Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

I have a GS type 2 e-bell that needs a new speaker to work. Answer back for suggestions. Thanks!

PlyingKibbles89 wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 09, 2020 12:43 pm

I have a GS type 2 e-bell that needs a new speaker to work. Answer back for suggestions. Thanks!

Have you thought about contacting General Signals to see if they can send you a new speaker? Wonder if they can send out replacement parts for bells or not.

I have, but I do not know if they will.

At least request a quote from them. It'd help show you're serious about getting one.

The GS Type 2 just uses a standard 5" weatherproof horn speaker that is very common and very cheap. Any generic 5" weatherproof horn speaker with an 8 ohm impedance will work fine with the bell, so you don't need to order directly from General Signals. This one's pretty much a direct match:
https://www.jaycar.com.au/5inch-horn-sp ... m/p/AS3180

Here's another similar one on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Speco-SPC-5P-Spe ... 84&sr=8-19

You can get an even cheaper one in black if you prefer:
https://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-SP5-Weat ... r=8-2&th=1

Here's the EXACT speaker that Safetran Type 3 E-Bells use. It would also work in a GS Type 2:
https://www.parts-express.com/5-indoor- ... e--300-050

The only things you'll need to do are to remove the supplied mounting bracket and bolt the speaker directly to the bell's housing using the screw on the rear of the speaker. The Jaycar horn speaker (the first one listed above) is supplied with the screw fully exposed. However, the SPECO and Pyramid models (the Amazon offerings) have the screw hidden by a panel showing information about the speaker. Remove this panel to reveal the screw:
Horn Speaker Guide by Christian Nolan, on Flickr

Then bolt the speaker to the rear of the sound board as shown here:
gs type 2 by Christian Nolan, on Flickr

Note: mounting the Safetran speaker in a GS Type 2 may be a little more challenging, as it has a slightly different design to the other models.

The final thing to do is to insert the speaker wires into the speaker outputs on the bell's sound board as shown here:
gs type 2 board by Christian Nolan, on Flickr

For the SPECO and Pyramid models from Amazon, you'll need to cut the 3.5 mm jack off the end of the cable and strip back the wires (with wire strippers or scissors) before inserting them into the bell's speaker outputs. You don't need to do this for the Jaycar or Safetran speakers though, as they already come with bare wire ends.

All of this is very quick and easy and should only take about 10 - 15 minuets to complete. This DIY approach ends up being a lot cheaper and easier than dealing directly with General Signals!