|
As good as The Electric Railroad's
Sound Commander boards are, at this point they only have a limited
assortment of sounds available.
By changing R-31 to a variable resistor you can
tweak the pitch of the sounds to simulate larger or smaller sounding
locos.
This modification WILL VOID the WARRANTY
Be sure to verify the boards functionality before you make this
modification |
Carefully remove R-31. I take a micro
diagonal cutter and carefully chip it off and then clean up the
remaining pads with a solder iron.
|
Be careful not to damage the traces.
|
|
|
R-31's original value is 100k ohms and we are
replacing it with a variable value of 47 to 147k ohms.
This is the trimmer circuit board made of a piece
of vector board and a 47k ohm resistor and a 100k ohm trim pot with
pigtail leads to connect to the bottom of the sound board. |
|
|
Schematic of trimmer board
|
|
|
|
The Radio Shack part numbers are:
100k variable resistor: 271-284
47k resistor: 271-1342
The leads form the trimmer board are connected to
the bottom of the sound board on the IC-3 connections pins 5 and 9. |
The trimmer board is secured to the top
to the sound board with a piece of double sided foam tape.
Set the variable resistor to it's middle setting
to start. Test the board for proper functions and then adjust the variable
resistor to the sound that matches the pitch of the loco you need. You
will find that you can get a big throaty whistle of a Challenger from
the Pennsy sound chip for example.
All of the boards sounds will be lowered in
pitch by this adjustment.
This will work for steam as well diesels.
Experiment and you will be intrigued with the results.
|
|
|
|
|
|