Decoder suggestions - Sound and multiple lights?

[gavino200]

This is actually a pretty amazing resource. In fact the whole website is worth looking at. Fred Miller is a retired software engineer who spends his life now focused on HO model street cars. His large urban layout is now an attraction in a museum in NC where he curates it. I don't usually like American layouts but I think it's both technically interesting and beautiful.

 

Fred basically wrote a program to simplify the process of making sound projects. His program has two main settings "non-techie" for noobs like me and "techie" for people who understand coding. This software and a stand-alone decoder can also be used to bring ambient sound to a layout. 

 

Here's a screenshot. I think I may actually be able to do this. I'll continue to play with this, but also switch to collecting sound samples. I think I'll use existing sounds for bells and whistles etc, but collect and edit my own jet sounds.

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2018 by gavino200

[gavino200]

I worked it out. I successfully managed to make my own custom "Sound Project" and program it into the decoder. I did it without using Fred Miller's excellent program, though I'll probably play with it again later. I mainly wanted to work out how to do this now, so I didn't have to begin a frustrating software problem after (hopefully) finishing the modelling part of the project.

 

I was trying to use the soundfiles pre-installed in the decoder as a template, but I ran into two problems.

 

1. I couldn't get "Soundloader" to recognize the decoder on my programming track. It turns out that the programming track needs to be connected directly to the PR3 digitrax interface device, rather than the Digitrax superchief controler. For some reason it won't communicate through loconet. This was an easy fix once I thought of it. 

 

2. You can edit the free "Sound Projects" on the Digitrax website's "Sound Depot". But It seems that they don't want people sharing their proprietary preloaded files. So, as far as I can tell the process is pretty much one way only. No way I can find to "Read and save". Just "Erase and load". No big deal, I just used a public domain "Sound Project" as the template. 

 

This is the process I used.

 

1. Make your sound files in Audacity and save them as 8bit 11kHz files. 

2. Go to the Digitrax website --> Sound Depot --> Download and look through some Sound projects.

3. Select one that has similar functions to the one you want. ie, multi throttle level diesel sound can easily be changed to multi throttle level Jet sound. Diesel DYN can easily be changed to Jet afterburner. That's because the file types and numbers are the same. Start section, run section, end section.

4. Open "SoundLoader". Open the selected Sound Project. Go through the files and use the "assign sound from file" function to switch your files for the corresponding origional ones. Example: Switch "Diesel Start" with "Jet Start", "Diesel Run" with "Jet run", etc. I didn't bother to change bells and whistles. 

5. Save the new Sound Project as whatever you want. In my case "Jet sounds version 1".

6. Connect your decoder to the program track. Flash the new Sound project to the decoder. 

7. Connect the decoder to the main track and test the new sound project.

Done.

 

Now that I know I can do it, I'll browse around for some better Jet sounds. 

 

But for the time being I'm going to disappear back down the wormhole to the main thread and continue with the modelling side of the project. 

Edited September 1, 2018 by gavino200

[gavino200]

I did a bit more work on the electrical side of this project. The prototype doesn't have any red lights on front. I removed the red LED from the model. The decoder/light boards are a little complicated. Just simply removing the red let at the front caused both LEDs at the back of the loco to not work. So I soldered in a tiny diode and everything worked again. I also tidied up the wiring and soldered on some small connectors for the Jet LED and sound decoder wires so it'll be easier to remove and replace the shell for maintenance.

 

I'll do an electrical check on the connections, and if they work I plan on painting the wires the same tan color as the "seats/floor" so hopefully the wires won't be quite so visible through the windows.

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2018 by gavino200

[gavino200]

The connectors are checked, and a little paint applied to make the decoder and wiring a little less prominent. The undercarriage is finished. Now to install the sound decoder, speaker, and jet LEDs under the shell roof and connect them. Then finally to collect sound files and load them.

 

[gavino200]

Again I'm totally confused. This decoder (Digitralx DN143K2) has the lights Forward/reverse selected in the opposite directions as are needed for the M-497 jet train. ie. The default back end of the Kato RDC is the front end of the M-497.

 

I wrongly assumed that I only had to select the "reverse" option on JMRI when programming the decoder. However, that only makes it reverse when the control cab says forward. The relation between physical direction and light direction remains the same. Reversed. 

 

Here is a link to the Digitrax decoder page with PDF links to the various manuals. I've read through all of them. But I can't work out what CVs need to changed and how. I'm guessing there's a software (CV) way or reversing the light/motor direction relationship. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

 

http://www.digitrax.com/products/mobile-decoders/dn143k2/

[gavino200]

I also tried to use the "Lights" tab of the JMRI programming interface to reverse the lights. No effect. Changing the address worked so everything seems to be set up right.

[Kiha66]

7 hours ago, gavino200 said:

Again I'm totally confused. This decoder (Digitralx DN143K2) has the lights Forward/reverse selected in the opposite directions as are needed for the M-497 jet train. ie. The default back end of the Kato RDC is the front end of the M-497.

 

I wrongly assumed that I only had to select the "reverse" option on JMRI when programming the decoder. However, that only makes it reverse when the control cab says forward. The relation between physical direction and light direction remains the same. Reversed. 

 

Here is a link to the Digitrax decoder page with PDF links to the various manuals. I've read through all of them. But I can't work out what CVs need to changed and how. I'm guessing there's a software (CV) way or reversing the light/motor direction relationship. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

 

http://www.digitrax.com/products/mobile-decoders/dn143k2/

 

This isnt your fault at all, its a know issue of that decoder.  Digitrax had a factory issue so the lights are opposite the motor direction, my issue is they made no effort to tell people how to fix it.  To solve the issue you have to set CV33=2 and CV34=1.   This will remap the function outputs F0F and F0R so F0 still controls lights but now the head light and tail light match motor direction.

[gavino200]

18 hours ago, Kiha66 said:

 

This isnt your fault at all, its a know issue of that decoder.  Digitrax had a factory issue so the lights are opposite the motor direction, my issue is they made no effort to tell people how to fix it.  To solve the issue you have to set CV33=2 and CV34=1.   This will remap the function outputs F0F and F0R so F0 still controls lights but now the head light and tail light match motor direction.

 

 

Thanks. It worked exactly as you described.