Bonus Video--Sugar Cube Installs (91)
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2024
- After my recent video on sugar cube speakers there were a few questions on how to put these together, wire them to decoders, and install them in locomotives. So in this video I'll show you how I do all those things. Hopefully this will answer your questions and get your started on the path to some sweet sound.
Have returned to the hobby after a 20 year hiatus . Thank you so much for making all these videos. Really helpful. : )
Larry, another great video about installing the sugar cube speakers. I learned a lot, I like the speaker harness with the plugs so you have the ability to unplug it and work on the engine. The Star Trek reference was perfect. Great idea for the pair of engines to have the sound from only one decoder that way they sound in sync. Thanks for sharing. Ken
Here’s a link to these on eBay, very inexpensive.
www.ebay.com/itm/US-SHIP-Mini-Micro-JST-DS-LOSI-2-0-2-Pin-Connector-plug-with-Wires-Cables-20pcs/232447578903?hash=item361ef49317:g:NrcAAOSw7mNcsGRc
Thanks for the link the the parts. I am going to get some.
Thanks Larry...great stuff. I've done a lot of decoder installations in my N Scale fleet, and am now gearing up to do some sound installations. These videos are extremely helpful. As I get going, I'll feel free to post questions to you if/as they come up!! Thanks again. Gerry
Thanks! another great video :) You have answered all my questioning on those speakers !
Great vid Larry like the idea of one speaker in each loco would work great in dummies
Larry here is a tip for the loctite super glue you like. When you think you're out of glue you're not. Get a pair of a pliers twist the white dispensing cap off. Then using the pliers grab the bottom blue edge of the glue dispenser and pull it down to separate the halves. You'll find the tube of superglue inside still has a lot of glue inside of it. Just twist the white dispensing cap back onto the tube and use your fingers to.. squeeze the rest out. You can roll it up like a tube of toothpaste to get the rest out.
Great tip. I dug it out of the trash can and did as you said and sure enough there is a lot left over. It really is a shame how much plastic they waste on each bottle for such a small tube of glue. Thanks
@@TheDCCGuy it's a shame how much glue gets thrown away by people who don't know the tip. Keep track of how many more speakers you can seal with what you pulled out of the trash. Thanks and keep up the great work.
great information. cant wait to see that loco consist on the layout at warp speed.
Actually they are running at about half impulse.
I just discovered your channel - wonderful stuff! Have you thought of doing one or more videos on installing the smallest possible speakers (with sound decoders) in the smallest possible spaces?
Although in the past I have done a couple N-scale installs the smallest fit I have videotaped are the Bachmann 0-6-0 locos. Also I don’t like to go much below 11x13mm as the bass really gets lost below that. I will be doing another Kato NW2 switcher and that is about as tight as you can go in HO scale with sound.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Nice video and realy good channel ! 😃👍
Very nice.
Larry - I do enjoy your video and look forward to them - I have one recommendation to improve the videos - I find it difficult to focus on the items you are holding in your hand. You move them about so it is hard to concentrate on the item you are showing -- if you could leave the item on the table and zoom in using a pointer to indicate the item, this would help greatly and I believe it would improve the quality of your videos. Thanks again.
I’ll try to remember to do that. It is a challenge to do the up front work and keep an eye on the camera display and remember to zoom in and out when necessary. It was even worse with the Nikon Coolpix camera which does not have a swivel type display that can be seen from in front of the camera. Sometimes I get going on a subject and forget to make the needed adjustments. One of the pitfalls of being a one man operation. Thanks for the suggestion-Larry
Very informative video. I got a lot out of it. I have one thing though. You talked about sugar cube audio's ebay store again. I am unable to find it on ebay. Would you please post a link to their store. Thank you.
www.ebay.com/sch/sugarcubeaudio65/m.html?item=223555707759&hash=item340cf5636f%3Ag%3AuWEAAOSwkk5dDZXZ&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562
PEOPLE , if you purchased this glue - read this before you toss it away once "empty" ...........Just a word on the Locktite Super glue "blue edges"... If you take the outer casing of the glue bottle apart, you will find the actual tube of glue inside. Carefully dismantle this casing as any accidental "squeeze" of the glue container within could expel unwanted amounts. If you are careful to dismantle that casing, you'll find - like I said - the actual inner tube of glue. keep the cap piece intact as it may easily cause a mess trying to remove it. Once you have done away with the outer casing and you were careful enough not to squeeze the glue out, you will find the there is quite a bit of CA Glue left inside the actual vessel. Many people buy this product and dispose of it once the glue has "emptied" by squeezing the blue sides.. If they only knew... Heck, what a great selling gimmick that is!
Thanks for the tip Will, I will try this.
what part of speakers mounts down to baffle ? what part is exposed after mounting ? there seems to be a hard silver side and a soft silver side . which side mounts down to baffle ?
thanks , pops
You need the side with the 2 small metal contacts exposed.
do you know what the little plastic connectors at the end of just plug lighting r called? Keep up the great videos
JST connectors, butI don’t know the exact sizes.
Dr. Puckett, I installed an older Soundtraxx sound decoder a couple of weeks ago in an Atlas GP7 like you show in the video. I installed a sugar cube speaker. You could barely hear any sound. I checked CV's. I replaced the speaker with a 18mm round I believe it was. Perfect. What did I overlook?
Well, did you set the decoder equalizer for the correct speaker size (see my video on equalizer settings)? Also, you might check to make sure the sugar cube speaker was assembled with an air tight seal. Other than that unless it is blown there isn’t a lot to go wrong.
The DCC Guy - Larry, another reason for almost no sound can be in an airtight speaker housing a big pressure differential between the sealed compartment and external atmosphere. I recently received a factory installed ESU decoder with sugar cube speakers that produced almost NO sound regardless of cv settings. I live in the mountains at 6,500 feet elevation. When I sent it back for warranty, the shop said the speaker worked fine for them. I then took the decoder down to sea level to test whether it was a high altitude issue and the sound was perfect. My solution was to carefully drill a hole in the housing with a #80 bit and reseal the housing at altitude. Problem solved.
Boy that was a real tough one to figure out but I can see why it was like that. I have a bag of potato chips from Denver CO that was fully inflated there but here at 2200’ elevation it looks like I crushed it. Air pressure is something few folks would ever have though of-good job!
I am really surprised that the speaker diaphragm is sealed the tight, One thing about the old paper ones is they can equalize pressure differentials over a little time. I guess sugar cubes use mylar and are sealed super tight for the best sound. However since these are made for use in consumer products I don’t see how they can design them to be so tight and still use them in products for use all over the world at different elevations.
The DCC Guy I am a follower of the Sherlock Holmes philosophy that “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. If respected DCC resources like Tony’s Trains tell me it works for them and I know it doesn’t work where I am, then look for what is different. Maybe if I had given it a few weeks to equalize pressures it might have resolved but it only took the moment the drill bit pierced the
What size is the wire you solder to the speakers and is it stranded wire??
It is just leftovers from past decoders so it likely is around 28ga.
Larry, how much trouble is it to speed match a Digitrax with a Tsunami?
It is pretty straightforward. In this case my installation was complicated by the fact that these locos have different can motors. If they both had the same motor it would have been even easier. I used an older Digitrax decoder and the custom 28 speed step table in the Digitrax decoder to match them. It took a few minutes to slow down the Digitrax equipped loco but they are now humming along together.
I have noticed that the magnet of the speaker is out of the box or baffle so the speaker is sealed restricting the sound shouldnt it be turned over.
Good observation and comment. There has been a lot of discussion on the internet as to which orientation provides better sound. Most use the rear facing mount whereas TCS places them with the diaphragm facing out. The folks at Tonys Trains have tested their speakers and found the rear facing mount provides better sound. As an experiment I remounted a TCS speaker with the diaphragm facing in and could not tell the difference but that was with my ears and not scientific instruments. For now I will stick with the rear facing mount as it protects the diaphragm and makes it easier to solder the wires to the contacts.
Just what I've been looking for I'm about to install a speaker in a tender it's square and doesn't have p or n on it and both wires are the same colour so it doesn't matter which way they go on thanks very much
Thanks Larry!
The phasing would have been good for 4 ohm ESU and such as each sugar cube is generally 8 Ohms each. For Soundtraxxx which uses 8 Ohms minimum or MORE they should have been in series and equal 16 Ohms.
I generally follow the manufacturer’s recommendations even if it runs against conventional wisdom. If you read SoundTraxx Tech Note #8 on multiple speakers they show them installed in parallel exactly like I did it. Most modern sound decoders can easily drive 4, 8, or 16 ohm speaker combinations. If these had been in the same loco I might have used series wiring but if I need to split these up the speaker in the main unit will still work, it would not do that with series wiring unless I rewired it.
What about a K-4 Pacific in N scale?
I recently put a Tsunami2 TSU-1100 decoder in the tender of a brass B&O Pacific without any problem. I even managed to squeeze in a TCS KA1 Keep Alive along with it since the tender was a long haul version. However I did a B&O EM1 and because of the internal setup just couldn’t squeeze in the Keep Alive. It all depends on what the inside is like.
@@TheDCCGuy Thanks for the info :-)
thank you , very informative .