Cow "moo" sounds for the Main North.

Nadja one of Ellie's Care Workers is from Switzerland. She has just returned from visiting her parents where her father has a model railway. At his insistence she purchased a Preiser 10404 - 3 Swiss Cows & 2 farm hands, to give to me saying I hope you can find a place for them on the layout. I replaced my 4 cows with the 3 Swiss cows on my Upper Bridge from Werris Ck to Tamworth.

I needed to add some "moos" for these cows. I know Ron has a Moo Module on his layout where I added some "occupancy" detection so the Cows were "mooing", as you passed them with the train. No train in front of the Cows - No moo sounds. I rang the MRRC but they didn't have the Moo Module.

Not to be without some "mooing", I thought I'd try a spare 10 second Record/Playback Module from Jaycar Part No XC-4605, that I used for my my Audible Announcement for EB1s, see my Blog Entry. The module has an on board Microphone making adding a sound really easy. I need some "moo" sounds. 

Googling "Cow moos", I found many videos. I used this one.https://tinyurl.com/mtpvk2x2

I connected 5.0 Volts & a Speaker to the Module. Turned up the Laptop's volume & with the above video playing suitable "moos", I pressed the Record Button for 10 seconds. Selecting the Repeat Switch then pressing the Play button, I now have "moos" for as long as the module has 5.0 volts of power. Now to automate the "moos".

I made a Power Supply providing 12.0 & 5.0 Volts that's connected to the local DCC Track Power Bus on a piece of Veroboard. 12.0 Volts for the Occupancy Detector as it uses a miniature 12.0 Volt Relay & 5.0 Volts for the Rec/Play Module. 

Using one of my spare Occupancy Detectors was used to sense the train. Train sensed, the Relay supplies 5.0 Volts to the Rec/Play Module.

 

The above 3 components are attached to a piece of Veroboard to make the installation under the layout easier. 

DCC Track Bus power to the R/H end.

Occupancy Detector with the Yellow Bus Feeder threaded through the Doughnut at the left.

Record/Play Module on the bottom. Speaker Connected to the Green Terminal Block. The VCC Pins are connected to the output of the Relay N/O Pin with the 5.0 Volts on the COM.

After testing the Moo Sounds on the Bench using a small speaker, the volume was too low. I tried a spare 52 mm Speaker & glued it to a plastic Pill Bottle, for a louder sound, attaching it to the rear of the Fascia of the Upper Bridge with the 3 Cows on the scenery. 

Problem with the above setup is, whenever I power up the layout, the cows moo. For the time being, I installed a slide switch in the power wire & some time later I'll work out why this happens. 

Shown below is a small video of the Glen Innes Mail crossing the Bridge with the Cows mooing.

I have 3 more of these Record/Playback Modules, I'll add a sheep sound at the Willow Tree Sheep Loading Pen & cow sound at the Gosford Cattle Loading Pen/Ramp.