Can anyone tell me which brand of decoders has the "life saver" feature? From what I understand this will allow the locomotive to run for a brief period of time in the event of a dead spot in the track. This would come in handy with my 4 wheel switcher. It isn't converted to DCC yet and hesitates when passing over my Atlas turnouts.
Todd
This would be the Lenz Silver and Gold series, but the capacitor is an additional option. There is a web site that actually shows how to add a similar feature to just about any decoder, but of course doing so voids the decoder warranty. Sorry I don;t have it handy but it was posted ehre not too long ago try searching for 'keep alive'. Or someone else will have it handy to post.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
The SoundTraxx Tsunami and Micro-Tsunami come with 220ufd, 25 vdc "stay alive" capacitors. Some people call them "keep alive". Not to be confused with the older SoundTraxx DSD decoders that had bi-polar 33ufd capacitor's for the "speaker".
Stay alive info.
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm
I tried searching Google for dcc life saver and only found this discussion. Where did you find this term?
If your loco hesitates on DC, not sure the keep alive will be very effective. You may have to improve loco pickups and install wiring for your turnouts.
I installed a 1000ufd cap, diode and 100 ohm resistor in the smoke box of a Roundhouse 4-4-0 to take care of motor blips.
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.
The "stay alive" option offered for the Tsunami is to keep the sound from crackling and cutting out when the electrical pick-up blips. These blips are too quick to affect the motor control, but they can be heard in the sound circuit. Use of the capacitor smooths this out and pretty much eliminates this problem.
The capacitor is not designed to power the loco through dead spots in the track like the Lenz gold system. If the track is dirty or the power pick-up is poor, the Tsunami equipped (with capacitor) loco will still stall and stutter.
I have installed a number of the Tsunamis and have upped the capacitor value to 1000 micro farads (Soundtraxx OKed this). The caps work very well for the afore-mentioned purpose, especially in small brass steam.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
Here's Keep Alive link: http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
OntarioToddThis would come in handy with my 4 wheel switcher. It isn't converted to DCC yet and hesitates when passing over my Atlas turnouts.