Fitting sound into a Hornby West Country.

Whilst I'm not planning on starting a "Keith's Workbench" feature, I though I'd do a photo based 'How-to' on a couple of sound installs, so here's the first. I have a preference for Zimo sound decoders since (A)They are smaller than the ESU equivalents, a worthwhile consideration when trying to 'shoehorn' a decoder/speaker setup into a small loco, and (B)Should you be unfortunate enough to damage a decoder, there is a £30 exchange replacement scheme rather than a 'full cost' replacement. Whilst a number of retailers offer a range of loco sounds, I've stuck with YouChoos simply because they are recorded from actual loco's rather than generic sounds. Anyway, as my "West Country" is the recently released "Bude" model, it's DCC ready, which makes it a relatively simple install into the tender, space provided for a 28mm round speaker. First step is to unplug the 4 pin plug from loco to tender, remove the single screw securing tender drawbar to loco, then having removed the 2 body securing screws, pull the tender body front end up and forwards, clear of the bogie. There are 2 screws securing the weight, plus a further 2 holding the 8 pin decoder socket, which will need to be removed and the socket itself passed through the speaker hole in the weight, as you need to modify the weight itself slightly. At this stage, I removed the capacitor, as these are not needed on DCC and in some cases can affect the decoders operation. What you then have is pretty much as per the photo below.

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I modified the frontmost weight securing screw hole by cutting it into a slot, since fitting a speaker into the speaker space means there is no longer clearance for the wiring to and from the 8 pin socket. Trapped wires here would not be good news! I next dropped the speaker (cone downwards), into it's allotted space.

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Now the weight itself can be fitted into place, firstly feeding the socket wiring back through the weights speaker hole, clamping the speaker in place as the weight screws are tightened. The purple wires from the decoder are next soldered to the speakers terminals, then the 'sound chamber' needs sealing, so "Blu-tack" was used to good effect across the rear of speaker and weight, and the 8 pin socket can then be refitted ready for the decoder itself.

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Here we have the sealing fixed and socket refitted ready for decoder fitting.

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You may notice that I also carried out a modification to the coal space on the tender. As standard there is a removable imitation coal load, which means space is not great in the tender body. It slopes towards the front of the tender, so I cut both sides and the front of this coal space through, bent it upwards so it was horizontal, then glued 'Plastruct' section underneath to hold it in place. This gave a good improvement in available space within the tender body, and the reduced coal space will be filled with real coal later. Next step was to plug in the decoder, fixed in position with a 'sticky pad', the wiring tidied and secured, 'Blu-tack' coming in handy for this again. This particular model of decoder is supplied with a "Stay-Alive" capacitor and connections, but as this loco/tender has a number of pickups, I've not bothered to use this facility, and the 2 wires for this, plus an unused brown function wire were cut back a little and secured with the 'Blu-tack'.

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With everything tidied up, it's time to fit the tender body back in place. It goes on quite easily with all wiring secured out of the way. I've always found it better to secure wiring in place wherever possible, as trying to cram it all in when refitting bodies often results in trapped wiring which can give expensive problems since decoders are not very forgiving of wiring 'shorts'! White smoke may be fine when choosing a new Pope, but it's not what you want to see from an expensive decoder!
Now time to re-attach tender back onto loco.

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Finally, with everything 'buttoned-up', it's time to put it on the rolling road, and program the decoder. Since I've had this loco a few months and had previously fitted a non-sound decoder, the loco had already been run in, so was then 'ready to roll'. As I don't have the knowledge of how to post video's, I can't do a "Gormo-Vision" edition, but suffice to say, I'm quite happy with the finished results.
Coming shortly to a Forum near you, 'Sound fitting to a "Lion" prototype loco'.
Keith.

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