Horn unit?

I'm curious if someone makes just a horn for locomotives. I've got an extra function on my decoder, and would like to add a horn. I'm not ready for a full sound system, but on the club layout a horn could come in handy.

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper
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Not AFAIK. Not much point to doing so, since a a single-sound decoder or device would cost as much as multi-sound one. Sounds are basically just programming: a wave generator reads RAM to produce a specific sound. The output goes to an amplifier, and from there to the speaker(s). You control this process through the media player program in your computer. A sound decoder is in essence a hard-wired media player, which you control from your key-pad.

HTH

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Wolf Kirchmeir wrote in news:47540787$0$23855$ snipped-for-privacy@news.newshosting.com:

I wonder if Radio Shack still has those "record your voice" things for about $20... and if they'd fit in a locomotive.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper

innews:47540787$0$23855$ snipped-for-privacy@news.newshosting.com:

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ITT Has sound modules...

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You might need to install in a box car, though.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

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Reply to
Bill

The chip is kind of big to cram into an engine, but if you could get it in, you could wire the "play" pin to an unused decoder accessory line. You'd also need to supply it with power via a battery or a voltage regulator. I'm not sure track power would be clean enough for it though, so add a good-sized capacitor too. Those sound decoders have to pull off a lot of tricks to work well - you probably won't do nearly as well on your own. *

Reply to
PV

Wow! And I thought using the whole chicken was kinky!

Reply to
Steve Caple

pv+ snipped-for-privacy@pobox.com (PV) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

Well, that extra should provide a decent, constant 12V 125mA. As long as a device was set to turn on when it got power and off when it doesn't have it, it should work ok. I'm not going for 100% prototypical, just something to sound when someone needs to note the train coming.

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper

A function output from a decoder is not filtered. It is just a rectified voltage derived from the track. As such it will have lots of nasty spikes in it. If you were to use it to power something which is designed to use battery voltage you'll most likely hear lots of noise in the speaker. You might get away with building a simple resistor- capacitor filter in-line with the function output. In that case you only need to worry about the initial current to the capacitor (so it does't overload the decoder's output).

Peteski

Reply to
Peter W.

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