[Ozzie21]

A friend had a PCM Big Boy that he was never happy with the sound or the smoke unit so I removed both and retrofitted a pair of QSI High Bass speakers and a Soundtraxx heavy steam Tsunami. The speakers are 1.1" in diameter and at the front have a seal ring that projects out about a 1/64th of inch. I smoothed off the seal ring by lightly dressing it off and this just fits on the raised rings cast on the floor of the tender. I would have used larger speakers but as the big boy tender has a curve at the bottom of the tender that restricts fitting anything wider than 1.25". You could use larger speakers but they would have to fitted inside the tender using some sort of mounting and some sort of seal between them and tender floor. The QSI high Bass speakers are an excellent speaker with much greater dynamic range than the standard mylar speaker. This doesn't mean they are any louder but it is the clarity of sound they produce that make the difference. Unfortunately they are only available in a round format in the smaller sizes at the moment. I have fitted a 1.57" into a Bachmann On30 2-8-0 and th owner was more thany happy with the result.

Regards
Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

 

[Ozzie21]

Unfortunately no. A video camera is one of those things I think about but never seem to get around to actually getting one. The Tsunami sound is good and I have used the mini Tsunami in a couple of 0-8-0 locos. I did hear the MRC decoder in an early Challenger. If it's as bad as that I would change it.

Charles Emerson
Millmerran
Queensland

QUOTE (upnick @ 14 Oct 2008, 09:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Looks good Charles, any chance of a vid of it ? i have the Athearn N scale big boy and its excellent from the factory though i have heard people replacing the unit with Tsunami sound

 

[Ozzie21]

Neil, that will take a phone call this sunday. Do you 'mexicans' have daylight savings time on the go?

Charles Emerson
Queensland

QUOTE (neil_s_wood @ 14 Oct 2008, 16:14) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Looks good Charles. I wouldn't mind hearing that.

 

[Ozzie21]

Zmil, Actully it's not that big it's the internal design of the PCM Tender that makes it look big. But on the otherhand when compared to a LOksound yes it's a fair bir larger. I did install one on a Bachmann 9F just to see if it could be done. It sounds nothing like a 9F in regards to the whistle but by using various tools on board the Tsunami like the equaliser, reverb and the dynamic digital exhaust, you can make ir steam wise very like a 9F

Regards
Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

QUOTE (zmil @ 15 Oct 2008, 11:45) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi All

That Tsunami board is bigger than I had imagined

Looks like a good project though

Regards Zmil

 

[Ozzie21]

Fusilier, I took the smoke unit out. For a toy it's fine but for a model it leaves a lot to be desired. Big Boys were renowned for throwing up masive columns of smoke and darkening the sky. You just can't recreate that effect with that rather puny little device.

Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

QUOTE (Lancashire Fusilier @ 15 Oct 2008, 10:01) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Ozzie, you never mentioned the smoke unit. Are you replacing it? If so this one may benefit from the preheater concept that Martin71 is fond of. Could be worthwhile on such a nice tricked out loco like this one.

 

[Ozzie21]

John, that depends on what you really want. The Tsunami is probably a bit more work than the Loksound. I have tried a Loksound 3.5 but I didn't like the sound although I was perfectly happy with the motion control. The Tsunami requires more effort in the tuning department to get the sound right but as with all sound that's more on how you percieve the sound to be but I consider the polyphonic sound of the Tsunami to be superior. Control wise the Loksound possibly has the edge out of the box. The Tsunami again requires more effort in the tuning department to get it right but again it's what you percieve to be right. I took me about 4hrs to "tune" the sound and motion using "Decoder Pro" to get it where I was happy. Big Boys were designed to operate up to 80mph but rarely ever acheived those sorts of speeds, drag freights were more the order of the day so I've tuned this loco to operate more in 30 to 45mph band. Challenger class 4-6-6-4's were more of a high speed loco and were reguarly clocked in the 60mph range in the flatlands.

Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

QUOTE (john woodall @ 16 Oct 2008, 19:11) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>So is the Tsunami chip as good as the loksound 3.5 in terms of functionailty both sound wise and control wise?

Cheers

John

 

[Ozzie21]

Martin71, That all sounds pretty good but personally I wouldn't like to breathe an atmosphere like that. I've worked with coal and steam for most of my working life and i know how toxic it can be in a confined space.

Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

QUOTE (Martin71 @ 19 Oct 2008, 20:25) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi

A toy eh, that may be so but you have not seen some of mine....I can fill a 5x5m room with smoke in about 15 minutes. I posted a video a couple of months ago of the test.

Due to my location I cant get it for you.

m