Model Forum / General / Railroads / February 2010

For some years now I have been considering adding sound chips (of the type
used in greetings cards) for localised sounds on a layout (the layouts have
come and gone, the job never got done). The chips typically hold up to 30
seconds worth of sounds and can be activated by a push button on the control
panel or an LDR hidden in the track.
On the railway itself, for UK outline, we had slamming carriage doors on
cummuter trains, and a guard blowing his whistle, both of which would be
nice added to the underside of a passenger platform.
For US outline the guard shouting 'all aboard' could be added to a passenger
station and the bells at a grade crossing.
Off the line the sound of big sheets of metal being hit with big heavy
hammers might be coming from an engineering works or the like.

This topic came up on a couple of other groups and some of the links might
be of interest to anyone considering the idea . . .

http://www.instructables.com/id/Greeting-Card-Hack/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Musical-Greeting-Card/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Ghetto-Programming%3a-Getting-started-with-AVR-micro/

http://www.talkingproducts.co.uk/sound_chips.htm

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=2462
http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheets/270/440306_DS.pdf

Just a thought.

Regards

Mike