Member greymalkin's plea for some assistance prompted this from me.

I volunteer for an organization owning two self-propelled rail cars - BHRS. We're refurbing them slowly. The sound system is one thing on my attack list. Given a long, skinny, noisy, and acoustically unfriendly (?) thing like a rail car what's the best solution for a sound system? Cost is a bit of an issue. Also, how hard would it be to source some "track" to adhere to a wall surface into which say a dozen or more jacks could be placed to enable riders to plug a set of ear buds into the sound system should they truly desire to hear any narration? We usually have folks talking about the various historical aspects of things alongside the tracks during rides but invariably get complaints that folks can't hear the narrator.

Depending on how the ceiling is made, many things can be done both on the cheap and full blown luxury. Can you get us some pictures of the inside of the cars? The acoustics will always be poor inside a rail car, but there are some things you can do to prop them up. I did an install for someone a long time again that was in a victorian room and she wanted Victorian speakers....( huh?)

I got creative with them and finally ended up tweading the covers and then using gold leaf to decorate the outside of some classic oak speakers. Much in the same design that the old sewing machines used to have on them. I thought they were hideous, but she liked em...

These are shots of a decrepit car. All I had on hand. Imagine a row of seats down each side and there you have it.

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Currently there are el-cheapo Radio Shack or similar speakers zip tied to a small plastic milk crate which is, in turn, fastened somehow to the wall. Yeah . . . REAL elegant.

Oh, did I mention the speaker wires are hanging in loops from the ceiling?

Did I say how elegant the whole setup is?

I think I could easily punch oversize holes in the ceiling and fish wires if I can get recessed speakers with a bezel to cover the hole. That make sense? There's a lot of room above the ceiling panels.

I was thinking in celiing would be best a set ( faux stereo?) over each siting area, as for the head phone jacks run them in parallel ( hell for that matter you could use a set of modern Christmas lights and install jacks where the lights would be, yes I'm ignoring techy stuff like resistance etc) tuck them into the wall, drill a hole to mount which ever model jack you use & walla.

Based on that pic I would run the head phone jacks just below the window line.

you can check out the combo I found in my post linked to above if that helps any...

okay....now can we see a picture of one of the cars AFTER it has been restored?

Yeah, sure. Check back in a year or two. Sheesh!

An example of one thats ALREADY done might be just as good...

There's plenty of in-ceiling speakers to choose from, having installed countless dozens in my time as an A/V installer, I like Niles the best but they are a bit on the pricey side. If hi-fi sound is not a necessity, cheaper speakers can be found and home Depot, best buy, etc. However, the bezels for any of these are going to be flat, and would not be conducive to a curved ceiling.

While the idea of speakers over each row of seats sound like fun, I would think the easiest solution would be to use in ceiling speakers over the isle. It looks like there's heating/cooling ducts over the isle. The question would be, is the ductwork inside of a larger chase, or is the area above the center isle portion all ductwork? Meaning, if you cut into that area, are you cutting directly into the cooling ducts (bad)?

Vibration due to the metal ceiling could be cut down by installing car-audio acoustical material, like Dynamat.

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As far as the headphone jacks - outside of my area of expertise, sorry.

Question 1. What do you have available in terms of power? 12VDC, 24VDC, 110VAC... It makes a difference as to what I'd suggest for budget audio amplification, though little for the setup itself. Some power will be required to leave everything clear and comprehensible.

Ear buds: This is somewhat harder than it would seem, since you can't use a typical pre-amp for this sort of thing. A typical pre-amp headset bases the output wattage on the expected impedance of a single set of ear buds. Plugging in a dozen of more sets in parallel would do bad things to the amplifier, let alone the possibility of someone accidentally (or deliberately!) plugging in something to short the circuit. You need one of two setups for this: Either a separate pre-amp for each set (Or few, most of these setups can handle 2-3 sets on a channel) or you need a regulated voltage amplifier with power to spare. Voltage amplifiers can handle really low impedance loads, though you'd have to ensure that the wiring can handle a dead short at the jacks. (An in-line high wattage resistor takes care of that.)

Speakers: I'd bet that a large part of the problem with your speakers is the "enclosure" that they're mounted in. Plastic milk crates are going to resonate and buzz like crazy, particularly in the midrange frequencies where the human voice lives. I'm assiming that at least the speakers are in cabinets, but this might even be more than needed.

Shelf panel at Home Depot or similar could be mounted at 45 degrees along the top of the cars. On a budget, I'd put an epoxy mount point every 10-12" along the top and bottom that the panel can be screwed into, allowing it to be taken down as needed, but still holding it securely. Bare speakers can be mounted into the panel at intervals to allow even sound distribution, so that the volume does not have to be excessively high, since then no person must be very far from a given speaker. Cheap car speakers would be more than adequate to the task, using a series/parallel wiring scheme to allow you to have an appropriate load for the amplifier of your choice.

The end result is economical, and can look very nice if you're willing to put a little work into it.

I'll try to remember to get a pic of our cars in their current state.


Didn't think of that.

The cars are strange. Like 60VAC or something? But I can get 110VAC - it's available - so I think I can base the build on that.


I'll have to ask you to elaborate on this later if I can't find someone to decipher this and run with it. Could I readily DIY the regulated amp?


What we have now just looks so schmaltzy it makes me sick.


So, you're suggesting to convert a portion of the curved ceiling into a flat (planar) run with the shelf panel? Is that right? Not a bad idea since we can just incorporate that into our interior fix-ups. I'll have to see how easy we can do that based on the radius of curvature of the existing ceiling and depth required for selected speakers. It would sure make the wiring easy!

There are definitely regulated voltage amplifier circuits out there.

Most audio amplifiers are "power amplifiers" which means that they increase the amount of voltage and let the speaker (load) determine the amount of power being poured into it. There MUST be control over the load, or else the amount of power goes berzerk. Of course it occurs to me that if you just put a static load in-line with your bus so that the resistance of one (or several dozen) headphones becomes an insignifigant portion, it should still work and be stable. The signal is never going to be really strong, but you don't rally want that anyway.

And yes. I meant to make a flat surface at the top corners of the car
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Ph34r my mad MS-Paint ski11z

I as thinking about this last night. You could put in smaller speakers in the two areas on either side of the car vents in the roof. The speakers wouldnt have to be very big and wiring should be a piece of cake. That way you could finish them with your choice of grills or even use the same grills that cover the vents. Since they would be in the middle , projecting downwards, the sound woud be fairly even through the cabin if you used say, 8 of them. Its not like you will need thumpin bass to do narration...

just a thought

Just an illustration of the speaker placement. You could actually use 4-6 inch car speakers for this and have minimal impact on the original structure.


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The red circles are the speakers and the cones are the area they cover. Its probably wider. So if you use a line on each side of the middle point, you can get to them easily, and they will provide even sound all the way down the car, but you might want to skip the speakers in the section that the narrator is standing otherwise they will speak softly and only the people in front will hear them.

SJ

EDIT: Just noticed OK's post...Great minds think alike...

This is another project with the same rail cars. See the windowsill area highlighted below? There is a roughly (very roughly ) 1/2 inch by 60 inch strip of "bakelite" material there held in place with a few screws. What would be an economical material to use there - dark brown or black - something like Corian or some polymeric material (nylon, delrin, whatever). Fairly cheap and durable. Readily tooled to fit. Can be two pieces butted together if necessary. Ideas?

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How about....oh I dont know...wood?
I hear its flexible, easily tooled and can be replaced easily.

But I may have something even more fun for you...hold on let me see if I can find it. Im really wondering why wireless has not crossed your mind yet. It would be very easy to broadcast at near intervals using common frequencies. Kinda like a more reliable version of Mr Microphone...

Anyway...lemme find that part for you.

Here you go.
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.c...tnumber=249-465

I just realized you werent referring to the speakers so this may be a moot idea. As for the sills. What was the original material that was there and what was it made to do?

Considered but something less prone to mutilation and stable wrt moisture is much more attractive.


The speaker system is still under review. We've a lot higher priority stuff with which to contend.

As I wrote above, the original material was a "bakelite" type stuff. It's purely a decorative sill covering some ugly joints at the window bottom. Prone to getting moist from condensation and greasy kid fingers, chins, lips. Drool from napping passengers as well. Hence the wish to avoid wood. The pieces replaced earlier with wood are really nasty. Don't forget splinters. And the need to seal it up with some poly or sumpin'. Dunno, maybe we'll wind up with wood but there's gotta be some good scrap out there just dying to be used for this. And I'm thinking RoGR could be useful to machine the pieces to fit. It's a simple "L" kind of profile. I need to check them out in more detail the next time I'm in the rail car. They were only recently brought to my attention and I only saw one in the dark by distant street light.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Well, by definition, "easily tooled" also means "easily mutilated."

I can understand it not being a large budget project, thus a reason to keep things inexpensive.

Wood is actually fairly good material. Small hardwood mouldings can be inexpensively obtained, and with a good urethane coating are reasonably durable. Okay, so you may be replacing them annually, but that's not too bad. My suggestion for inexpensive, but durable material would be baseboard mouldings.

Depends on whether we're talkin' Oxford or Miriam-Durachko.

Trim will likely be black. Scratched/scored/heavily worn homogenous black material looks W-A-Y better than chunked out wood. IMHO.


Things get replaced MAYBE every 10 or 20 years with this place. Yearly? No way, no how. But I will be scouring the lumber supply stores for suitable mouldings.

I picture and a cross section would be ideal to help you out.
I think I may have seen these before. Are they designed to attached to the lower sill under the lip and cover the screws that hold the wall sections in place?

You said they were L shaped?
What about L bracket aluminum? Or even painted steel?

Another thing you could try is an auto trim.

The thing I find odd is that is these trains are going to ridden by enthusiasts, then why would someone want to damage them?

All under consideration.

Some people are just arseholes. What else can I say?

Ounce of prevention, pound of cure and all that . . .

As of late the public toilet only a few yards from these rail cars has been trashed by "Shitman" two times in the last few days. After the inside was cleaned out due to amazing amounts of feces being smeared everywhere the toilet was locked at night. The next morning the outside had been "decorated" quite heavily. Pardon me sir . . . could you poop in this bag for a DNA sample? We're trying to match the earthtone decor of that restroom over there which used to be red but now is brown.

1 Webcam: 62.00...
1 Borrowed electric fence charger and wire:10.00...
1 Package of No-Doze:3.95

The joy of watching someone fry because they were doing something antisocial and then uploading on YouTube for the world ( and the cops) to see...Priceless.


You dont have to take that shit...!;)

I'd honestly be afraid of being thrown in jail for endangering the sockcucker. Single clandestine projectile to the hypothalamus may be safer anymore.

Maybe just a good old fashioned bear trap then?

Sadly, "the public" cannot be trusted to treat anyone else's property with anything resembling respect. There is a damn good reason why I will go to great lengths to avoid public washrooms...

For this piece of human offal, the webcam and a few public "Do you know this idiot" posters would be fun.

For the mouldings, yeah, I can see why you'd want something not easily damaged, though no matter what it is, unless it's made from industrial diamond, you're going to get at the very least initials carved into it.

Hmmm... Dymondwood... This'd be a good use for it. Take regular wood, coat with polyester resin, and put it in a pressure chamber to about 7-10 atmospheres worth of pressure. The resin gets forced into the wood, where it hardens. The resulting material might as well be made of cast iron, for overall strength and hardness, but is relatively lightweight.

Though for that matter, fibreglass would also make for a good material to do this in, it's reasonably resistant to damage, inexpensive, lightweight, paintable and can be shaped to any mould.

I was thinking last night about this. You are absolutely right in not wanting to use wood. These cars were made at the height of the chemical manufacturing period. I would be very surprised if the car had ANYTHING that was not industrially processed. So in keeping with authentic restoration, you will need to replace those pieces with something manufactured. Otherwise, its red oak, a router and three or four coatings of medium gloss enamel.

More pics of the window trim piece and classy PA system.

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Zip ties FTW!

For the window moulding:
3/16" acryllic (plexiglass) at your local Home Depot -- don't get polycarbonate (lexan) or you can't do the next trick.

Cut into strips, the total overall length that you want. Notch so that it fits.

Using a propane or butane torch, heat the strips along the edge of the windows sill to about 220 deg F, and then bend downwards The end result is an "L" shaped piece that fits to what you want. Bevel the lower edge by sanding, and then run a torch along it to get a nice smooth surface.

Now, apply paint to the INSIDE/bottom edge. This means that the paint can't be scratched by vandals. It will show up nicely through the plexiglass, and have a really nice shiny finish, even if the paint itself isn't very nice.

When they get scratched up, you can take them out, run a torch over the scratches, and repaint. 10 minute job to get them looking new again.

Tell me about it!


This will get some serious thought. Clever. Sounds touchy though. We'll see. Thanks!

Not nearly as touchy as you think. The key is not to let the torch linger. I know some folks who will boil the piece before shaping. Makes for light work getting into the hot pliable zone.

and the zip ties are totally practical....

I wish I could adequately express the feelings I have whenever I gaze upon those zip ties. Without being expelled from the forums that is.

Black plastic turn ons
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PigBoy lusts for Ties