Brawa Ludmilla with Next18 and sound

The N-Scale BR232 “Ludmilla” from Brawa (61004) dates back from 2008. Time for an update…

Old lady, old model

This diesel engine, nicknamed “Ludmilla” is pretty popular in Germany. Nearly all N-scale model train manufacturers have had a go at it. Arnold has just released a model with a Next18 interface, and “room for sound” (I am waiting for the first reviews).

My Brawa Ludmilla (Railion livery) dates back from 2008. It doesn’t even have a NEM651 socket, but “soldering points”. My model had been converted to DCC with a simple Zimo decoder.

I opted for a sound upgrade:

Added Next18 socket for future decoder changes (one never knows…), with Next18 sound decoder
Replace the original (white only) LED by changing white/red LEDs.
Add capacitors to improve rolling on dirty tracks or points.

Sound project

I recently mentioned the Doehler & Haass SD18A decoder as being good value, I don’t know of any other all-in-one sound decoder in N scale under €60.
Unfortunately, Doehler and Haass doesn’t have a large sound library yet (list of sound in links below). But, the Ludmilla sound project was recently released, so I fired up my Doehler & Haass Programmer (reviewed here) and could upload the correct sound for this engine in a few minutes.

Here is a look at the video from the company that actually provided the sounds to Doehler and Haass.

Conversion

There have been many conversions for this model. See for example this one, with a separate decoder and sound module: MTKB Umbau. It’s in German, but they have excellent pictures (also be sure to check their other DCC and sound conversions here).

Here are a few pictures of my conversion, and be sure to check the videos above!