# Mylocosound soundcard



## davehawk (Jul 24, 2010)

I recently took delivery of a sound card that was featured in the August issue of Garden Railways magazine.I installed it into my Aristocraft Alco FA-1. I used the white & black wires for the power to the board and hooked up the already existing speaker. What I would like to know is, is it possible to operate the horn of the deisel from my Aristocraft Train Engineer. I have 2 wires left...red & blue and I was wondering if one of these would operate the horn if it were connected to the sound card. The sound card gives the bells and horn as it starts but I am not able to press the horn manually from the aristo te.

Hope someone may be able to help

Dave


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## todd55whit (Jan 2, 2008)

Dave 
Not able to help with the question. I was wondering how well it sounds? When you do get it up and running please let us know. I saw the ad in GR and if it sounds ok for $69 bucks it might be okay.


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Look on the 2nd-to-last page of the installation instructions that came with the card. It's got a wiring diagram for hooking the Aristo Revolution up to the MyLocoSound board. You take the appropriate function wire for whichever function button you want to trigger the horn (1 - 6), and hook that to the "H1" terminal on the MyLocoSound board. You mention the red and blue wires, which I'm assuming are two available wires from the accessory harness connected to the TE. Whichever button either of those two wires correspond to will trigger the horn (just make sure they're programmed to "momentary" on the TE controller.) The black wire from the accessory harness (according to the diagram) gets connected to ground. (You may not have to physically connect that wire to ground. I've done some installations where you do, others where you don't. It's weird. I did not test my MyLocoSound board with the Revolution, but I've got it hooked up to an RCS per their diagram, and also with a manual push-button to trigger the horn. Both installations work very well, so I have no reason to think the Revolution installation would be any different. 

You'll want to make sure the jumpers are removed from LK1 and LK2 pins on the board, which is needed for controlling the board from R/C controls such as the Revolution. (Page 1 of the instructions shows where these are located.) 

A few other things... I'm not sure how well the bell voltage input plays with the PWM signal coming from the TE, so you may or may not have the low-voltage control over the bell that you would like. Also, if you're using the bell, you're limited to a single-tone horn, which is actually two tones played one after the other--not terribly "American." IMO, it's better to just turn the bell off (it doesn't sound all that great to my ears) and run with the dual-tone horn instead. That's at least how I have mine set up. 

Todd, in terms of sound quality, it's pretty good. It's not going to fool anyone up close and personal, but from 10' away through a "typical" speaker, it sounds very plausible. At that listening distance, you lose all of the "electronic" nuances of the synthesized sound, and are left with something that sounds very much like a generic internal-combustion engine. I've got mine installed in my little B'mann Davenport, playing through a 1.5" speaker. It's great background noise when I just want to see something simple running around the railroad while I'm doing yardwork. 

Later, 

K


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## todd55whit (Jan 2, 2008)

K 
That is pretty much my idea also, from 10 ft away it needs to sound plausible. Do you know if the diesel has compressor pop off? Todd


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

I have one for steam on my Pacific, my wife even commented that she thought it sounded good, I almost fainted!


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Do you know if the diesel has compressor pop off? 
No, just your basic motor rumble. The steam loco sound at idle has periodic extra chuffs. 

Later, 

K


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## davehawk (Jul 24, 2010)

Thanks for your replies guys.Todd, this is my first ever soundcard. So from a comparison point of view, I am not sure how they match up...from my point of view the sound card is alright and costs Aus$95, still cheaper than buying the Sierra or Phoenix cards which would cost over Aus$300 by the time they arrived in Australia. 
K. Unfortunately, I don't own the Aristo Revolution as yet. The red & blue wires That I have left are on the Alco Loco. What I am going to try is to place a jumper wire from each of the red & blue to the connection on the sound card where it designates the horn and see if that works. The bell voltage is not too bad, I did try the loco on the track after installing the sound card and noticed that the bell stopped after it gained momentum. Probably only about 2 to 3 seconds after it started. I agree with you about the quality of sound being much better at 10' away. when it was running around the track it sounded pretty good...when it was closer you could here that it was a synthesized sound. 
It doesn't have the diesel pop off, but the rest sounds pretty good. You do need to connect the battery option outlined in the instructions if you want the idle sound whilst the loco is stationary. The problem I have just now is making the battery access so you can replace them without taking the body off each time. 

After I try the jumper wire to the sound card I will let you know one way or the other how it works.


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Ah, forgive me... the "old" train engineer. If it's the 75mHz version, you can get the accessory control board and that will allow you to trigger the horn much the same way as the Revolution. I believe it plugs into the receiver, but don't quote me on that. You could do the same thing with the older 27 mHz stuff, but the accessory board is much larger--not designed to be on-board. I forget the part numbers. 

Later, 

K


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By East Broad Top on 25 Jul 2010 10:53 AM 
Ah, forgive me... the "old" train engineer. If it's the 75mHz version, you can get the accessory control board and that will allow you to trigger the horn much the same way as the Revolution. I believe it plugs into the receiver, but don't quote me on that. You could do the same thing with the older 27 mHz stuff, but the accessory board is much larger--not designed to be on-board. I forget the part numbers. 

Later, 

K 

ART-5474. I have one unused, still in its original package if someone is looking for one.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Yes, which Train Engineer makes a difference. There's so many products called "Train Engineer".... even the frequency band does not tell you everything, because there were both an "on board" and a "trackside" 27 MHz Train Engineer... and even then, people will remove the trackside unit from it's case, put it in the loco or a car and call it a trackside. 

The 27 MHz accessory receiver can indeed be placed in a loco, but it is sizeable. That said, there are limitations in channels and "tracks" it will operate on. 

You might see my site, or George Schreyer's if you will be using one. 

Regards, Greg


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 25 Jul 2010 11:18 AM 

The 27 MHz accessory receiver can indeed be placed in a loco, but it is sizeable. 
Regards, Greg 



~4" x ~2" x ~3/4"


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## RCE (Sep 14, 2009)

Is there a distributor in the US for My Loco sound cards? I did find one in Canada, Bells'nwhistles.net , but would like to find one in US. 
Richard


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

I used his web site and bought it direct from him in Australia. Good service, good guy to deal with.


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

Same here. Just order direct. Works fine.


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