer? Might be a good "how to" if it can as there must be a lot of people with the MM decoders who would benefit from FT but don't know how to enable it. I've remapped these things to my preferred function keys on edited sound projects but only with a Lokprogrammer which I guess ultimately just modifies a bunch of CVs but it does it for you and makes it a matter of just clicking stuff.

[irishthump]

52 minutes ago, murphaph said:

Can that be done through a CV edit by a "normal" end user without a Lokprogrammer? Might be a good "how to" if it can as there must be a lot of people with the MM decoders who would benefit from FT but don't know how to enable it. I've remapped these things to my preferred function keys on edited sound projects but only with a Lokprogrammer which I guess ultimately just modifies a bunch of CVs but it does it for you and makes it a matter of just clicking stuff.

To be honest it's not a practical option to do it without the Lokprogrammer. You could map Drive Hold to a particular function key by changing a couple of CV's, but then you have to rearrange other CV's to accommodate it and it will get out of hand pretty fast!

I remap all my decoders as well as most decoders come with a preset mapping that really is'nt very intuitive to use. There is a handy feature on the Lokprogrammer software which will show you the CV's that have changed after remapping the functions in the relevant panel.

[Noel]

@BosKonay Hi Stephen. Just wondering when the IRM A class Crossley engined sound decoders might become available to purchase. I've some lovely green, silver, and black livery A classes in need of a run on the layout. I'm not good at making silent layout movies  The existing EMD ones sound great on the later livery CIE/IR A class locos. Thanks in advance. Noel