I just recently got a Soundtraxx DSD-101 basically for free from someone I know locally, and I know it's nothing special, but I may consider using it. Should it have a capacitor with the decoder to wire to the speaker? I don't have one with it, so what capacitor should I have if it needs one?
Check the manual for the decoder. It can be downloaded from the Soundtraxx site if you don't have one with the decoder.
It's been awhile, but I recall that the capacitor installation and its values are in the manual.
Martin Myers
I have DSD-090LC and DSD-100LC decoders and a 33 ufd, bi-polar capacitor comes with the decoder to be inserted in series with a purple speaker wire and one terminal of the speaker.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
It's important to note that even though this capacitor looks like an ordinary electrolytic capacitor, it's not - it's a bi-polar electrolytic. This capcitor isn't there to keep the decoder going when the loco hits a dirty spot of track, it's to keep frequencies too low for the speaker to reproduce from reaching the speaker. There is a SLIGHT chance of damaging a speaker from over-excursion without the capacitor, but even more importantly it will sound really bad. I highly doubt you can just pick up one of these at Radio Shack anymore, and unless you find the one person still working there who actually knows something about electronics, they'd try to sell you an ordinary electrolytic capacitor. This is something you'll probably have to look to Mouser or Jameco or All Electronics for.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
You can get the 33 ufd bi-polar capacitor from Litchfield station. You can also use a standard electrolytic 100ufd 16 volt capacitor. I have done that many times with solid state amps.
Here is a link to a SoundTraxx document to show you how to connect a standard capacitor. There is a mark on the standard capacitor to indicate which lead is minus.
http://www.soundtraxx.com/documents/manuals/lc_manual.pdf