Hi Everyone,

After my somewhat successful upgrade to my ACTS loco, I thought I might chance my hand on upgrading anothet loco. This time I thought I'd have a go at the electric Cargo 29483. It has a 21 pin mfx decoder in it without any sounds. I'd like to incorporate the sounds. What is the best and easiest way to do this? Anyone with some ideas?

Regards
Greg

The Re 4/4II (Re 421) has very little interior space for the installation of a speaker. The announced 37347 Re 420 LION will be the first model to be delivered from the factory with sound. I presume that Maerklin will be making modifications to the chassis to accommodate the installation of a speaker. If you are willing to wait 6 months, you may be able to order one of the new chassis parts and to use this to equip your older model with a speaker. I am definitely considering this, seeing that I have most, if not all, of the Re 4/4II models released to date.

If you do manage to put a decent speaker into your lok as is, please provide photos so that I can see how you solved this challenge.

Regards

Mike C

He's hooked. I knew it would happen.
Just curious, have you considered an ESU decoder?

The ESU has better sounds, and I find the volume level on the mSD decoders too quiet. That means I usually have to replace the Marklin 8 ohm speaker with an ESU 4 ohm speaker to get any decent sound level out of them.

You can generally get the mSD decoder upgrade packs for under 70 euro - see johnvandamme's ebay shop.

Both are suitable AFAIK.
Some buy Märklin because it's cheaper, others buy ESU because they think it's better value for the money.

I never installed a sound decoder myself, but with respect to factory-installed decoders, I prefer ESU.
With an electric loco, this may not make a difference.
But with steamers, it makes a difference for me.

ESU's V4 decoders have more options with respect to function mapping, but you don't need this for all locos.

The mSD always comes with a 21MTC board. I think you cannot buy it without this board. Maybe you can use the board for another loco or sell it on eBay.

ESU decoders are NEM compatible. The normal mSD is NMRA compatible, the mSD Spezial is NEM compatible. In some M* locos either type can be used, some locos require either the former or the latter.

You will need a LokProgrammer to upload the "Re 4/4 II" sound to the decoder.
Or find a dealer that uploads that sound to the 64499 (unless you know someone who has a LokProgrammer).

Thanks Tom & Matt.

I do know someone who has a Lokprogrammer and so that will do the trick.

Greg

Mike I am a bit late seeing this topic but a few years ago I had a go at the RE421 374-0 & fitted a loksound V3.5 decoder to this loco. It worked out well & still going strong. Below are some images of the conversion:


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Program Aux 1 (green wire) to come on anytime the lights (F0) are on, both for forward and reverse.

Leave the white and yellow light outputs to operate as normal for forward and reverse.

If you are not using Aux 2 and do not wish to "split" the wire from Aux 1, then wire Aux 1 to the bottom right at one end and Aux 2 to the one at the opposite end and program both Aux 1 and 2 to activate with the F0 function.

Edit: Be sure and use 2.2K ohm resistors in the white, yellow and green circuits for your LEDs. These are not shown above and you will burn the LEDs if you do not.

Edited by user 10 June 2013 14:13:19(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hello Mike, Had to remove the four posts that supported the old decoder board to make the sound conversion possible. There was no RE4/4 at the time with sound & none were being discussed during that period so I rose to the challenge & it turned out to be a very successful conversion.Had fun working the lights out. I did similar conversions with the "Fulda" Taurus, Red arrow, BR482's,BR80, V60 & V80. All had no sound availability at the time. Now it is simply too expensive to do the conversion & so many models now come with sound. But alas our Aussie $ has taken a huge nose dive & all spending is rained in. Looking forward to my #37567. That will be it for a while sadly.