LOKSOUND ESSENTIALS

[Billg]

Good morning all,

Has anyone played with a locomotive equipped with a LOKSOUND ESSENTIALS decoder?  I just found out about these last night when I tried to change the soundfile in a friend's ScaleTrains SD40-2. The paperwork states that the engine is equipped with a Loksound select V4.0 but when I tried to load the file I got a message saying that the decoder was NOT a Loksound Select! 
Has anyone else run into this.  I guess I'm falling behind.  I didn't know there was such a decoder.....

Comments?

Thanks!

Bill 

[reinhardtjh]

It's a stripped down LokSound Select decoder that ESU created at ScaleTrain's request (I think, at least so far only ScaleTrains is using them).  Only the ScaleTrains non-Rivet Counter versions are supposed to have them.  They are like the OEM SoundTraxx Tsunamis that are in Bachmann locos.  If I remember correctly, there was a snafu in advertising where the "Operators" (?) versions were listed as having the LokSound V4 like the Rivet Counter version but it was an error.

[peteski]

Very likely the actual hardware is the same as the fully-programmable decoders - it is the firmware (programming of the controller chip) that makes it what it is. But unfortunately there is probably no way to reinstall the firmware to change the decoder's personality (and expand its functionality).

[woodone]

I think that I would look at the LokSound V 4.0 sound files. They are different than the Selects.
You might find info there.