Where to buy DCC sound???

[DMU mad]

Does anyone know of a good place to buy DCC sound locos that aren't too expensive!?

[trainlover23]

There are no cheap as such DCC sound locos all retail at well over £100 pounds nearer to £200. Be very wary of second hand locos as the manufacteurs support might not be there

[58001]

All of the DCC sound chips I have seen for OO locomotives seem to be around £100. For the time being the market is probably too small for the likes of Hornby to offer a mass-market product with a more competitive price-tag.

[Coffers]

It's a chicken and egg situation, whilst the price is high, the market will remain small, but the price won't lower intil the market increases, which it won't because people will not pay the high prices. We'll just buy the odd DCC sound loco as a special treat after we've saved hard to get one. I suspect Hornby and others would want to see the DCC market increase before there would be any chance of the sound chip prices falling.

[DMU mad]

Thanks for all of your help. Much appreciated!

[Gregd99]

despite the prices tere seems to be a lot of support - perhaps mre so in teh US - for sound decoders.

There is some very positive feedback but I have also heard the complaint that with a few locos running at once the sound drives you crazy!!

I

have come up with a "poor man's" sound where engine sounds + brakes/horns as the loco reaches certain speed levels are played on a pc.

The sounds are controlled by JMRI monitoring the loco speed (watch out for the elite xpressnet message formatting

bug) or under script control when the locos are running fully automated.

for example:-
- brakes released as loco starts
- engine sounds increase in volume/speed as the loco accelerates
- horn sounds at speed x
- horn sounds on entry/exit

from tunnel....
- brakes re-applied when loco stops

In automated running the pc has an idea of loco location so sounds can be localized with some success.

This is not a perfect solution but is quite good fun and the price is right - $0. Happy

to share but be aware it is jmri based.

Railmaster is doing some different but similar things with an ability to play a palette of sounds. If/when location detection is added to railmaster this becomes a whole lot more fun.

Greg



cosetup

setup

[poliss]

It drives people crazy because they have them at full volume. If you have more than one you should turn the volume down low.