Loksound for Atlas Trainmaster

[Billg]

Has anyone installed a Loksound 73100 or 73199 in an Atlas Trainmaster?  OR, just go with the Select Micro?
Any help would be appreciated...

Thanks,

Bill

[Steveruger45]

I don’t have one of these locos but, looking at the frame on spookshow it looks like a 73100 would fit nicely and in very similar way as an atlas gp38 or B23-7/30/36 -7.
You would have to mill the frame down at the rear to gain as much height beneath the decoder to fit in a speaker and even then the enclosure would be shallow at I’m guessing about 4mm but there looks to be plenty of length available to put an 8x12 speaker in an enclosure around 16 mm long to bring up the enclosure volume  to around 500 plus mm3.  Caps and a choke, if wanted, could go up front.  Depending on if the 73100 motor pads line up with the motor contacts You can just hardwire instead. 

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The 73100 should be close to a drop-in it. You would probably need to remove some material on the upper portion of the frame to widen it out a bit for the board. But this would be a lot less material removal than the 73199 would require and took me less than 30 seconds to do so with My B23-7, which use the same boards.

You should be able to fit a MASSIVE speaker enclosure in front of the board on the short hood end. Use a pre-wired surface mount LED glued to the front of the speaker box. If you don;t have a Lokprogrammer, you might need to add a resistor, as I found the board supplied too much voltage to SMD type LEDs. The Lokprogrammer alows you to adjust the brightness level of the LEDs and allowed me to back off the voltage without applying a resistor.

[Steveruger45]

Yes of course,  this loco has a high nose. 
Should be room for a 9x16 with and enclosure iro 750-800mm3 up front easily and maybe even with no frame milling too, but the light tube in that location would probably have to be cut down.

[Billg]

Thanks you guys!  I just got a 73100 back from repair from LOKSOUND this afternoon.  Great people to deal with!  I'll mill out as much as I can to try and get that 9x16 in.....

Thanks again,

Bill

[newt749]

I have three of the Atlas Trainmasters. These are very heavy engines and have done excellent service on our Club's modular layout running for hours at a time and never getting hot. I used TCS AMD1 decoders in them way back but would love to eventually put sound decoders in each of them. They are heavy enough that a little bit of surgery in order to accommodate a sugar cube speaker wouldn't really harm their performance. Looking forward to seeing how you do this.

BTW, comparing the AMD1 to the LokSound decoders, the 73100 looks like a match. Is this really a simple swap?

Rob
Hampton, New Brunswick
Canada

[woodone]

Well if are going to have to mill out the frame I would go with the 73800 Select decoder.
You have to completely dis assemble the loco to machine any way.
Makes the lighting a bit more easy IMO.

[rrjim1]

Is there a sound file for the FM Trainmaster? I looked a couple years ago and couldn't find one.

[jdcolombo]

Is there a sound file for the FM Trainmaster? I looked a couple years ago and couldn't find one.

The Trainmaster used a 12-cyl FM 38D prime mover.  ESU only has a sound file for the 6-cyl 38D.

http://projects.esu.eu/projectoverviews/search?cat=2&q=FM

I'd probably use that file.  The only surviving complete Trainmaster is owned by the Canadian Railway Museum in Quebec and I have no idea if it is operational.  So it's unlikely there will ever be an accurate recording of the 12-cylinder 38D.  The 6-cylinder was used in the H10/44 and H12/44 switchers; the smaller FM road switchers used an 8-cylinder version of the engine, and we may one day get a sound file of one of those since several have been preserved, though I don't know if any of them are operational.

John C.

[Billg]

I used sound file 93449.  I found it under North American & Australian Factory Equipped Sound files on the Loksound website. One drawback is there is no DRIVE-HOLD!  I started with the CNW in '72 and I can't remember if I ever heard one. 
The 73100 board fits nicely.  The only milling needed was for the speaker (Loksound 9x12).  The front headlight bar needed to be trimmed and the rear bar was replaced with a 0603 SMD glued to the speaker housing.  I'm satisfied with the installation.  I wish I knew how to post pics.....

Question:  Can ESU update a sound file to FT?

Bill

[reinhardtjh]

I used sound file 93449.  I found it under North American & Australian Factory Equipped Sound files on the Loksound website. One drawback is there is no DRIVE-HOLD!  I started with the CNW in '72 and I can't remember if I ever heard one. 
The 73100 board fits nicely.  The only milling needed was for the speaker (Loksound 9x12).  The front headlight bar needed to be trimmed and the rear bar was replaced with a 0603 SMD glued to the speaker housing.  I'm satisfied with the installation.  I wish I knew how to post pics.....

Question:  Can ESU update a sound file to FT?

Bill

File 93449 is relatively old being done in 2016, so yeah, no FT functions.  It's under the factory equipped or OEM list so the file was done for Atlas.  It probably won't be updated there, but ESU frequently occasionally them in "LokSound Select Retail Sound Files" list.  Being older, the sounds contained might not be up to current audio standards.  You might get on the ESU Yahoo mailing list or Facebook page and ask.  Matt Herman will probably reply and let you know if there are any plans.  Otherwise your best bet is to use the file John (Columbo) suggested as being the closest.

[Billg]

Thanks John!  It IS a little raspy.  I like John's suggestion.  I'll load it up later today....

Bill

[peteski]

I'm satisfied with the installation.  I wish I knew how to post pics.....

Bill

Keep on posting useful advice, such as what you just did. After you post 25 messages, you will be able to post photos (either as attachments or better yet, to your Gallery).   

See https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=43673.0  and https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=42854.0

Please don't be daunted by the Gallery photo uploading process - that is the preferred way to host photos here.  It really isn't that difficult, and your photos are neatly organized and can be easily found at any time without the need to look through your older posts (which is what happens if you uploaded your photos as attachments to your posts).

[Billg]

The Trainmaster used a 12-cyl FM 38D prime mover.  ESU only has a sound file for the 6-cyl 38D.

http://projects.esu.eu/projectoverviews/search?cat=2&q=FM

I'd probably use that file.  The only surviving complete Trainmaster is owned by the Canadian Railway Museum in Quebec and I have no idea if it is operational.  So it's unlikely there will ever be an accurate recording of the 12-cylinder 38D.  The 6-cylinder was used in the H10/44 and H12/44 switchers; the smaller FM road switchers used an 8-cylinder version of the engine, and we may one day get a sound file of one of those since several have been preserved, though I don't know if any of them are operational.

John C.

I installed the 6-cyl file and it sounds WAY better + I have DRIVE HOLD!  I will send an email to Matt asking if there are plans for updating the 12-cyl file....

Thanks!

[jdcolombo]

Well, as I noted above, I don't think there is a 12-cyl 38D in operation, so I wouldn't expect a new recording.

But I've since found that there ARE 8-cyl versions in operation.  A private collector in Canada owns a C-liner and baby Trainmaster (H12/66) that are operational (or were, when this video was made):

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Maybe Matt can track these down and get a recording of the 8-cylinder.  Matt has sometimes referred to his job as a type of railroad preservation; getting a great recording of the last 8-cyl FM 38D's would be right up his alley.  (But please don't butt in line in front of recording NKP 765!!).

John C.