MTH SD70M-2 Conversion to DCC

Mike,

You're the first person I know who actually HAS a Surroundtraxx system.

I am really looking forward to your test of it.

Are you doing it in HO also - I noticed the CN units (Genesis or Atlas)?

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the detailed response, my original reply seems to have disappeared into the ether between here and the mainland so here is another...

I get the jist of what is required thanks and some images would be really good if time permits. I'm meeting with Hugh on Thursday so will get him to get the loco out and we'll take a look under the hood...

I'll update once I've done that.

Rgds Brent

I'd be interested in seeing this too.

Sorry, the sound is really bad.

Rick

Hmm.. Other stated it works a lot better for them. Shouldn't take but a few seconds to start buffering and begin playing.

Mike,

Did you ever ever get to play around with the Surroundtraxx yet?

I finally got the courage to gut the electronics in my MP15DC and add a Tsunami (Athearn Genesis form factor) to it ... and it worked! Ha!

I think I may replace the Tsunami with an ESU Select Direct in it.

I'm also playing around with which speakers to stuff inside.

Bill, Have it connected at the bench right now.  Been working a lot so not as much time recently for train projects. 

Great to hear you performed your first surgery!  It's really not difficult as you found out.  The Atlas MP15DC is just like a larger HO scale locomotive.  :-)  The MTH electronics have a little more to them, but what you've done is definitely applicable to other projects down the road!  Did you shoot any video yet?

No video yet as I am still playing with speakers.

I will admit I did not shed a tear as I snipped out the QSI board...

Mike,

This thread started with a your PS2 MTH engine.

Is there anything "weird" that requires any wiring finesse after de-gutting a PS2 engine?

Did you get the transponding to work with the Surroundtraxx?

So, Mike, what do you think of Surroundtraxx? An easier solution than adding sound to each engine?

I think the biggest thing is with O scale, it's easy to tell the sound isn't coming from the locomotive especially if you have the railroad up around 50"  Much more difficult to tell if you have a smaller scale.  Similar if you have sound in a tender at that height, fairly easy to tell the sound is coming from the tender.

Otherwise, fairly straight forward system if you have block detection and transponding setup on your railroad.