[Anthony James]

Hi Guys,

Does anybody have a Liliput DRG Epoch 11 05 with sound (LOKSOUND 3.5?) and if so where did you put the speaker and which one did you use?

Regards,

Anthony

 

[ebaykal]

Hi Anthony,

No I do not have a DRG 05 but have other similar steams.Since I am in the process of putting in loksound decoders into them guess I can be of help.

For my Roco Br 50 , Liliput Br 52 loco's: insde the cab and stuck on the ceiling seems to be the only space available for a loudspeaker.

One word of advice, try to get a smaller diameter loudspeaker than the ones coming out of the loksound boxes. Decoders all in the tender.

Cheers

Baykal

 

[Richard Johnson]

Hi Anthony,

I've done a lot of Liliput loks lately (mostly various pacifics) and wherever possible we use the tender for the speaker. We drill a lot of holes in the coal load (removing about 1/3 of the total material) and cover it with black tulle (the stuff used for bridal veils) or stretched nylon as used in stockings. A sprinkling of real coal is glued to this using thinned glue, leaving enough airspace for sound to exit.

we've only ever once in a couple of hundred loksound steam loco installs had to use a loco cab for sound, and we really hate doing it as we feel it ljust ooks wrong! (Sorry Baykal)

We generally end up using the supplied speaker, however we've had great results with adding a second speaker low and up front on some loco's (13mm) in parallel - this gives the chuff repeated from by the cylinders and adds a real nice dimension to the sound, with the stronger/lower sounds from the tender being really aided by this extra bit of sound.

Don't be afraid to be lateral in thinking when you are doing it, and do always try to use an enclosure around the speaker if the chamber supplied can't be used.

The key is to make the chamber air tight, and this even includes sealing the slots in the loksound enclosures after the speaker is installed - it really does make for better sound.

Richard
DCCconcepts

 

[ebaykal]

Richard ,

Brilliant idea, that is if you have the space in the tender !

Roco and Liliput unfortunately has only a space for the decoder.

Inside loco body:upfront is occupied by the smoke generator
Backend ( firebox area ) by the gear system coupled with the cardanshaft comming out of the tender.

All this leaves no space for a loudspeaker.

As for the liliput, I do not know if DRG 05 has a light mounted for the firebox but in my BR 52 it does, which eventually leaves me no option.

HOWEVER ! you have sparked an idea.

Now I understand why he did it ! Take a closer look at the photo's below, specially the tenders :

Isn't that wonderful. Increasing the height of the coal chamber ! Most prototypes did it. Voila, there is a space created for your loudspeaker.

Cheers

Baykal

 

[Richard Johnson]

QUOTE (ebaykal @ 7 Sep 2007, 23:32) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Richard ,

Brilliant idea, that is if you have the space in the tender !

Roco and Liliput unfortunately has only a space for the decoder.

Inside loco body:upfront is occupied by the smoke generator
Backend ( firebox area ) by the gear system coupled with the cardanshaft comming out of the tender.

All this leaves no space for a loudspeaker.

As for the liliput, I do not know if DRG 05 has a light mounted for the firebox but in my BR 52 it does, which eventually leaves me no option.

HOWEVER ! you have sparked an idea.

Now I understand why he did it ! Take a closer look at the photo's below, specially the tenders :

Isn't that wonderful. Increasing the height of the coal chamber ! Most prototypes did it. Voila, there is a space created for your loudspeaker.

Cheers

Baykal

 

[Richard Johnson]

Hi Baykal

Actually you need to look much closer and think laterally:

There is almost always room for the speaker other than in the cab. If necessary, drop down to a LokSound Micro which is fine with almost every reasonably recent HO locomotive, and look closely at the speaker range too - it really is worth buying one of each up to 23mm round and also both of the oval speakers & the twin.

You WILL sometimes have to cut metal in chassis or tender: We dislike doing it but there can be no choice if a good sound is wanted ... especially in N scale, when milling out bodies too is often needed...very scary to do, leaving 1/2mm of metal + paint only!

Also - you will very often need to build a new baffle / enclosure for the speaker - the LS ones are excellent but often just a wee bit too wide or high.

don't worry if sound is indirect as long as it has some way of exiting the body - the high frequencies will get slightly reduced but they are almost always too much anyway.

We really DO put them in tender and loco, and as I said, only once did we need to use a cab. This week we did 2 02's, a 50, a 52 and a (can't remember the brand) twelve driving wheel tender loco x 2 (may have been trix??), plus several Mehano Diesels.

The 02's and either the 50 or 52 were Liliput. We find almost all have space if you look hard enough, but not always for the suipplied 23mm speaker.

Yes, you may have to sacrifice the smoke unit sometimes, but they are messy things that mess up the layout and add stuff to the track to make more cleaning (the smoke is actually airborne soot after all).

Its OK to use 2x smaller speakers if one larger one won't fit, as long as you parallel them in phase. Loksound will tolerate the resulting 50 ohms no problem!

We NEVER had to make the coal load so high, either, but I guess its a good solution if there is no other way you can see.

I think perhaps I should start taking photo's as we do them to assist other modellers! (but I can't give away all mysecrets as this is part of our business!

Richard

 

[neil_s_wood]

I have a Liliput BR 05 and the tender is out as it is full of motor and decoder. It would be possible to put in the boiler but it would be a real hassle as there is a smoke generator and weighting in there. However given that Richard has done 100's of these I would probably cop out and pay him to do it.