Lok Sound V5

 Hello Folks - hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas , given the pandemic restrictions and all - hopefully things will be back to normal by next Christmas. I received a Lok Sound 21 PIN V5 decoder as part of my Christmas and today I installed it in my new Athearn Genesis Maine Central GP7 that I blogged about back on 20 Nov. It was a easy install, as I had already installed a Lok Sound sugar cube speaker in the model a few weeks back in anticipation of this decoder install. The speaker was soldered to the existing Athearn mother board as it has speaker terminals installed on it. The speaker itself was installed under the short hood - it has two piece weight located there and as luck would have it, the upper piece (which is the smaller piece ) is able to be removed without disturbing the main lower weight. This created enough room for the speaker which I epoxied in place. So I took the new decoder and before installing , I updated the firm wear and then installed the correct 567 prime mover sound package that I downloaded a few weeks ago ( and modified a few things such as road # , etc). I did this by connecting the Lok Tester to my Lok Programmer. As I mentioned in a previous post, it is neat to be able to do all this before installing a decoder to ensure that everything is working correctly. Once that was done, it was a simple matter of removing the loco shell , removing the TCS EU621 non sound decoder that I had previously installed and plug in the new ESU 21 pin decoder and it was ready to go. The loco was then put on my layout and given a test run - sounds and performs great!. I will do some fine tuning , such as selecting the correct horn, bell and some other minor things, but the loco is ready for service!! Happy New Year folks and lets all hope for a much better 2021 -we all deserve it!!!!

21 PIN Lok Sound V5 decoder

Decoder Installed

Loco interior showing Lok Sound Sugar Cube and V5 decoder

Freight Car Friday

 Hi folks. Even though I had some customer work with my DCC business this past week, I did manage to complete a freight car kit. This was another Proto 2000 Gondola in Canadian Pacific script scheme. I bought it last year off of a local second hand dealer at a train show. I believe he gets a lot of his stuff from estate sales. Interesting to note that the old original price sticker on it was from "Hobby West".  This was a Hobby Store in Calgary, Alberta that had a large Model Railroading section in it - at least it did many years ago when I was living in Calgary back in the mid 80's and use to go there. I went online to see if it was still there , but using the timeline feature of google earth , I was able to determine that  it closed a couple of years ago -  Here's a google maps link showing the closed train store:

5011 Macleod Trail SW - Google Maps

Kinda makes me wonder how this kit ended up down here in Nova Scotia after it was probably purchased there back in the late 90's which is approx when this kit would have been new. Here is a picture of the finished kit - only mods were a laser cut wood floor, and Kadee #148's - things left are: I am waiting on an order of Rapido wheel sets to swap the original ones out and to give the wood floor and india ink and alcohol wash.....Till next time

Loco Overhaul

 Hello folks. Today I ordered a couple of sound decoders for my Atlas (Maine Central) GP 7's. When I purchased these locos back around 2004, they came as "DCC Ready" i.e equipped with a circuit board that had the 8 PIN NMRA socket. At the time, I immediately converted them to DCC using a TCS T1 decoder https://tcsdcc.com/1021    Although this was approx 16 years ago, this decoder is still in production today - and I must admit, the decoder still works fine to this day. I will be replacing these decoders with Soundtraxx PNP Econami decoders https://soundtraxx.com/products/econami-digital-sound-decoders/eco-pnp/  . Although I have been using ESU Lok Sound decoders lately, I decided to give these a try in my GP7's. They are a more economical version of the well know Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 decoders. When I reviewed the specs on the Ecomani, I decided that it had everything that I would need for my GP's and are a bit more budget friendly. I decided to remove the shell on one of GP7s today to investigate how much room I had for speaker placement and to ensure that the Ecomnai PNP would be a simple board replacement ( it is). I didn't remember how big the internal weights were and wondered if they filled the entire interior of the shell - to my surprise , there is no internal weight ( as there were on the Atlas GP38's that I converted to sound recently) - the weight of the loco is in the diecast frame - I really like this as it allows a lot more internal space in the loco shell (Atlas should use this arrangement more often!!!) and the Atlas is actually heavier than my recently purchased Athearn Genesis GP7. When I had the shell off, I decided to strip down the trucks and gearboxes of the locos -essentially doing a complete overhaul of them. They still ran good , but after approx 16 years , I decided it was time to give them some TLC. It is a relatively easy procedure to do and this video is excellent in explaining how to do this on a 4 truck Atlas diesel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=xt9hbfa0al0. Here is a picture of the disassembled trucks and gearboxes

One of the important things is to ensure you lay out all the parts in a manner that you will remember how they go back together again, esp the orientation of the gears themselves in the gear tower. I washed the parts with warm soapy water using a toothbrush to remove all the old coagulated low quality grease that would have been used when the locos were assembled in the factory in China. Parts should then be allowed to dry thoroughly before reassemble. I recommend using a high quality plastic compatible grease and oil applied appropriate during reassemble.  In the below photo, you can see the old grease on the gears prior to cleaning. Besides being low quality, both locos had excessive lubrication which as most modelers know can be as bad as not enough!

Well folks that's all to report today - just gotta wait for the decoders to arrive (snail mail). I will follow up with a report on how they do once I receive and install them. Till next time.....