SoundBytes XXIIX

SoundBytes XXIIX

Its time for another edition of SoundBytes. This time we will review George’s trip to Oregon and California. We will also fill you in on our upcoming schedule for shows. Finally, for our tech tip, we will discuss the capacitor found on Tsunami decoders and their purpose.

Oregon and Northern California Trip
George would like to issue a thank you to those he was able to visit on his recent trip. He was able to give clinics for many of the clubs in the area that he was traveling and saw lots of great layouts. George visited the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club (http://www.cgmrc.com/),

the Mount Hood Model Engineers, both in the Portland, Oregon area. In the Northern California area, He was able to visit the Carquinez Model Railroad Club in Crockett (http://www.carquinezmrs.org/),


the Alameda County Central Railroad Society in Pleasanton (http://www.pleasantonmodelrr.org/)

and the East Bay Model Engineer Society at the Golden State Model Railroad Museum in Richmond (http://www.gsmrm.org/).
He was happy to be able to spend some time with these club members showing the capabilities and features of the Tsunami decoders.
During this trip, he also visited several SoundTraxx and Blackstone Models authorized dealers in the area. He was able to visit Whistlestop Trains (http://www.wsor.com/)
and The Hobbysmith (http://www.hobbysmith.com/),
both in Portland, OR, Mainline Trains in Forest Grove, OR,

Tammie’s Hobbies (http://www.tammieshobbies.com/) in Beaverton, OR

and Eugene Toy and Hobby in Eugene OR.
Stops in California included The Train Shop in Santa Clara, CA,
Tom’s Trackside Trains (http://www.tomstracksidetrains.com/) in Menlo Park, CA,
Railroad Hobbies (http://www.rrhobbies.com/) in Roseville, CA,
Bruce’s Train Shop (http://www.brucestrainshop.com/), in Sacramento, CA,
Roger’s Railroad Junction (http://www.rogersrailroadjunction.com/) in Lodi, CA,
Franciscan Hobbies (www.franciscanhobbies.com) in San Francisco, CA and Just Trains (www.just-trains.com) in Concord, CA. Just Trains was holding their annual Open House Sunday, October 3rd.
This year had a good crowd that lasted all day. There were lots of great layouts on display, including an HOn3 Blackstone Models inspired layout by Bill Iwan,
a member of the Northern California Narrow Gaugers,
a great On30 modular layout club.
This was a busy trip, but he had a good time, despite the traffic! If you live in these areas, or are just visiting, be sure to visit these fine dealers.

Upcoming Shows
This week, Nancy, Jarrette and George will be in Chicago for the International Hobby Expo (www.ihobbyexpo.com). This will be held at the Rosemont Convention Center in Rosemont, IL, near the Chicago O’Hare International Airport. If you are in the area, come by and see what we have to show.
November 12, 13, and 14th, we will be at Trainfest in Milwaukee (www.trainfest.com). Following that, we will be at the Oklahoma City Train Show, (www.okctrainshow.com) December 4th and 5th. Be sure to come by if you are in the area to see what’s new and to see some of the upcoming releases from Blackstone Models!

Tech Tip:
ch There seems to be confusion as to the purpose of the Capacitor included in the Tsunami decoders. This is a 220uf capacitor that is designed as a stay-alive capacitor for the processor. Older SoundTraxx decoders had a 33uf bi-directional capacitor included to hook up in line with the speakers. This was a noise filter and is no longer necessary with the Tsunami line of decoders. Lets look at how it works.
At any point in time, the locomotive is picking up power from one wheel on each rail, no matter how many wheels it has.


Electricity follows the shortest path of least resistance, which will be one wheel on each rail. As the locomotive is moving, this point of contact with the rail is broken and needs to be re-established quickly, which it does, but for that moment, the decoder is without power. The capacitor supplies the processor with power until another reliable path of electricity is found. This window is only milliseconds long, but with a sound decoder, even this is enough to result in a constantly re-setting sound decoder, similar to plugging in and unplugging a computer. With a non-sound decoder, this takes place so fast that we never see any interruption of power, but with sound, we would hear the loss of power.
We have selected a 220uf capacitor because on a well-wired layout, these interruptions of power will only last ¼ second to ½ second. This capacitor is more than enough to handle this amount of time. If you are still experiencing losses of power causing interruption of operation, you can increase the capacitance to help lengthen the amount of time that the processor will be powered over dead track. Remember, as capacitance increases, so to does the physical size of the capacitor, which may be a tight fit into small locomotives. You can use as large a capacitor as you can fit, but we do recommend keeping it less than 1000uf. If the capacitance of multiple locomotives gets too high, this could cause the DCC system to detect a short circuit upon startup due to the inrush current caused by multiple capacitors charging at the same time. Most installations will not need this, however, if the locomotive’s track power pickups are insuffecient (not enough wheels are picking up power), this could help overcome these issues.

SoundBytes XXVIII

In this edition, we will re-cap the 30th National Narrow Gauge Convention. We will also shed light onto a couple of our SoundTraxx and Blackstone Models dealers, discuss future trips.

Narrow Gauge Convention Wrap-Up
We had a great time visiting with our customers and dealers who were in attendance. We were proud to show the newest pre-production samples of the C-19s, and decorated samples of the passenger coach and the tank cars. These were well received and whet the appetites of many HOn3 modelers! You can view these samples on our website, http://www.blackstonemodels.com/rolling/passengercoach/index.php and http://www.blackstonemodels.com/new/tankcar/index.php.
A great Honor was bestowed to our company’s founders, Steve Dominguez and Nancy Workman. These extraordinary individuals were honored at the convention by being inducted into the Narrow Gauge Hall of Fame! It is truly great to have them recognized for contributions in both the category of sound and revitalizing HOn3 with the introduction of the Blackstone Models division.
We also would like to thank those who opened their layouts to conventioneers. The layout hosts were very hospitable and we saw some fabulous layouts. In particular, we’d like to thank Jeff Boock, Eric Brooman, Chuck Graham, John Kalin, Herb Koening, Randy Meyers and Ron Schlueter- Your layouts were truly inspirational! Nearly all featured our Tsunami sound decoders and we even found one using our SoundTraxx S220-IR Steam layout sound system! We will post some photos at in a future post.
During our time there, we took the opportunity to visit Mark Twain Hobbies in St. Charles, MO (http://www.hobby1.com/). If you are in the area, please stop by- this is an awesome store with a wonderful selection of items for all hobbies. It truly brought back childhood memories for all of us!

Look for us in your area!
George will be spending a week on the west coast in the coming weeks! Starting in Portland, he will visit with our dealers in the area with clinics at The Hobbysmith (http://www.hobbysmith.com/) at 4:00pm and at the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad club (http://www.cgmrc.com/) at 6:00pm, on Tuesday, September 28th. Traveling to the San Francisco Bay Area Wednesday, he will be doing public clinics at Bruce’s Train Shop along with the 26th Street Model Engineers (http://www.26thstmodelengineers.org/) in Sacramento, CA at Noon on Friday, October 1st and at Roger’s Railroad Junction in Lodi on Saturday, Oct 2nd at 10:30am. If you are in the area and can attend, we would love to have you! We are planning on visiting our dealers in the area as well, along with several clubs including the Carquinez Model Railroad Society (http://www.carquinezmrs.org/) Thursday evening at 7:00pm and the Alameda County Central Railroad Society (http://www.pleasantonmodelrr.org/) on Friday evening at 6:00pm. On Sunday, Oct 3rd, we will be displaying at the Open House for Just Trains (http://www.just-trains.com/) in Concord, CA. Please come by and say hello and see what’s new!

Dealer News:
From time to time, we like to give some special ‘kudos’ to dealers who are doing what they can to help serve the model railroad community. At this time, we would like to congratulate Johns and Nancy Thut of DCC Hobby Supply (http://www.dcchobbysupply.com/) for expanding their services to their customers. In addition to almost always having the items asked for in stock, they now offer installation services for both brass and mass-produced plastic models. Give them a call and support them in their efforts to better support you!

SoundBytes XXVII

It seems as though summer has just started, and here we are going into September and sending the kids off to school! Of course, that means time for railroading! In this edition, we will look at an annual occurrence here in Durango, Railfest at the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. We will also see our newest announcement from SoundTraxx. For our Tech Tip, we will look at an easy change to make to your Tsunami decoder, the Whistle or air horn!

Railfest
This year’s Railfest at the D&SNG was bigger than ever. This is an annual celebration of railroading in the Colorado Rockies and visiting equipment stole the show. Railfest this year ran from August 19th through August 24th. Events included freight photo specials, special passenger photo specials, special excursions with the visiting equipment and more! This year, the D&RGW 315, a C18 consolidation, the Eureka and Palisades #4, a 4-4-0 and the RGS Galloping Goose #5 all were here running special trips throughout the Animas Canyon. One of the highlights of this year’s festivities was the Parade of Trains through Durango, featuring a train arriving at the depot about every 10 minutes, finally posing for a special photo shoot with some of the everyday D&S equipment! This kicked off the Railfest Banquet held in the Railroad Museum. This annual event seems to get better every year. If you are looking for a great railroad vacation, Railfest is hard to beat!

Upcoming Shows
If you are able to attend the 30th National Narrow Gauge Convention held this year in St. Louis, MO, be sure to come by the booth to see what’s new. We will have plenty of samples of our upcoming projects to show, including a few versions of the C-19 to look at as well as decorated samples of the passenger cars with the full detailed and painted interior and decorated samples of our frameless and narrow-frame tank cars.
George would also like to thank all who attended the clinic in Colorado Springs at Custom Railway Supply. Your questions and participation is appreciated. For those who were not able to attend, watch here for more clinic schedules and locations. We are looking to plan a few more around the country!

Mobile Decoders
We have been asked many times about speed matching Tsunami sound-equipped locomotives with non-sound-equipped locos. In response to this, we have introduced a non-sound decoder that features the same fine motor control and features found in the Tsunami decoders, just without the sound! This way, you can have a multi-unit consist that has each decoder is using the same set of CVs for controlling the lights and motor, including the popular F11 braking! No more will you have to look through many manuals to figure out how to get different decoder-equipped locos to run together smoothly.
The Mobile decoders will be available in many formats to facilitate an easy installation. The lineup can be found here: http://www.soundtraxx.com/MotorDecoders/MotorDecoders.php
These will be available soon from your favorite dealers.

Tech Tip:
One of the easiest and most distinct changes that can be made to a decoder is to change the whistle or horn. Each steam decoder is pre-loaded with a selection of up to 8 whistles and diesel decoders are preloaded with 16 air horns to choose from. Prototype locomotives carried many different whistles based on the railroad or region of the country, or even different class of locomotives! Diesels became more “standardized” with the railroad selecting the air horn of choice for all locomotive models. Each Tsunami decoder has a card enclosed in the packaging that denotes which whistles and air horns are selectable on the decoder. By reading the chart, you can determine the values to program into CV115 to select each air horn and whistle type. For example, on the EMD 567 diesel decoder, CV 115 should be set to a value of 3 of you want to hear a Leslie A200. On the Southern Steam decoder, set CV 115 to 2 if you want to hear the Norfolk & Western #1218 whistle.Using CV115, you can select a whistle or air horn that you like the sound of. After all, this is your railroad. By using the many choices available, doing a small bit of research on your prototypes can make for a more prototypically accurate running experience.

SoundBytes XXVI

It is time for another installment of SoundBytes. We have some trips planned in the near future including a trip to Colorado Springs to give a Tsunami clinic. Also, we will be displaying at the 30th National Narrow Gauge convention in St. Louis, MO. We will discuss a bit about the latest from Blackstone Models. For out Tech Tip, we will look more in depth into Dynamic Brakes and how they work for diesels.

Show Season
Show season is upon us. George will be traveling this weekend to Colorado Springs to give a Tsunami sound presentation at Custom Railway Supply in Colorado Springs Saturday Morning, August 21st at 9:30am. If you are able to attend, please do so as it will be fun and informative. http://www.customrailwaysupply.com/
After a busy NMRA National show, we now get to go to St. Louis, MO and set up at the 30th National Narrow Gauge Convention. This is usually a great show to display Blackstone Models equipment and to talk with many of our “Narrow-Minded” friends about current and upcoming projects. As always, we enjoy speaking with our friends in the modeling community. If you are able to attend this show, or are in the near vicinity, come by and visit. Also, Jarrette will be giving clinics on using Tsunami sound and Jeff will be giving a peek into the world of Blackstone Models. Check the clinic schedule to find out times and locations of these informative and fun clinics! http://30ngconvention.org/Blackstone Models
We have been shipping out our K-27 locomotives and our double-deck stockcars as fast as we can. We have a large demand for these items and quantities are limited. Be sure to check with your dealers to ensure you get your models before they are sold out!We also have passed the deadline for guaranteed reservations on the narrow frame and frameless tank cars. We have very limited quantities available, so be sure you have ordered yours to guarantee you receive these quality models.
Our second set of sample C-19s have arrived and we are extensively testing these models to ensure that the quality we expect is present and that these models run as good as our K-27s. These models have been great so far, we want to push these to the limits to be sure you can enjoy running these locomotives!

Tech Tip:
For this Tech Tip, we will discuss dynamic brakes and how they work on your Tsunami decoder. For those who may not know what Dynamic Braking is, let us explain.
Locomotives are not direct drive like our cars and trucks. Since they need much more horsepower to pull that much tonnage, they rely on electric motors (Traction motors) on the axles to turn the wheels. An electric generator (Main Generator) attached to the diesel engine (Prime mover) supplies the electrical power to these motors. The engineer regulates how much power is applied to the traction motors from the cab for pulling trains. Dynamic braking was developed to help reduce the wear on the train’s brake shoes while helping to maintain better control of the train when drifting downhill or negotiating territory with significant undulating grades. This method of braking turns the traction motors into generators, using electro-mechanical force to slow the rotation of the locomotive’s wheels and causing resistance to the momentum of the train downhill. The extra electric energy generated by these traction motors is dissipated in a resistor grid located in the locomotive. The dynamic brake fan sound on the Tsunami is representing the dedicated fan (or set of fans) that cools these resistor grids to prevent thermal damage to them.
Each locomotive manufacturer had a different way of addressing the locomotive’s needs for the dynamic brake application. Tsunami allows you to replicate any of these options to create a more realistic sound decoder. Since the prime mover would not be generating power to pull the train anymore, most EMD locomotives would drop the diesel engine RPMs to idle to save fuel. As an exception to that rule, Southern Pacific and Missouri Pacific would have the prime mover on their locomotives drop to Run 4 so there was enough power generated by the main generator to keep the traction motor blowers running to help prevent the traction motors from overheating. ALCO and GE had these fans directly driven from the crankshaft of the prime mover and would then have to crank the prime mover up to Run 8 or full throttle to keep the fan turning as fast as it can and cool the resistors.
Following the Tsunami Diesel User’s Guide, available here: http://www.soundtraxx.com/manuals.php, these options can be set up in your diesel Tsunami decoder to follow prototype practices and therefore result in more realistic operation. F4 by default controls the dynamic brake sound. CV116 sets up a few things, including auto-notching or manual notching, auto start, and interlock as well as the dynamic brake feature. Start by determining the value for CV116 that controls the other features first. Next, determine how your prototype’s dynamic brakes behaved. Default settings for Tsunami simply have the fan sound play. If you want the prime mover to drop to idle, add in 64 to the pre-determined value for CV116. If you want the dynamic brakes to go to Run 4, add 128 to the value for CV116. If the prime mover’s RPMs need to go to Run 8, add in 192 to the value in CV 116.
With many railroads using locomotives from different manufacturers, following this procedure creates realistic operation options allowing the unique locomotives to behave differently when in a prototypical consist. A neat addendum to this is in a case where a locomotive (Or locomotives) in the consist does not have dynamic brakes. The locomotive in question, when coupled to a few locomotives that did have dynamic brakes, would drop to idle to save fuel, but there were no fans, so set CV116 accordingly and set CV 133, Dynamic Brake fan volume, to 0. This way, when in a consist, this locomotive will behave properly in accordance with the prototype, and there will be no Dynamic Brake fan sound! This feature found only in Tsunami helps create the realism we are all striving to achieve on our layouts!

SoundBytes XXV

This has been a seemingly short amount of time since our last post. We have been to Milwaukee for the National Train Show and now it is August! Also, Blackstone Models K-27s and Double Deck Stock Cars arrived here on July 29th. For our Tech Tip, let’s take a look at the UP GTEL Turbine decoder and some of its operational capabilities!

On another front, Allison got married on July 24th at the Durango Mountain Resort. It was a rainy day, so the ceremony was held indoors, but it was a nice ceremony anyway. We wish her well in her new married life!

National Train Show
This year at the National Train Show, SoundTraxx made a big splash! Many people came by our booth to talk with us.

We want to extend a big Thank You to the many people who attended our clinics at the show. Both nights of clinics were full.

After a long week of clinics, convention and fun, we were glad to be back at home!
Also, we are working on our “Official” announcements from the show. To keep apprised and up to date with the official news, be sure to sign up for our customer newsletter. Send an e-mail to customernews@soundtraxx.com with “Subscribe” in the subject and we will add you to our e-mail list.

Blackstone Models
For our Blackstone Models customers, we have received the K-27s AND the Double-Deck Stock Cars this week.

We received many pallets of product that we will now test and inspect to be sure we catch any issues before they leave our facility.

These should be shipping in a week or so.

Tech Tip:
Our Tech Tip will briefly discuss the many operational features we have implemented into the GTEL UP Gas Turbine Electric decoder. We have researched the prototype using the operator’s manual, in print as well as having worked closely with former UP shop technicians who used to work on and with these large beasts to ensure an accurately operating decoder. Lets get to some of the details…
The Turbine locomotives had a small diesel engine on board to help hostle the locomotive around the shops as well as start up the turbine. Therefore, the Tsunami has both a diesel sound and a turbine sound built in. Depending on the version of the turbine used, this diesel engine may shut off when the turbine is active, or run constantly regardless of the turbine running or not. We have allowed the user to select either option to more accurately match your prototype.

It has been written that the dynamic brakes also could have been addressed in a few ways. One publication mentions that on long runs downhill, the engineer could turn off the turbine while applying the dynamic brakes to help conserve fuel. While this is technically true, the technicians said no one ever actually did this in operation because they could hit a section of flat track and lose power to pull the train. The turbine engine took a long time to start up, so the train would be dead waiting on the turbine to get started again. We have incorporated either method for dynamic brake application, to allow the modeler to decide how he or she wants the locomotive/sound to behave when the dynamic brakes are applied.
The Tsunami has 5 operating modes to choose from. These modes are automatic, semi-automatic and fully manual along with semi-automatic and fully manual with optional speed limiting. Automatic mode does exactly what it says. As you increase the throttle, the diesel engine will rev up, then transition to the turbine and rev up from there as the speed to the model is increased. The turbine will remain on, even when stopped, but will time out after a predetermined time (Default 10 sec) while sitting and no functions on. Semi-automatic mode utilized auto notching, but requires the F9 to turn on the turbine and F10 to turn the turbine off. Fully manual uses F9 to increase the engine up through the diesel and initiates the turbine and increases the turbine from there, while the F10 decreases the RPM of the turbine and shuts the turbine off. Because the diesel engine was barely powerful enough to move itself without a train, we have also incorporated speed limiting to regulate the speed of the motor while the diesel engine is operational.
All of the options discussed here can be set up using CVs. We have made a separate manual for the turbine that can be downloaded free from our website. http://www.soundtraxx.com/manuals/Users%20Guide%20UP%20Turbine_1.14.pdf

Utilizing these options, you can simply enjoy running your Tsunami-equipped Turbine locomotive, or operate the locomotive as if you were running the real thing.

SoundBytes XXIV

It is time for another edition of SoundBytes. This time, we will look a little at what it takes to get ready for a trade show. For our Tech Tip, we will also complete the look into speed tables in the Tsunami decoders.

UP Gas Turbine!
We are shipping the Union Pacific Gas Turbine decoders out this week. After extensive testing and exhaustive research, we have built the best Turbine decoder available. We have utilized remaining audio recordings and worked with some of the remaining Union Pacific service technicians who worked with these large locomotives to ensure an accurately operating decoder. With a few new CVs to accommodate every possible operation mode, you can be sure your models operate as the prototypes did many years ago!

NMRA 75th
The National Train Show along with the NMRA’s 75th annual convention takes place this coming week in Milwaukee, WI. The NMRA convention runs July 12th through the 16th. Modelers travel from across the globe to attend the clinics, layouts and other railfan activities. This year, Jarrette and George are giving clinics about Tsunami and Prototypical operation using Tsunami Thursday and Friday Evenings. If you are attending the NMRA convention, be sure to come by and sit in on these fun and informative clinics.This convention is complemented with the National Train Show. Manufacturers work on projects and save the announcements for this show with all the Model Railroad press and attention in attendance. Many run “Show Specials” at this show as well. Here at SoundTraxx and Blackstone Models, we are no exception. Be sure to come by and see what we have new this year! We have a few surprises up our sleeves to help celebrate our 20th anniversary!

Packing Up The Booth:
Each time we travel to a show, there is much work to be done. For starters, we discuss what we want to announce or showcase at the show or convention. Next, we pre-stage the booths and displays to ensure that we have all parts in good condition and we have all the display models operating. We assemble the entire booth to stage the plaques and other signs that we want to display. This gives us a good idea of what we need to pack and ship to highlight our products. We also test every display model and set up any tracks that we have to ensure all goes well before we get there. Every DCC command station we use is tested too to be sure it all works before we send them all out. We also have to pack many ‘normal household items’ that we may need, such as power cords, a carpet sweeper, counter cleaning materials, and tools to fix anything that may have been damaged in shipping. We also print off any literature that we will hand out.
This usually takes several weeks to get it all in order. The booth and other materials has to be shipped a week or more in advance to ensure it arrives on time for us. It is a lot of work to get everything done in time for the show. We enjoy doing it though, since we get to go out and meet with many of you and show off and demonstrate our products.

Tech Tip:
Last time we showed how to set up Tsunami using the pre-loaded speed tables. Tsunami also has the ability to operate using a user-loaded speed table. Using this feature, you can limit top speed, adjust for a slower operation, and precisely speed match locomotives.
To do this, first you will need to activate alternate speed tables in CV29. Turning on Bit 4 in CV29 (adding a value of 16) will activate alternate speed tables. CV25 then tells the decoder which table to use, one of the pre-loaded tables like we discussed last time, or a user adjustable table. CV25 values 0-15 use the pre-loaded tables, but a value of 16 then activates the user-adjustable tables.
To adjust the speed tables, CV 67-94 correspond to 28 individual speed steps (1-28). Each of these can have a value corresponding to the percentage of available power from 0 (0%) to 255 (100%) to be applied to the motor in that speed step. Default values create a linear table from 0-255 across 28 speed steps, in equal increments. This can be adjusted to limit top speed to 75% of available power by setting CV94 to 192, then decreasing in equal increments accordingly throughout the remaining CVs.
CV66 and CV95 are used to ‘trim’ the speed table to help speed match locomotives as well. CV66 is for motor control in the forward direction, while CV95 is in the reverse direction. These are separate since mechanical bund and motor efficiency may not be the same in both directions. Factors for the trim are determined by (CV Value)/128. This means that CV values above 128 increase the power applied to the motor, while values less than 128 decrease the power applied to the motor. Each increase/decrease increment of 1 shifts the entire speed table up or down 1/128.
For fine-tuning the locomotive, Tsunami has 2048 internal speed steps that the decoder works through calculating in the speed tables, momentum, brakes and BEMF. Using all these factors and spending some time, you can have a great running model that meets your running demands for your layout.