Adding DCC sound and lighting FX to Athearn RTR HO EMD diesels

Adding the Sountraxx Econami ECO-PNP to an Athearn RTR EMD HO hood diesel for sound and beacon control. You can still get these beautifully detailed Ready to Roll diesels all over Ebay for around $100 bucks. I found replacing the whole Athearn circuit board was better than using a 21 pin to 9 pin adapter "plug-in" solution for sound. The adapter and sound board stack is too tall to fit. For lights, I used one of FX connections for the ATSF style stratolight beacon, and took one of the headlight bulbs and added it to another FX connection just to TEST out remaining lighting effects, such as the SP style Mars gyralight. Athearn normally wires all the various lights together in parallel in to one big front and rear group, you'll have to separate the wires out for FX lighting.

[@CentralJerseyRailfan]

A good place to use the 21 pin board is in a future install paired with a Decoder Buddy. Allows for a detachable circuit board too

[@NarbonneGauchoBoingo]

cool, didn't know about the Decoder Buddy, will pick one up and put the 21 pin board to use. thank you CJR!

[@coreyostman]

Very nice, Mark!

[@NarbonneGauchoBoingo]

thank you Corey!

[@flagman515]

Thanks for posting. Great project idea. The diagram and explanation were very helpful.

[@NarbonneGauchoBoingo]

your welcome!

[@gtztrains2499]

Sounds great thanks for sharing 👍

[@JmanX]

Pretty interesting to see what all goes into making those model trains more “realistic” with the sounds too!

[@NarbonneGauchoBoingo]

thank you Julian!