# Bells and whistles



## jmvedrine (May 28, 2010)

Hello,
As I discovered live steam, garden railroading and mylarge scale just a few months ago, excuse me if this has been asked a lot of time before but I have not found the answers to my questions searching the forums.

I have 2 live steam engines : an Accucraft Ruby and a Forney. The Ruby already has a Spektrum DX5e R/C equipment fiited and I will do the same for the Forney soon.
I love live steam but I miss the bell and wistle sounds !
As I have 3 unused channels on the DX5e it seems quite logic to use one to activate bell and wistle sounds.
Something as Beltrol RCS # 2 M-Fv2 (but I don't know where to buy it in online ?) or Robbe Duo switch memo 8445 (easy to find here in France) will provide 2 on/off switches from an unused channel but what to use for the bell and wistle sounds ?

Of course a full sound card as SoundTraxx, Dallee, Phoenix, ... should work if I choose a right model, but this seems as a lot of wasted money as I "don't need the chuff" nor the other sounds or the program to synchronize sounds.

I looked at Innovative Train Technology (http://ittproducts.com/) products and their HQ sound modules , I find HQ110 a pretty convincing bell, and they have some good wistles too.

Is that the way to go ? Are they other alternatives ? How to "mix the sound of the 2 modules on the same speaker ?
Of course as I am modeling some Dysneyland USA locomotives the best solution would be a system that alllow me to use the real recorded sound of the prototypal Dysneyland engine's bell and wistle but I don't know where I can find a card that allow me to transfer the digitized sounds in it and play them back later.

Thanks a lot for your help.
Jean-Michel Védrine - St Etienne - France


----------



## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

All my electric locos have sound, but I dislike the idea of adding sound to a live steamer. Not sure why. You'd need to add a speaker, which takes a good bit of room.


You could always add an actual steam whistle, like these:
Weltyks Whistles 

They sound pretty great but they do use some steam.

You could add a Summerlands chuffer to enahnce the chuff sound--I did that, works very well

http://www.summerlands-chuffer.co.uk/ 

As for the bell, I bet someone here has rigged up a servo to ring a bell. But the problem would be physics--a real sized bell would be practically inaudible. But a bell the size of a good speaker would work, maybe hide it in the tender.


If you wanted to go electronic, and just add a bell sound alone, Dave Bodnar has some interesting articles here:

http://www.trainelectronics.com/articles.htm 

Scroll down and look for the section on sound


----------



## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

The ITT sounds are excellent and will work using the 4.8 volt servo batteries. 
The only drawback with the ITT sound is, as far as I am aware, there is only one sound on each module. 
That means two modules and two speakers unless some fancy electronics are used to marry two sound systems to use one speaker. 
They can easily be triggered by the RCS - BELTROL # 2-M-F which is available on line from me here in Australia.


----------

