Non-standard engine sounds


Canalligator

Canalligator

Member
I have an unpowered E unit being used as a cab on a push-pull passenger train. I’d like the decoder to produce a diesel engine sound of an HEP generator, at fairly low volume and fixed RPM. I figured I could use a sound decoder, put a dummy load across the motor terminals, and program the engine parameters in the CVs. But I looked at a list of NMRA CVs, and didn’t see suitable entries - only a file selection. Would the volume and rpm be included in the sound file?

Similarly, how do you set up sound for an F40PH in HEP mode? Special decoder? Special sound file?
 
"Similarly, how do you set up sound for an F40PH in HEP mode?"

An F40 running with HEP on (at least on Amtrak) would be in notch 8.
Whether the engine is standing or moving. Throttle position 8, all the time. Around 893rpm.

There was also a "standby" mode, which could only be used when the engine was standing. It would switch the main alternator over to providing the HEP, and the diesel engine would run at throttle position 5.
 
Please clarify: Does “throttle notch by function” control just the engine sound, or does it control locomotive speed? I need it to sound like it’s in run 8, while separately controlling loco speed.
 
Canalligator said:
Please clarify: Does “throttle notch by function” control just the engine sound, or does it control locomotive speed? I need it to sound like it’s in run 8, while separately controlling loco speed.
Click to expand...
Manual notching and drive hold, for Soundtraxx and ESU respectively, control sounds only.
 
Manual notching would work but drive hold would not. Drive hold maintains a certain speed while letting you adjust the sound, the opposite of what you want. There is also a “straight to 8” function that makes the sound go to full throttle regardless of speed setting. Either manual notching or straight to 8 should do what you want.
 
Properly speaking, what we are controlling are the sound, frequency, volume...echo, echo delay, reverb...you get the idea...
...in order to re-create the experience we, or others would have at trackside. Or up on a more distant hillside.

Engine/prime-mover sounds--run 8 for example--can be heard from locomotives moving past at any speed down to...I think it's six mph on a heavily laden train moving uphill circa 1975...but even then not for long if the train is too heavy

A second example, but going downhill: EMD locomotives of the seventies went up to run four going downhill. As the engineer would ask increasing performance from the traction motor braking system, he would move the lever back and forth...and perhaps on occasion he was demanding everything it could give, and was adding air-brakes too. But as the demand rose and fell, the minimum was always run 4.

So...what you want in your own sound system, IMO, is the input and application of the actual train's physics. Weight, length, braking stregth and rules...number of units and HP moving uphill.

And coupler strentgh, modified. There are a lot of reasons helpers and helpersets...and today's distributed power, a placed at differing points in a given train.
 
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