SoundTraxx — Local services in Durango

I think this has to be the quietest n scale sound decoder I own, for certain sounds even at cv255. The bachmann n&w unit I put it in is brand new an dcc ready so their was no need to modify the tender an that's about the only plus side I've had so far. It took days to find instructions before finally coming across some pictures on the TCS site for a completely different decoder (I think it was M1) even then i still needed to contact soundtrax to make sure the wiring would be correct and i didn't cook anything rendering my brand new model useless. I also needed to contact them once again with trying to figure out where the provided capacitor should be wired in. The provided card stock instructions are very unclear saying it needs to be connected to the ground green/yellow striped wire, after contacting soundtrax i was informed to just wire it up to the blue + common function wire then connect that wire to the locomotives factory board as pictured on the instructions i had found on the TCS site. After putting the locomotive on the track just to make sure everything was correct an nothing got cooked then giving the locomotive some throttle the movement is kind of erratic at slow speeds the best way i can describe it would be a slow, fast, slow, fast kind of movement this may go away with use as the model is brand new or it may just be the model it's self so only time will tell on that aspect. I did add some labelle 108 lube just to the rods on the outside of the wheels before any usage since they looked pretty dry. So now I moved onto the programing portion, if I used the soundtrax site search bar the only thing I could find was other decoders. After googling n&w programming it finally pulled it up. I will admit It's been a really long time since I've programed a decoder, after going through their list of cv's I gave the model some throttle to move, the headlight was flashing very fast an erratic, all chuffing was exempt, an I needed to turn the throttle up to around 40-50% before any movement even occurred with the model. So I just factory reset the decoder with cv8 to 8, then set the decoder address to 611, since by this time it was rather late i just called it a night an hung up. I wouldn't necessarily say this is a bad review for the soundtrax decoder is indeed working as intended, it's just some of the bridges and streams I had to cross along with my opinion. The only portion of this entire process that I didn't do was remove the factory capacitors off the factory board as shown in the pictures on the TCS site for i had read on a forum someone had contacted either bachmann or TCS an they said they could be left alone. The only other downside is with the fwd/rev lighting. Normally if you're in fwd only that light would be active, for this model both the fwd an Rev light constantly remain on, just if you're in fwd the rev light will be dim and if you're in Rev the fwd light will dim. I don't blame soundtrax for this happening for I'm sure you could unsoldier the tender light from the factory bachmann board and wire it directly to the soundtrax decoder but then you would need to figure out a way to mount it with a custom piece of styrene an super glue or...

The Blumani 4408 could be a game changer for the O Gauge O Scale enthusiasts. I am converting an old brass Weaver GG1 to Blunami. Overall the conversion is straightforward, but there are a couple of things you should know. You will need a bridge rectifier, a capacitor and a DC-DC buck converter to supply "safe" power and voltage to the Blunami board. If you have 2 motors expect to wire the engines in series (due to stall amperage) and make sure your speaker(s) can handle the 3 watts this board puts out. The 1st photo is intended to show the space available in this engine and the relative sizes of the Blunami board and rectifier assembly. The 2nd shows the components. I did not care for the exposed wires from the rectifier capacitor assembly so elected to attach them to a board. Another learning experience. Note: full wave rectifiers can increase DC voltage output close to and above the maximum board voltage. My Z1000 transformer 18 vac yielded 26.4 volts DC and my Z4000 22vac yielded 29+ volts at full throttle. Hence the need for the buck converter. Perhaps Soundtraxx could consider offering a separate AC to DC power board module. A properly designed PCB would require far less real estate...

I have a KATO n-Scale FEF which I had put a sound decoder in which sounded terrible (I will not mention the manufacturer), so I decided to get the SoundTraxx Tsunami-2 Steam decoder and speaker to replace the one I had.

All I can say is WOW! This was such an improvement. The installation was simple with the speaker in the tender and the main board was able to fit in the engine. Wiring was easy and I was able to include some extra LEDs to create a firebox so when the train runs it randomly makes the fire box in the engine flicker looking like the firebox is open and you can see the fire. Brilliant.

The sound is awesome and I can actually hear the sounds the engine makes (unlike the horrible sound of the other decoder) and in fact there are lots of different sounds that make the engine feel realistic. I actually love turning on the driver sounds while he/she communicates with the controller over the radio - nice touch.

I did have a concern about one of the sounds and the response from SoundTraxx (George was brilliant) was quick and helped me understand that what I was hearing was actually what it sounds like in real life (the dynamo).

I really cannot recommend SoundTraxx higher -...