Atlas N Scale GP15-1 ESU LokSound DCC Decoder Installation

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Atlas Trainman GP15-1 with Custom Baffle by Walter-Joseph Grabowski

Originally published on July 19th, 2024.

This information is shared by and republished here with permission of author.

Supplies:

Installation Notes:

Removed 3mm x 20mm of the rear split-frame in order to make room for a 12mm x 8mm sugar-cube speaker mounted in a custom 18mm x 8mm x 6mm speaker baffle.
Ran a 0.25mm black styrene strip directly beneath the decoder board bottom to protect from shorts.
Applied kapton tape to sides of the decoder to protect from shorts.
Speaker baffle required a bit of milling on the bottom and top to clean up the residual 3D printing flash.
Soldered brown 36AWG wire leads to the speaker and tightly wrapped kapton tape around baffle.
Speaker gently slides in between the split-frame and bottom of decoder board.
Last step was to use black Sharpie to blacken out the cab interior windows from the decoder mounted SMD LED’s.
Overall look and shell reassembly was excellent.

Installation Pictures:

Sound Notes:

Used ESU LokSound 5 sound bulletin S0543 updated on September 9th, 2020 recorded from an EMD GP15-1 with a 12-645E 2EXH NT ED2 prime mover.
Tweaked all factory CV settings for the motor, sound and lighting as required.
Master volume was set for 100% and sound fader set for 50%.
The bass and treble EQ were set flat.
The speaker and baffle combination enclosed within the shell projected a very clear undistorted sound with excellent lows, mids and crisp highs for a 12mm x 8mm speaker.
Very satisfied with this DCC sound upgrade configuration.