Click on thumbnail to enlarge.

This is a picture of my NYC PA unpowered Dummy. You may recall my post last week saying my granddaughter and I fried the speaker. I decided that this was just the opportunity I was looking for to install a Sound Commander card from Electric Railroad, and also their Minicommander to provide TMCC control of the sound set. As well as coordinated directional lighting with the Powered PA unit which is also converted to TMCC. To see the powered unit TMCC conversion click here.

The picture to the left shows an enlargement of the speaker area. The original installation used a 36mm flat speaker. (it is the gold ring in the enlargement). The speaker was clamped to the frame by the black plastic ring above the speaker. The sound with this setup was not very impressive, as there was not sufficient baffling for the speaker to work properly. This speaker was fine for the old anemic Lionel buzzer horn, but the Alco Soundset from ERR requires a broader frequency range. My makeshift baffle is a 35mm film canister sliced to around .70" long. I then used 4-40 screws .75" long and clamped the speaker down to the frame with the existing plastic retainer, but with the film canister sandwiched in-between.

I did quite a bit of experimentation and .7 was the shortest I could clip the canister without significant low frequency loss.

The picture to the right is an enlargment of the mini commander which nestles very nicely above the sound commander and provides about 1/8" clearance to the shell.

The wild wire sticking up above the mini commander is the antenna. I have had good luck with the short antenna, and did not install a longer one, but if any issues arise it is an easy fix.

This is the zoom view of the sound commander which is mounted to the frame with double sticky tape.

This is the completed unit on the track. For my next project I am considering getting a set of S&S can motor trucks and making this baby a powered unit. My only reservation is that in order to match speed even with a lash up in TMCC I may need to put S&S truck motors in both units.

I have uploaded a link to a Windows Video Movie of this unit in operation that will also allow you to hear the Sound Commander sound set. As a side note one thing I noticed that when I converted the powered unit to TMCC it became much more controllable and can be greased into a stop if you wish. Where most of the Flyonel PA units are bad about jackrabbit starts.

click here for video approx. 1 meg

For more general information about TMCC and S gauge trains see Carl Tuveson's web site here.