I have a Bachmann HO Sound Value 4-6-0 that is a nice little loco. It does have a little trouble with my dead frogs and dirty track. My other locomotives have Keep-Alive capacitors and they work great. I personally think that these circuits are a really great idea. Anyway, I know that the decoder in these, is a Soundtraxx and Soundtraxx makes a Current-Keeper. Has anyone looked into putting one into one of these locomotives? Is there room for it? is there a way to wire it in? Before I start taking mine apart I thought I would check and see if someone has already tried it and what they discovered about it's feasibility. - Nevin
Nevin,
The decoder should be in the tender, yes? Just remove the four(?) screws, see how much room you have (minus the decoder), then compare it to the dimensions of each of the CurrentKeepers Soundtraxx offers to see if it will fit.
As far as wiring it, Soundtraxx has diagram links for wiring one of their CurrentKeepers to a TSU-750 or -1000 decoder.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
It is likely that your tender is not picking up power properly, or the locomotive, or both. I have also had trouble with the spectrum 4-6-0 (pretty much the same locomotive electrically). I have found that the wipers dont make good contact with the truck screw which is how the power is transfered into the tender. Also the tender seems to be a bit light (when I press down on tender with a finger, I get better continuity).
I found that swaping the washer from above the wipers to below the wipers (opposite as delivered on my model) resulted in better contact. Doing this prevented the wiper from sliding around under the truck, which improved things some. I have not yet added weight to the tender and I have not taken the time to run the locomotive much after modification, and I have not purchased the new sound value version, so your locomotive may be different.
This looks like a tight fit. Check the specs on the module at the decoder company page. Measure space in your tender.
This assumes you have some electronic and soldering experince.
The loco has the small drivers and small tender from the pictures at the Bachmann web site.
I have this loco as a Spectrum version in the small driver and large driver which has a larger tender.
Open it up and look on the decoder for the full wave bridge rectifier. Four diodes. They will be labeled. Solder the two wires from the keep alive to the plus and minus output of the bridge rectifier. Watch the polarity.
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/dwg/dwgs/HOBALDWIN4-6-0(DCCSOUNDVALUE).4.pdf
It might be easier to add pickups to all the tender wheels. I did that.
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.
This should be the sound board. Four of the five diodes connect to the brown capacitor. Traced the connections.
http://estore.bachmanntrains.com/images/ho_parts/HO-SDC02.JPG
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I'll take the shell off tonight and see if it is feasible. I'm not afraid of some delicate soldering work but there may not be any room for it.
I have several of these locos. The 63" driver tender has plenty of room, the small driver tender not so much. For some reason, I haven't found it necessary to add a keep alive to my factory sound installed 4-6-0. It seems to run pretty stall free on its own.
However, I definately have added keep alives to the other Spectrum 4-6-0s when I did my own sound decoder installs (extra insurance). I ended up removing the factory circuit boards in those cases to make room for everything. I also added a sound decoder with keep alive to a spectrum 4-4-0, tight fit but possible.
I haven't had to open up my OEM sound 4-6-0, but from looking at my other factory Spectrum sound installs, you may not have room for the keep alive with the factory installed sound unit as they are custom designed for the tender space and take advantage of all of the area available.
The spectrum series in general has some of the best electrical pick up out there when it comes to small steam locos. All driver in the loco (both rails) and both trucks in the tender. Very reliable. I find that if Im having pick up issues with these locos, it is because of dirty track (which I have lots of) or a defect in the wiper system (rare).
Guy
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No idea what the OP knows about stay alive but here is a link to a page on this.
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm
Adding pickups to the tender.
http://www.chainsawjunction.com/1879/nt_440/wipers/