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HO PA-PB-PA


I noticed on mine, that the B unit did not sound a loud as the A unit.  I opened them up and found the A unit has a single 100 ohm speaker, while the B unit has two 50 ohm speakers wired in series.  Those two B unit speakers were then wired in parallel with the one A unit speaker.  The problem was one of the B units speakers was wired out of phase with the other speakers.  I unsoldered the wires to that speaker and swapped and soldered back on.  I've done the same for a few other units for friends.

     
I tried using Kadee 33 couplers (short center with torsion centering spring) on the other end of the B unit and the rear of the non-tethered A unit, but with the couplers the diaphragms did not touch, while they do with the draw bars, so I went back to the draw bar since I will always run them as a set anyway. 

  
On the B unit on the end with the wire tether I replaced the pin with a 2mm screw, permanently draw baring them together.  I did not what the drawbar to come lose and pull the wires out of the plug, plus I do not what to have to plug/unplug all the time and ware out the connector.  I do this on steam locos between the loco and tender as well.

 
The new Walthers P2k F7 AB sets I got came with new P2k metal couplers, the rear of the A and both ends of the B came with short shank couplers with torsion springs that are even shorter than the Kadee, if they are available separately then they might work here.  I know the standard #5 length P2k metal couplers are available separately, but I've not seen the short shank ones.  They are better than the Kadee's but still not as good as the drawbar.

If you want full independent A B A units, you could put couplers on all ends and remove the wire tether between the A and B units then buy and install another LokSound decoder in the B unit, but that adds another $100 or so to the cost of the set.

The sound project that comes with the PA's has the sound of a S3 horn, but the model has a detail part of a single chime horn.  Since I have a Loksound programmer, I changed mine to sound like a Leslie A-200 single chime horn, plus I make a few other changes to the sound project to fit my desires.