It was a long, long time ago but here is what I remember about the PH Hobbies board. The diesel sound was poor, like blowing into an empty Chiclets box as a kid. I don’t whether Chiclets are still made so I may be dating myself.
My memory is poor, dang ol’timers, but I seem to remember a small battery pack of about three nickel sized cells. Everyone complained the battery pack never charged, and when dead were not available as a part.
There were four small holes on the side of the board to wire the bell and whistle to Aristo-Craft’s on-board accessory controller. Unfortunately the holes were too small for wire commercially available from Radio Shack, Active Electronics, etc. I drilled the holes slightly larger and the traces left the board.
I soldered four wires directly to the board components. After hooking up two wires to the Aristo-Craft accessory controller the horn worked. When I hooked up the two bell wires, nothing worked. By removing one of the ground/common wires, both the horn and bell functioned.
I would guess that there should be four more wires, two for power and two for a speaker. At that time, Aristo-Craft locomotives did not come with a speaker, but the fuel tanks on the U25-B did have slots in the bottom to let the sound out. The exploded parts diagram on the Aristo-Craft web site clearly shows this.
I was given the PH board for free and gave it back after trying it.
