Warning - TT:120 Tender Locos have pre installed sugar cube speakers fitted

[My name is Bond]

TT:120 tender locos have pre installed sugar cube speakers installed under the PCB board in the tender.

When installing the HM7000 sound decoder there is no need to unscrew the PCB and fit the wired sugar cube speaker or any of the plastic parts included with the sound decoder pack.

The instruction leaflet included with the tender locos suggest you have to do this but you do not!

The pre installed sugar cube speaker has contact strips fitted which brush two exposed copper circuits on the underside of the PCB.

Don’t make the mistake I made by removing the pre installed speaker thinking it was a weight to then fit in its place the speaker that comes with the sound decoder. The instructions suggest you do this but it is not required.

Simply plug the sound decoder into the socket on the top of the PCB and test before you put the tender body back on.

You will have glorious sound once the decoder is all set up.

Now warning is only for the tender locos offered to date. Hornby do not make it clear which TT:120 locos have pre installed speakers fitted. I would suggest the upcoming Class 08 diesel shutter with its 6 pin decoder socket would not have a pre installed speaker fitted.

You do still need to purchase a sound decoder if you want sound as it has the EEPROM required to download and store the sound files. But the sugar cube speaker included is redundant if one is pre installed.

[My name is Bond]

One other thing to highlight so I have posted separately.

I don’t know whether the train set locos have speakers pre installed. My purchase was the Flying Scotsman loco which in not a train set loco.

Maybe somebody who has William Whitelaw or Blink Bonny and who has fitted a sound decoder could provide the information.

[Moccasin]

The 08 will have no speaker fitted as it can only accommodate a 6pin decoder. As the HM7000 6pin decoders don’t have sound capability, it’s unlikely that they’d fit a speaker.

[Fishmanoz]

The set locos do not have speakers fitted.

Note - these facts have been covered previously in a number of posts. However, the informative title will be a useful signal for newer forum members, at least while it remains on the first page of forum topics.

PS. A suggestion to Mr Bond - there is no need to put 2 carriage returns between paras as the forum software adds one, for some unknown reason.

[My name is Bond]

I wondered why the posts had big spaces between the paragraphs. Following the info above about paragraph returns I have done an edit to narrow the paragraph space.

Fishmanoz is not seeing things!

Maybe Hornby or a mod should create a sticky on this pre installed speaker thing before the title vanishes down the forum.

[Baz657]

I found this out on the Flying Scotsman bundle. It was my first (and currently only until the next shipments arrive) TT loco.