I upgraded my Athearn RTR AC4400 with a Soundtraxx Tsunami AT1000 decoder. I chose the Atlas drop-in style board because it's only $80 and has support for the Athearn 1.5v lights. There is a Genesis drop-in version of the Tsunami and it may work as well.
To mount the decoder in place of the factory light board:
1. Unhook all wires from the Athearn board then remove board.
2. Carefully remove top motor clip being careful not to lose the motor brush spring.
3. Solder a orange wire to the end of the clip.
4. I use a piece of styrene to insulate the decoder board from the top motor clip and position it where the factory board was. Take a 3 inch long piece of styrene .040" x .250" and file down just the middle section to the width of the top clip. You need to narrow this down about the length of the motor clip and leave each end of the styrene full width.
5. I use clear shipping tape to fix the styrene to the top motor clip. I wrap it around a couple of times. Be sure to trim your tape so that it wont cover the part where the motor brush spring will make contact with the clip.
6. Now you can feed each end of the styrene through the slots of the decoder board.
7. Reinstall motor brush spring and top clip with decoder attached.
8. All that is left it to wire up your decoder and speaker.
I drilled out the factory dummy ditch light lenses and used CA to glue in some 1.5v micro bulbs. You need to be carefull not to get CA on the bulb glass as it will frost it. The bottom front headlight bulb came unglued while working on the loco and I re glued it with CA and it got on the bulb and it's not as clear. I may replace it, but it's not that big of a deal right now.
I purchased the Tsunami At1000 model 828046 from DCC Install and Sales along with a Bass Reflex 52mm x 18mm speaker . I didn't have room to install that speaker without cutting out a support over the rear bogie. So I went into my parts box and found a MRC 28mm speaker and a mini oval speaker I had scrounged from a Laptop. I first tried the MRC round speaker thinking it would sound the best. I had to install this in the cab.
Then I tried the laptop speaker, which is from a HP laptop with built-in Altec Lansing speakers. The speaker is about .700" x 1.4" oval. Thie baffle was cut down and the end filled with RTV silicone.
This fit perfectly under the radiator section.
The mini oval sounded the best. I made a video of each with my camcorder and compared the two. The MRC 28mm is ok but the sound seemed to clip, very noticeable with the bell. I also prefer the sound to come from the rear of the loco instead of the cab. A higher quality 28mm round speaker may be superior to these mini ovals but I have been very pleased with them.
YouTube video with the mini oval speaker
Youtube video with MRC 28mm round speaker installed in cab
To mount the decoder in place of the factory light board:
1. Unhook all wires from the Athearn board then remove board.
2. Carefully remove top motor clip being careful not to lose the motor brush spring.
3. Solder a orange wire to the end of the clip.
4. I use a piece of styrene to insulate the decoder board from the top motor clip and position it where the factory board was. Take a 3 inch long piece of styrene .040" x .250" and file down just the middle section to the width of the top clip. You need to narrow this down about the length of the motor clip and leave each end of the styrene full width.
5. I use clear shipping tape to fix the styrene to the top motor clip. I wrap it around a couple of times. Be sure to trim your tape so that it wont cover the part where the motor brush spring will make contact with the clip.
6. Now you can feed each end of the styrene through the slots of the decoder board.
7. Reinstall motor brush spring and top clip with decoder attached.
8. All that is left it to wire up your decoder and speaker.
I drilled out the factory dummy ditch light lenses and used CA to glue in some 1.5v micro bulbs. You need to be carefull not to get CA on the bulb glass as it will frost it. The bottom front headlight bulb came unglued while working on the loco and I re glued it with CA and it got on the bulb and it's not as clear. I may replace it, but it's not that big of a deal right now.
I purchased the Tsunami At1000 model 828046 from DCC Install and Sales along with a Bass Reflex 52mm x 18mm speaker . I didn't have room to install that speaker without cutting out a support over the rear bogie. So I went into my parts box and found a MRC 28mm speaker and a mini oval speaker I had scrounged from a Laptop. I first tried the MRC round speaker thinking it would sound the best. I had to install this in the cab.
Then I tried the laptop speaker, which is from a HP laptop with built-in Altec Lansing speakers. The speaker is about .700" x 1.4" oval. Thie baffle was cut down and the end filled with RTV silicone.
This fit perfectly under the radiator section.
The mini oval sounded the best. I made a video of each with my camcorder and compared the two. The MRC 28mm is ok but the sound seemed to clip, very noticeable with the bell. I also prefer the sound to come from the rear of the loco instead of the cab. A higher quality 28mm round speaker may be superior to these mini ovals but I have been very pleased with them.
YouTube video with the mini oval speaker
Youtube video with MRC 28mm round speaker installed in cab
Last edited by a moderator:
