At 4:40 the iron tip is pulled into the magnet of the speaker. I've had this happen before. I use a little piece of double stick tape to hold the speaker to a scrap of cardstock or wood (weighted down) to keep it from jumping to the iron. Scale Sound speakers are great!
Excellent video.Have a few questions that may be you can answer,if ,not no big deal.1)why does the Scale Sound guy want you to drive the spkrs. in series?That doubles the resistance.2)why does the Sound guy want you to not use flux on tinning the Spkrs.?Seems to me he should tin them and thus lessening the chance of someone using flux if it will create a problem. stay well solo,Doc BC
"Why Series"? Because wiring them in _parallel_ (thus _halving_ the total resistance presented) would present an Impedance load to the decoder audio Power-Amp stage which is _lower_ than "minimum acceptable impedance", with likely resulting circuitry damage. Check the specs of your chosen decoder, but wiring in-series is the "fail-safe" go-to option for contemporary ST, TCS, and Lok decoders... (and most decoders have more-than-enough grunt available to drive a series-total 16 or even 32Ohm Impedance speaker load well loud-enough for most sane applications...) The bigger concern about _any_ "multi speaker" install is making sure that the _physical_ direction both speaker drivers _push the air_ between the speakers and your ears is _phase coherrent_ (IE they both "push" the air, in the same direction, at the same time)
Keep in mind that TCS and a couple of other DCC manufs _do_ actual recommend avoiding using _extra_ flux, preferring to rely on the flux built into quality 60/40 rosin-core solder (Kester, et al). See tcsdcc.com/productnotes/important-soldering-tip as an example. The root of this advice is avoiding situations where novice solderers use excess flux, boil the flux liquid into a corrosive state, and then don't post-clean the joint (enough, if at all), leading to decoder pad/circuitry damage and joint failure. Ergo, best to avoid the "excess flux, no clean-up" problem condition altogether and just rely on the self-dosing rosin-core flux built into the solder....
BC, Soundtraxx and TCS recommend a minimum impedance of 8Ω. While both Soundtraxx and TCS can operate at 4Ω keeping their master volumes low, there is risk of burning out the amplifier. Halving the speaker impedance increases the current-draw from the power amp. If the power amp is not 4Ω stable, it will fail. Thus, for two 8Ω speakers, they should be wired in series for a 16Ω load with Soundtraxx and TCS decoders. If Larry were installing an ESU Loksound decoder (or Ring Railpro), he could have wired these parallel, since both of these decoder brands state their amplifiers as being 4Ω stable. As for flux, I should have clarified that it is not needed if one is using rosin-core solder; the flux within rosin-core is sufficient. If the solder is NOT rosin-core, then a SMALL/LIGHT application of flux would be fine to use. Excessive flux can boil, create a mess, possibly damage components and is corrosive to the joint if not cleaned afterward. As to pre-tinning the tabs on my speakers, that would add considerable time and cost to each one. Hundreds of these leave the shop every month. Tinning is a common installation step that is required for almost every step in an install. As with any DCC component, the manufacturer expects the user to know what they're doing and have the skill to execute it. If they don't, we have guides and videos to help and will gladly give advice if asked. Hope this helps. Thanks!
Great video! I did a dual speaker installation into a brass steam engine, one in tender and one in smokebox, and used this video to do so properly.
At 4:40 the iron tip is pulled into the magnet of the speaker. I've had this happen before. I use a little piece of double stick tape to hold the speaker to a scrap of cardstock or wood (weighted down) to keep it from jumping to the iron. Scale Sound speakers are great!
Very fine demonstration! Thank You!
Nice video
Excellent video.Have a few questions that may be you can answer,if ,not no big deal.1)why does the Scale Sound guy want you to drive the spkrs. in series?That doubles the resistance.2)why does the Sound guy want you to not use flux on tinning the Spkrs.?Seems to me he should tin them and thus lessening the chance of someone using flux if it will create a problem. stay well solo,Doc BC
"Why Series"? Because wiring them in _parallel_ (thus _halving_ the total resistance presented) would present an Impedance load to the decoder audio Power-Amp stage which is _lower_ than "minimum acceptable impedance", with likely resulting circuitry damage. Check the specs of your chosen decoder, but wiring in-series is the "fail-safe" go-to option for contemporary ST, TCS, and Lok decoders...
(and most decoders have more-than-enough grunt available to drive a series-total 16 or even 32Ohm Impedance speaker load well loud-enough for most sane applications...)
The bigger concern about _any_ "multi speaker" install is making sure that the _physical_ direction both speaker drivers _push the air_ between the speakers and your ears is _phase coherrent_ (IE they both "push" the air, in the same direction, at the same time)
Keep in mind that TCS and a couple of other DCC manufs _do_ actual recommend avoiding using _extra_ flux, preferring to rely on the flux built into quality 60/40 rosin-core solder (Kester, et al). See tcsdcc.com/productnotes/important-soldering-tip as an example.
The root of this advice is avoiding situations where novice solderers use excess flux, boil the flux liquid into a corrosive state, and then don't post-clean the joint (enough, if at all), leading to decoder pad/circuitry damage and joint failure. Ergo, best to avoid the "excess flux, no clean-up" problem condition altogether and just rely on the self-dosing rosin-core flux built into the solder....
BC, Soundtraxx and TCS recommend a minimum impedance of 8Ω. While both Soundtraxx and TCS can operate at 4Ω keeping their master volumes low, there is risk of burning out the amplifier. Halving the speaker impedance increases the current-draw from the power amp. If the power amp is not 4Ω stable, it will fail. Thus, for two 8Ω speakers, they should be wired in series for a 16Ω load with Soundtraxx and TCS decoders. If Larry were installing an ESU Loksound decoder (or Ring Railpro), he could have wired these parallel, since both of these decoder brands state their amplifiers as being 4Ω stable.
As for flux, I should have clarified that it is not needed if one is using rosin-core solder; the flux within rosin-core is sufficient. If the solder is NOT rosin-core, then a SMALL/LIGHT application of flux would be fine to use. Excessive flux can boil, create a mess, possibly damage components and is corrosive to the joint if not cleaned afterward.
As to pre-tinning the tabs on my speakers, that would add considerable time and cost to each one. Hundreds of these leave the shop every month. Tinning is a common installation step that is required for almost every step in an install. As with any DCC component, the manufacturer expects the user to know what they're doing and have the skill to execute it. If they don't, we have guides and videos to help and will gladly give advice if asked.
Hope this helps. Thanks!
What size wire
I like to use 36awg ESU wire.