Hi everyone. A few days ago I got my hands on the new Zimo MX660 sound decoder. This decoder is an engineering marvel. It is 9.5mm wide, which means it will fit easily in any N scale hood diesel. It is 48mm long, and only 2.2mm thick. There are no components on the underside of the board, which means it can sit flat on a frame (insulated from the frame with kapton or similar tape). In a sort of "proof of concept" project to see how far I could push sound technology in N scale, I decided to see whether I could fit this decoder in a Kato NW2 switcher (well, technically, this is an NW2 with a LifeLike SW9 shell on it, but I've verified that you can do this same installation with the original Kato shell). Here's a video of the completed installation; the horn should be changed from the default multi-chime to a single-chime, but the video will give you a sense of the capabilities of the decoder - both the legendary slow-speed motor performance from Zimo, and the sound capability, using an 8x12mm "sugar cube" speaker mounted in the cab: And here are a few photos of the installation (the first two are before installing an LED for the front lights). The only frame modifications were cutting off the "nubs" that held the original DCC decoder and cutting a shallow groove in the front of each frame side to route pickup wires to the phosphor-bronze pickup strips. I also had to modify the motor brush connectors a bit so I could use them for the motor connections. For those of you who may be searching for a solution for sound in a small switcher, I think the MX660 might be the ticket; in addition to fitting the NW2, it might also be a solution for the VO-1000 and even for anyone who bought a non-sound Atlas S-2 and now wants to convert it to sound (the sound decoder for that model was specially made by ESU for Atlas, and is not sold at retail). Of course, this decoder should also easily fit in larger locos, too, but ESU also has board decoders that will fit in those. The whole install was really pretty simple - it took about an hour after I decided on where things should go. John C.
That is really cool John!! Thanks for posting that. (I'm strictly DC and my sound is from Kato Sound Boxes, but this stuff is all still really interesting)
Zimo makes a great product, I put one in the tender of a Kato C62. It sounds and runs great. My only problem was changing CV's without a Zimo programmer. Nice job John.
