Decoded ESU V4 LokSound 73199, 73100, LokPilot 54650 and Atlas S2 decoders

[Steveruger45]

None that I am aware of, so far.

[RBrodzinsky]

Trick is that almost any narrow body diesel frame in n scale will need some mod, simply to make room for a speaker. These boards are really designed for the narrow bodies; if you have full width, like E or F units, the frame won’t take the shape of these boards.

[woodone]

Rick,
I found some LED's that may fit your needs. Look at this one= https://www.lumex.com/sml-lxr183uww-tr
and this one too. https://www.lumex.com/sml-lxr2808usbcatr
I also found some in Mouser made by Dial light. I found it on my I-pad the PC does not pull up the same information?

[RBrodzinsky]

Jerry, thanks. I had seen those. Unfortunately, they are “white”, not “warm white”. I actually got some similar the Lumex, because I was told they were near-warm. HA! Still too cold a white for what we would want in anything but the most modern equipment, where the lights really are LEDs. I bought 180... and can always use in other applications (just kept increasing quantity until the total cost, including shipping, actually increased).

[peteski]

There were some questions about which pads are motor pads on the 73100 decoder, so I included that info.  See https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44324.msg569571#msg569571

As far as the side mount (or right angle mount) LEDs go on the 73199 go, those still have metal solder pads on the vertical side (not on the bottom side which is in contact with the metal pad on the PC board). So soldering-wise  they are not any different than most standard horizontal-mount SMD LEDs used in a vertical configuration.  But because they have larger lens, they are more stable when being soldered.

I wonder we could simply ask ESU for the manufacturer's name and a part number of those nice warm-white LEDs they use. That info should not be proprietary, unless ESU had those custom made for them.  I do agree that they emit a very good looking incandescent-like light.

[peteski]

I have just posted some additional comments at the end of the 73100 post.

[carlso]

Thanks Pete for the additional comment. I knew that everything on that 73100 was extremely small but did not realize how much so 'till your photo with the pin and MT coupler spring. That spring looks humongous compared to that LED.

Also, your photos have told me how I ruined two of these decoders, could have enjoyed a lot of "Hef", for the $170 I burned up. I am sure that while soldering to any of the pads, I was sort of shaky and for sure I ran the soldering pencil over and most likely ruined the ground plain. Live and learn, I guess. Should have stayed with the hard wired micros and will in the future. I would not recommend the 73100 to anybody unless they have a degree in soldering.

If you want the two I screwed up to help teach, through pics, others please PM your address.

Carl

[jdcolombo]

Folks, let's not forget that the 73100 and 73199 boards were made to fit specific chassis designs.  While that doesn't mean we can't try to fit them in other chassis, I have to admit that I find myself thinking that some of the lengths to which people have gone to fit these boards in other chassis resulted in more complication (and probably time spent) than installing a regular wired LokSound Select Micro.  It's true, of course, that the Select Micro is a tad too wide for some shells; however, modern hood diesels like the SD60's, 70's, GE DASH series and of course the modern GEVOs and Tier 4's have slightly wider carbodies than GP9's and RS11's.  I didn't have any trouble at all fitting a regular LokSound Select Micro to an FMV GEVO, with plenty of room left for a 9x16mm speaker behind the decoder.  Heck, I didn't really have any issues with a Micro in an Atlas GP30.  And I realize that it also is true that the regular wired Select Micro might need more drastic frame milling.  But offsetting that is the fact that the wired Micro doesn't have microscopic LEDs to deal with if the LED's location isn't exactly correct, and also has much easier connections for a keep alive circuit.

The boards are certainly useful in the correct installation environment; but I think that in a rush to use these new-fangled boards, we sometimes have created more problems than we would have with a standard wired Select Micro.  Just because these boards are available doesn't mean they are or should be the preferred solution for every installation.

John C.

[peteski]

Folks, let's not forget that the 73100 and 73199 boards were made to fit specific chassis designs.  While that doesn't mean we can't try to fit them in other chassis, I have to admit that I find myself thinking that some of the lengths to which people have gone to fit these boards in other chassis resulted in more complication (and probably time spent) than installing a regular wired LokSound Select Micro. 

John,
While I know what loco/chassis the 73199 was designed for, I have no idea what the 73100 was designed for.. Can you enlighten me?

Also, I like to mention that ESU sells both of these decoders packaged for general installations and no specific locos (or limitations) are mentioned in the instruction sheet which is part of the packaging. So that seems to imply that these decoders can be easily used in many different narrow-hood models.

[Steveruger45]

Pete,
The blurb on the 73100 indicates it is for intermountain locos prior to 2016.  I’m not exactly sure of which ones but I’m guessing the tunnel motors.  ESU says the both the 73199 and 73100 can fit some Atlas and Some Kato loco’s with some modifications.  LOL, yeah only some modifications?  I guess it all depends on what you define some as.  For me the slide in lokpilot has worked well on a good few Atlas and even non dcc ready kato loco’s  too.  The 73199 has the same footprint but the problem with the sound variety is finding space for the caps and/or speaker.
I’m doing a Kato Dash 9 right now and went with the good old 73800 as the easier option overall.

[peteski]

Thanks Steve!  I re-read the info included on the insert with those slim decoders, and it states:

Select Direct Micro Item #73100
The Select Direct Micro Item #73100 Decoder will work in many brands including Atlas, Kato, and InterMountain. In order to install it into your locomotive, you need to remove the old, analog printed circuit board first.

Select Direct Micro Item #73199
The Select Direct Micro OEM Item #73199 was created to upgrade DC versions of Locos offering Factory ESU Sound. This board could also replace a factory equipped LokPilot Micro Direct Non Sound decoder. ESU Factory equipped locos already contain phosphor bronze pick-ups “pressure connections” for motors and sometimes speaker (mounted in the fuel tank) Simply slide the non-sound decoder or analog printed circuit board out of the frame and replace it with the 73199 decoder. If the Loco was designed to be sound ready with ESU sound normally it will also use the pre-installed “SMDs” so nothing more is needed.

So ESU themselves states that 73100 should fit/work many locomotives and they don't state that it was designed for some specific model.

With 73199 ESU is more vague about compatibility. and they don't even mention the Intermountain model where this decoder is a drop-in fit.

As far as the external capacitors go, that doesn't seem to be something ESU worries or cares about. After all, they do not even provide a solder pads or instructions for adding the caps. That is something modelers add on their own.  Speaking of caps and speakers, I wonder why more installers do not use the fuel tank area for housing the speaker and caps?

I also attached (to the 1st post in this thread) the pdf file with the info which is included on the paper insert shipped with these decoders.

[Steveruger45]

Pete
My understanding is that the 73199 is a drop in for newer intermountain post 2016 locos. I know it is in the sd40-2 and you can get these with the slide in lokpilot as well as dc too, but I’m not aware of any others.  Also Atlas are bringing out a new GP39, which I am really interested in, and others with ESU Loksound, this year sometime. so I’m guessing they would have either the 73100 or 73199. I don’t see anything yet with anymore specifics on this.
I think these narrow sound boards have a place and do give us some other options but my experience to date is they are seldom if ever a straight drop in and some frame mods and hardwiring are usually required.  In fact on the last two installs I’ve done and doing I did try hard to find a way to fit the new narrow boards but for one reason or another it was just as or even easier to go with the Loksound select micro 73800.
The fuel tank area for caps and speaker is a bit of a pain if you don’t have a milling machine. Plus the depth in the tank gives you a 4 to 5 mm max speaker enclosure only. Having said that the IMRC deuces sound really good and they have their speaker in the tank and it’s speaker faces up into the frame not out the bottom of the tank.
I have put a 73800  in the tank, but the frame was an already milled out one so I just had to enlarge the hollow a bit. For caps I am usually find room under the shell. I just did keep alive cap installs on four IMRC deuces for Ed Kapuscinski, that’s six I’ve done now including  my own, By filing out a shallow slot in the frame under the board but I used the low profile poly tantalum caps at 2mm tall.
Thanks to your good work we now know where to fit the caps anode and cathode wires on these boards I have print outs of your work pasted in pride of place on the backboard of my workbench. Why ESU didn’t put dedicated pads on for this I just don’t figure.

[jdcolombo]

Pete,

When the boards were originally released, the 73100 was advertised as a sound board for pre-2016 Intermountain locos.  I don't have the 2017 product announcement catalog any more, but I'm pretty sure that's how it was advertised.   But the 73100 WAS designed to fit several different chassis - that's why there are so many pickup pads on the board at different spacings.  LokSound, however, AFAIK never produce a list of the chassis it would fit without chassis modification.  When I first saw the board at the 2016 NMRA convention (Matt had one in his hands), he said that it would fit several Atlas and Intermountain chassis, but probably not Kato.  And ESU's advertising has since become a bit more . . . vague.  I don't blame them - they are trying to sell product, so being a bit vague about what chassis these boards really fit is probably a good marketing strategy (and to be fair, they might not know exactly what chassis the board fits; I doubt they've bought one of every Atlas, Intermountain, FVM, Athearn, etc. loco and tried it).

And, indeed, the board DOES fit larger Atlas DCC-ready locos pretty well, with minimum frame modification - for example, look at Rick B.'s thread on his install in an Atlas GP38-2.  But then compare the amount of frame modification needed for an installation in a Kato SD70 or FVM Gevo.  These are not drop-ins.  And even then, finding room for keep alive caps and the speaker is a challenge (less so for the SD70 and later locos, which are long enough to accommodate both the board and a speaker behind it).  But when I look at the install of a LokPilot (not LokSound) Direct in an FVM Gevo that Mark W. did, all I can think is that I could have put a standard wired LokSOUND in that loco with less effort (in fact, I did).  And wiring a standard LokPilot would have been a 10-minute job, with no frame modification (I've done that, as well).

My point is only that we should remember that the boards were NOT designed to fit everything, and trying to shoe-horn them into certain chassis designs may be more trouble (a LOT more, judging from the FVM Gevo install thread) than going with a standard wired LokSound or LokPilot V.4.   

And the lack of an easy way to add keep alive is bothersome to me.  ESU might not think the boards need external keep alive, but I do.  My Intermountain SD40 suffered from sound dropouts, even after meticulous wheel and track cleaning.  Not surprising - when I first started doing sound installs in narrow-hood diesels back in 2013, I thought I could get away without adding any keep alive, at least for my road units.  But I soon found that was not true, and ended up retrofitting keep alive caps to everything.  The LokSounds are VERY sensitive to electrical interruptions and even a small amount of external cap help (I use 440uf) makes an enormous difference in this behavior.  I don't know exactly why ESU did not provide an easy keep-alive connection for these boards, when they do so for everything else they make (including the standard wired LokPilot Micro).  My own supposition is that ESU thinks of keep alive as something like their Power Pack or a TCS KA - that is, something big enough to power the loco's sound and motor for several seconds.  So I think ESU's design philosophy for these boards was "hey, there isn't enough room in an N scale diesel for a full-on keep alive, so no reason to provide attachment pads for it."  It's not like they don't value keep alive generally, since everything else they make has convenient pads.  And I think they were just wrong on this decision - I can easily prove that small amounts of keep alive (that 440uf I mentioned earlier) make a huge difference in sound dropouts even on relatively clean track.

As for fuel tanks - yes, the fuel tank area would be fine for keep alive caps, although milling it would be time-consuming without a milling machine.  But as Steve R points out, it's not ideal for speaker placement given the lack of depth for an enclosure.  I did improve the sound in my IM SD40-2 by making a larger (but thin) enclosure that fit in the fuel tank area, giving me more internal volume than IM's original design, but it still didn't sound nearly as good as a plain old 8x12mm Soberton in one of John LeMerise's 6mm-high 3D-printed enclosures.  The physics of good speaker enclosures for our modeling use means that the fuel tank area is simply not a good spot for speakers if you want the best sound.  It IS a good spot for manufacturers to stick them, but the result will be "thin" sound in comparison to what can be achieved with a larger enclosure.  And don't discount the loss of weight that comes from milling the fuel tank area.  Modern N-scale diesels with their EPA-approved alloys are already too light; even a few grams of weight loss for these can be an issue, depending on how you use them (if you model the UP going up Sherman Hill and have a dozen diesels spread out between the front, middle and end of a 100-car train, well, no, you won't miss a few grams of weight; but with a single unit pulling a train up a 2% grade, it could make a difference).  You can probably make up the weight loss with judicious use of sheet lead on the top of the chassis, but not everyone is comfortable handling lead sheet.

Again, I'm not dissing ESU's boards.  They are a terrific option for the right installation.  What I'm cautioning people about is that sometimes, perhaps even often, a wired LokSound Micro or LokPilot is a superior choice to one of the boards.  Just because they exist doesn't make them the correct choice for everything.

John C.

[peteski]

Thanks John and Steve.

John, as far as your explanation of why not use the fuel tank area goes, don't you have to remove the same amount of cubic centimeters of metal regardless whether the speakers/caps are mounted on the top of the chassis or in the fuel tank?  Or is there more open-air space on the top of the chassis to begin with?

[woodone]

Peteski,
For the caps I think the fuel tank would work OK. Speaker? Don't like the speaker being that close to the road bed.
The magnet will pick up any and all metal that may be laying there. This may not be a problem with the sugar cube speakers, but the magnets they use in the sugar cube speakers I have used is very powerful.
In days past working on HO models with sound and a speaker mounted in the fuel tank the customer would complain about the rattle or poor sound.
I would get to the speaker and find it full of metal debris. Clean out the debris and the sound came back to life.
But these were diaphragm speakers.