Sound into a Roundhouse Mogul

George D

Member
I just bought a Roundhouse old time Mogul. The tender is sorta small, so I was wondering if anyone out there has put a sound system into one.

By the way, Roundhouse has them on sale for $50, RTR (includes shipping). Go to: http://www.mdcroundhouse.com/

George
 

Vic

Active Member
Hi George, I've put sound in the MDC 2-8-0 Hon3 locos on several occasions. I think they use the same tender and frame as the loco you are discussing.

The first thing you have to do is cut off that molded in tender weight. I simply put the frame in a vise and cut it off with a hacksaw. Then I smoothed it off on a stationary belt sander.

I then drilled about 25 1/16th inch holes in the tender frame/floor so as to make a speaker box from the tender shell and the tender floor.

Next I determined that a 1 inch speaker was just a "hair" too wide and would overhang the floor, so what I did was simply file down the speaker frame slightly so that when it was mounted to the floor the tender shell would clear it.

The magnet on the speakers I had at that time was just too tall and would hit the underside of the tender shell and would not allow the shell to fit down onto the floor/frame. What I did was cut a hole in the underside of the tender shell so that the magnet would stick into it. The material on the shell is thick enough to do this. I then just put a styrene patch over the hole and added a coal load to cover it up.

The speaker its self was fastened to the floor with silicon and the filter capacitors were just "stuffed in" where ever they would fit and the whole thing was then wired up.

Regretfully, I don't have any of the loco's anymore or I would post a pic but I will post a crude drawing of what I did.
 

Vic

Active Member
George, I found in my junk box one the frames and tenders. This one was modified for an old PFM sound system. If you can get some of the one inch "button" type speakers you probably won't have to modify the tender shell.

Pic of frame...
 

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Vic

Active Member
Here's a button speaker modified to fit the tender of a Westside C25. The tender is much smaller than the MDC tender. Notice how the edges of the button speaker were filed down.
 

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George D

Member
By the way, in case anyone else runs has had this problem. Well, you old timers may have run into it and posted the solution, but for us new guys here it is (again?).

I tried to save this info for future reference. I tried to copy - paste the text to a word document and it came out blank. I finally figured out the letters were in white and on a white background, so (in Word) I did a "select all" and then changed the color of the font from white to black.
 

Vic

Active Member
George, Glad that helped out:) Sorry for the "ratty" condition of the frame....that was a screw up:eek: and that's why it ended up in the junk box!!:D
 

jon-monon

Active Member
Originally posted by George D
Vic, thanks for the info. You've given me the confidence to tackle the project.
George

It seems the most rewarding model rail projects always start with a vice and a hacksaw, or a tablesaw or sawzall, and some poor loco, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the PK Line! :D :D :D
 

Vic

Active Member
Originally posted by jon-monon


It seems the most rewarding model rail projects always start with a vice and a hacksaw, or a tablesaw or sawzall, and some poor loco, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the PK Line! :D :D :D

But You left out the most important tool of all:eek: THE CHAINSAW!!!!:D :D :D
 

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