Not hard at all, in fact unless you use the reed switches to trigger the sound fx, this will go faster than you think.
Okay, lets say you want a quick job that uses the default speaker under the intake on the rear of the engine. Grab the smoke stack on your dash 9, than pull the lid to the access switches up. Once there, you will see the smoker unit which is screwed down by two #1 screws. Remove the two screws.
Lift the smoker unit up. Unplug the unit. There are now 6 screws holding down the bezel mount the smoker and switches are on. Remove these 6 machine screws with your #1 screwdriver phillips bit. Lift the cover up. It is only a small area to work in but here is what you will have to do.
On the aristo board there is two wires that you must plug in. One a two plug for the speaker wire, the other is a two blup but on a slightly wider plug for the red and green wires that tap into the snd pwr or sound power. Now on your phoenix board at each end are a couple of mounts.
1 thru 8 are your main concerns here. The red wire goes into #1 and the green wire goes into #2 on the phoenix sound board.
The two black wires for the speaker go into slot 7 and 8 on the aristo board. For that you will need a jewelers flat screwdriver to tighten down the screws.
Now add the battery plugin for the Phoeniz sound board. These are the batteries than when charged will idle down your engine after it is powered off. Charging time about an hour when the unit is idling.
Finally there is a throw switch for the sound. Just ahead of the smoker unit mount on the aristocraft switch bezel you will notice a small pre-drilled hole. Go ahead and mount the switch in there. On the switch is a small three wire ribbon cable. On of the wires has a red streak down it. That red streaked wire on the ribbon cable goes into slot number 4 and the other two in slots 5 and 6. Tighten them down. Phoenix includes doublestick tape for mounting the battery and board but in a dah 9 there is so much room this most likely isn’t very necessary.
With this finished hook up your power and test the sound. Make sure to turn the motor off switch and listen. If the sound is working you can turn off the powerpack and button the unit up.
Phoenix suggest charging the battery for about an hour. They do supply a fuel tank speaker, but I opted for the one from aristo and honestly it works pretty well. The speaker by the way is pretty loud, but it makes the dash 9 a worthwhile effort.
I plan to add a battery system to this with rcs for full remote on my tracks. I will update this as I go thru the process and hopefully I can snap a few photos too. Having sound in the Dash 9 is certainly worth the effort and adds a new level of realism. I highly recommend you add sound to your engines. It only adds more fun, at least from my ears…
Well, hope this article helps others.
Though I agree with you on the Phoenix speakers, especially the 2 1/2 one they send with the dismal sets, the oval speaker that Aristo puts in the Dash 9’s and SD45’s are fairly good speakers too. I’ve also had good luck with Aristo’s RS3 speaker. But Phoenix has a small oval speaker that in my opinion royally sucks.