[Jscullans]

I have a couple Bachman steam locomotives I wanted to replace the decoders in but not sure what would be the best fit for them. Both locomotives hum and I’m over them driving me nuts making sounds they shouldn’t. One is the spectrum 2-10-2 and one is a standard Bachman 2-10-4 (Texas) Santa Fe loco. Both factory dcc equipped. Not sure if I want to go sound or not yet and also has anyone swapped those god awful orange led lights out of them? If so what did you use as replacements. They run rather well but have some room for improvement. The noises the decoders make and those lights run me bonkers though

 

[wvgca]

The factory Bachmann sound decoders in the Spectrum series are okay , no complaints, I don't know about the regular series though [no sound]..
As far as the orange lights are concerned, they are much more suitable than bright white, as steamers didn't have electric lights from the start , although I will admit that warm white probably would have been a better choice, but not bright white ..

 

[flyboy2610]

The Spectrum decoders are made by Soundtraxx. The standard decoders are mass produced overseas by monkeys chained to their workstations, fed only an occasional banana and allowed infrequent bathroom breaks. You can imagine the quality of the decoders.
Is the decoder a board style decoder or a shrink wrapped rectangle?

 

[Jscullans]

I have warm white led here. And I programmed that 2-10-2 with jmri decoder pro and it called it out to be a Bachman decoder

 

[Cab1]

Maybe you might want to investigate where the noise is actually coming from a little more. It may not be from the decoder. Throwing down money on a new decoder might not fix the problem. I know, it's a pain in the butt, but it a better cheaper way to get to where you want to be.

 

[CTValleyRR]

Maybe you might want to investigate where the noise is actually coming from a little more. It may not be from the decoder. Throwing down money on a new decoder might not fix the problem. I know, it's a pain in the butt, but it a better cheaper way to get to where you want to be.

Having fixed similar buzzing issues with Bachmann branded decoders simply by replacing the decoder, I can tell you that the OP is probably not wasting money doing so. Bachmann decoders are known for this issue. I've had 5 buzzy Bachmanns, and 5 new decoders solved every one. I'll take long odds in favor of that being the solution.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

When I first started looking at getting a Bachmann loco with the factory sound decoder I found quite a lot of complaints. Consider this... The tsunami is the great quality model we all know. Then there's the econami which is around 60% of the tsunami price and has the available features severely cut. And then there's the Bachmann version, because the econami was too horribly over-priced for Bachmann's budget (despite what they charge to include it). It was a no-brainer for me, I bought my ten-wheeler without the Bachmann decoder and dropped in a full-featured tsunami for nearly the same difference in price.

Oh and for anyone putting their own decoder board into a Bachmann with very limited space in the tender... Just completely remove the board that's in the tender, all it really does is operate the loco lights in forward and reverse, but it takes up half the available space. I just tested where each of the wires connects to the 8-pin socket and soldered them to a new connector. Left lots of extra space after placing the tsunami and a speaker with a large box. I need to add more capacitors now for a larger keep-alive.

 

[DonR]

NCE makes a PCB DCC decoder specifically to replace
the PCB Bachmann decoder in many of their models.
Perhaps one would be what you need.

http://www.hobbylinc.com/nce-bach-dsl-replacement-decoder-for-bachmann-model-railroad-decoder-139?source=froogle&gclid=Cj0KCQiA89zvBRDoARIsAOIePbAmQiD0dZUCBsdKbaklnDBjO8G7pZmawWqOZ3weLf_jYrUZbf0rJfcaAkeBEALw_wcB

Don

 

[D&J Railroad]

One of the CVs of most decoders is to eliminate motor buzz. I don't know what the CV would be in a Bachman decoder as they seem to try to be unique in their versions.
CV09 can be adjusted from 00 - 255 to change the buzz sound through the pulse width modulation (PWM). 00 being the least amount of adjustment to full compensation at 255.

 

[Jscullans]

I’ve had them on my program track using decoder pro and there isn’t anything for “silent running” for those decoders.

 

[Jscullans]

Hey donR those decoders are for diesels. I’m running a 2-10-2 and a 2-10-4. I have a couple Bachmann diesels but they don’t leave the shelf. Just sit on display for the most part. Would those be 8 pin plugs on those boards? If so I may just delete the board and go with a digitrax decoder. I’ve had good luck with them and they seem to make all my locomotives run rather well that I’ve installed them in