Rapido OO Small Prairie 44XX

Kit: MS581G; SugarCurve8

Rapido's lovely 44XX Small Prairie comes with a factory-fit speaker in the bunker, firebox glow, and a Next18 DCC socket, so is a pretty straight forward conversion to sound.

The factory speaker is 'adequate' but not especially impressive, so what can we do to improve things? Well, the MS581G supports 4 ohm and 3W, so we can connect a 2nd speaker in parallel - we opt for a SugarCurve7 which will fit under the chimney along with the MS581G's GoldCaps for stay-alive.

The factory speaker is connect via a 2-way mini connector, but rather than chop and splice into those wires, we can solder our additional speaker's wires to the contacts at the foot of the socket. A bit small, but with some care it isn't too difficult.

Speaker wired up, and GoldCaps wired to the MS581G in series, we just need to protect them and insert them into the boiler, which is the perfect size for this little package.

To be absolutely sure we don't get an unwanted short-circuit, a little strip of Kapton on the model's PCB is added.

Slot the speaker and stay-alive under the chimney and take care not to snag wires as we put the body back on - really quite a simple install, and great results.

Please note that these guides are provided as useful resources for you, as-is. YouChoos cannot be held responsible for errors in the information, or for any damage caused to your models or equipment if you choose to follow any of the steps detailed here.