4-4-0 tender in Bachmann parts.

[Terry Toenges]

Bachmann parts has tenders for sale for the 4-4-0 sound value locos. Does anyone know if "complete tender" includes the electronic stuff like speaker, decoder, pcb board, and connector? Or is it just the tender without the stuff inside? I emailed them a couple days ago and asked but haven't heard yet. Maybe I can buy a tender and switch bodies to get my sound back for my Santa Fe.
"COMPLETE TENDER (HO SCALE 4-4-0 DCC-SV) $76.70 UNION PACIFIC #119 Model: 00D01-52701"
https://estore.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=68_697&products_id=10397&zenid=as6i3e7js6ct29dk02tset38i1

[Terry Toenges]

So much for that idea. I heard back from Ruth. She said those tenders didn't have all the stuff in them and they don't have any anyway. I can send it in to get repaired for $60. I'll have to contemplate on what I want to do.

[rich1998]

Is it the decoder, speaker or wiring? If you posted something before I must have missed it.

Rich

[Terry Toenges]

I don't know Rich.
All I did was take off the tender body, grind off the plastic wood load, put a piece of styrene over the hole, cut a hole for the two silver things sticking up (because I didn't know if they would stick up farther), then glue on my match stick load and replace the body. I didn't do anything at all with anything electric. I never even unscrewed the pcb board.
I put the tender body back on and ran it. The sound was barely audible. It is so faint that I almost can't hear it over general motor/track noise.The sound had been loud before that.
It was only then that I took it back apart and unscrewed the pcb board to look and see if a wire came loose.
It's frustrating. I just got it the end of January. Now Bachmann wants $60 to fix it even though I didn't mess with any of the electronics. I just don't know what could have possibly gone wrong.
This is what I cut out.

This is with the wood load

The pcb board

The speaker is sandwiched under the pcb board. I only undid that to look after the sound was messing up.

The holes for the sound are under the tender so the taking off the plastic wood load shouldn't have had any effect on the sound that I can see.

[Terry Toenges]

I just now went and ran some laps around the track. I keep hoping it's going to magically work right again. This time, the headlight was flickering a lot as it was going around. The last few laps, the headlight went out completely and isn't coming on at all. I can't really hear any sound now. I kept trying the 10 button for the headlight but it doesn't come on anymore. It also kept stopping at my #4 turnout and my crossover. It wasn't doing that before either.
I'm using the E-Z Command for power.

[graywolf]

The coal load ,which was sealed before you cut it, was acting as the sound chamber for the back of the speaker. There is a video I think on youtube where they show you how important it is to have a completely sealed enclosure on the back of the speaker. The log load does not provide an air tight seal.  This is the video you should see'
https://youtu.be/j4kgLeDltxg   or search on youtube  model train speaker enclosures

[Terry Toenges]

Really weird stuff is happening. Last night, I was having the running issues and the headlight went out. Today it's like that never happened. It runs fine and the headlight works like it is supposed to work.
I took the body back off the tender and put some electric tape over where I had cut the hole for the wood. I have some sound back. I can hear it again.
I can't say I fully understand it because the pcb board was tight against the back of the speaker. There is a round piece of foam on the back of the speaker to insulate it from the board. The sides of the speaker are encircled by the weights. There is so little room for any sound to get up into the top part. The board almost fills the cavity in the body.

[graywolf]

Sound wave can go thru the tiniest holes and ruin the sound. Quite often the baffle is attached to the back of the speaker and sealed with caulk or glue. In your case there is no room for that so your have to seal things as best you can.

[Terry Toenges]

I ran it again and everything is still working.
Now, if I can fix the derailing issues with this thing, I'll be ok. It keeps derailing on my #5 turnouts. I tried 3 different #5's in the same place and it derails on all before it even gets to the frog. It wants to go straight and not diverge. One of them was a brand new one I just got.
I just removed the #5 and replaced it with a #4.
I had problems with my 2-4-0 on the #5's also, but that was with the frog and the deep flanges on the 2-4-0. The strange thing is that the 2-4-0 ran just fine on the new #5 and didn't hop at all over the frog. The new one is right out of the box with no mods to the frog.
I think I'll just not use any #5's again. Too many issues with steamers and #5's.

[Trainman203]

I have a dozen #5 switches I run 2-8-2's through all the time, no prob.  4-8-2's and 2-10-2's also get through them fine.

[Terry Toenges]

My 4-4-0 doesn't like them at all. Even the one where I filed the outside point rail.
The pony truck does better than the drivers. It's mostly the drivers that don't want to make the turn. My diesels don't have a problem.
My 2-4-0 only had problems with the frogs on the first two but not following the diverging leg. It did that ok. Your big locos have a lot of weight to keep them "on track". The 4-4-0 is very light. Even the 2-4-0 is heavier than the 4-4-0 and it has the deeper flanges which is why it tracks ok through it.
Maybe I should have stuck with On30 but the choices are so limited. I had some of this this HO stuff sitting around collecting dust. They didn't have a sound equipped 4-4-0 when I was doing HO so I had to have one. :-)

[graywolf]

After responding to Terry's posting I remembered that I had a Sound Value Bachmann GP38-2 that had a weak sounding horn. I decided to see how well the body formed a sealed sound enclosure. I removed the body which looked pretty well sealed and decided to put the engine on the track minus the body. When activating the horn you could hardly hear it. I then cupped my hand over the bare chassis trying to enclose the speaker. The sound change was amazing ---it got a lot louder. I then used some blue painters tape to seal off the area around the speaker and put the body back on. The result was a much louder horn and bell and even the normal engine sounds. Hope this inspires others to experiment.

[Terry Toenges]

I'll see about putting something over the speaker itself before I screw the pcb board down and see what that does. This has been educational for me regarding sound things.

[rich1998]

I have used styrene to make baffles which made a big difference in diesels and steamers, Bachmann and Roundhouse steamers.
My Re-geared re-motored vMDC Climax fired from inside the roof down and sounded fine

Rich

[Terry Toenges]

I unscrewed the pcb board and I tried a piece of round solid rubber (stuff I made the hose from on the wood/water car) around the top of the speaker and screwed the pcb board back down. It didn't make any kind of difference that I could tell.
I put another layer of tape in the shell too and that didn't do anything. I'm thinking about maybe wrapping electric tape around the perimeter of the board to cover the gap between it and weights and see if that does snything.
I thought about making larger holes in the bottom but I'm afraid I might make it worse  and it would be hard to  undo something like that if I did.
I have the sound back. It just doesn't seem quite as loud as before but I can hear it ok now.