Bill,
Thanks for the head’s up on the decoder
download. I noticed that Leslie’s weren’t included and the
road number was the wrong color, but I didn’t pick up on the
567A. Please post the Rapido suggestions for removing the
white road number so we don’t all have to call Rapido.
Nelson Moyer
I've read and heard fights about CB&Q colors for 30+
years and I am just worn out on the topic.
I agree the gray is dark, but it can be lightened with
weathering. That is my eventual plan. I just figure as a
delivery unit (which is states on the box), this is how it
looked fresh out of the EMD paint shop.
I have communicated with Rapido about two other issues. The
first is the cab lettering numbers are white instead of gold.
The gold numbers were shown on the paint diagrams for
pre-orders. Since these are supposed to be delivery units, the
cab numbers should be gold. I figure this was a factory
screw-up. I plan to remove the numbers (Rapido sent me 10
different ways to do this) and decal the correct color ones.
The second issue is with the sound decoder. Rapido uses the
LokSound5 decoder which I think is fine (I have several other
LokSound decoders and they work great). The main problem is
for most road's deliveries the horn was a Leslie A125 or A200.
Rapido is using a customized OEM version of the LokSound5 and
they only offer 5 multiple chime horns and the Hancock air
whistle. No Leslie A125, Leslie A200 or Wabco E2 - the "blat"
horns. I also was not thrilled with their bell choices. If you
have the LokSound programmer, you can get around this by
downloading the complete SW1200 sound file that ESU/LokSound
provides to your computer and then download it to the decoder
(a great feature). I've overwritten the Rapido sound file with
the full ESU file and have many more choices and options.
http://projects.esu.eu/projectoverviews/18?page=15&count=10&order=date&type=all&cat=18
Scroll down in your web browser to the SW1200 567C. Yes the
delivery SW1200s had 567Bs, but the Rapido factory delivered
sound file has a 567A, so for me it is close enough.
I've attached an Excel with my Function remaps for ESU SW1200
decoder. The throttles I give my operators only have 12
functions and generally no one ever uses more than the
headlights, bell and horn in my experience.
For those who bought the Walthers Mainline SW7s recently
offered with sound, they use the LokSound Essentials decoder.
This is a stripped down LokSound5 decoder with only 32mb of
memory instead of the 128MB that a full LokSound5 decoder has.
The LokSound programmer was recently updated to allow you make
limited changes to these decoders and the programmer will also
download a code update into the decoder.
Bill