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Tsunami 2 TSU-KN1: Where Do the Keep-Alive Wires Go?

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Tsunami 2 TSU-KN1: Where Do the Keep-Alive Wires Go?
Posted by mlehman on Monday, April 4, 2022 10:30 PM

It would seem the simple answer to this is "Read the instructions." Nope, because I'm getting two different answers. The packaging illutsration shows that you hook your + feed to the pad along the edge and the - feed gets hooked up to a pad in the middle of the board right behind the headlight connections.

Did that and kept getting a short indicated on the programming track. Curses on putting that one pad in the middle of everything, instead of along the edge where soldering would be much easier. I assumed I'd bridged over to another component when I soldered the - lead because of this crowded location. Spent hours trying to clean up and get a nice neat connection, but, no, it still show a short.

So I went to the internet hoping to find and alternative - connection location. Did not find that but I did find something interesting. In this video by Soundtraxx, George shows various connecting points for different decoders for a keep alive/Current Keeper. At 2:52, they show an illustration for the TSU-2KN1. Not sure why that 2 is where it is (maybe for Tsunami 2?) but I'm sure it's for this N scale sized decoder that I have because everything matches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYHclA9J1VQ

In the video diagram, it shows the connections to be the OPPOSITE of what's shown in the packaging!

That could certainly account for the indicated short on my programming track.

Does anyone know the CORRECT hookups for a keep alive on the TSU-KN1 decoder?

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

  • Member since
    August 2006
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Posted by trainnut1250 on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 12:33 AM

Mike,

A captain obvious suggestion: I would just call soundtraxx - they are easy to reach and will happily answer technical questions..I have had good luck in the past calling them..

Guy

see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site

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  • From: Collinwood, Ohio, USA
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Posted by gmpullman on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 1:07 AM

mlehman
The packaging illutsration shows that you hook your + feed to the pad along the edge and the - feed gets hooked up to a pad in the middle of the board right behind the headlight connections.

The wiring diagram posted to their site shows the minus "CK" pad at the edge and the plus pad right behind the headlight. Somebody messed up somewhere...

https://soundtraxx.com/content/Reference/Documentation/Application-Notes/TSU-KN1_WiringDiagram.pdf

 Tsunami by Edmund, on Flickr

Good Luck, Ed

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Posted by mlehman on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 9:00 AM

trainnut1250
A captain obvious suggestion: I would just call soundtraxx

Plan on doing that today. No one there to answer in the middle of the night, so thought I'd ask here first.

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 10,582 posts
Posted by mlehman on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 9:06 AM

gmpullman
The wiring diagram posted to their site shows the minus "CK" pad at the edge and the plus pad right behind the headlight.

Ed,

Yep, that's the what they showed in the video. And it would explain why my dozen or so attempts at hitting that tiny pad in a tough location always resulted in a  short on the programming track by following the package directions. Will try to verify what's correct when I call Durango later.

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 10,582 posts
Posted by mlehman on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 11:29 AM

OK, just got off the phone with Norman at Soundtraxx. Apparently some of the early packagaing got out with the incorrect info. I bought the last of these on the shelf at my dealer, but had previously installed one of these correctly, which must've been packaged after the info was corrected. Then I bought this one, which must have simply been the first one on the hook when originally received. So this just added to my confusion.

Bottom line is that it's covered under warranty (within 90 days of purchase, which it is) if I somehow managed to permanently deep-six it after about a dozen attempts to hook it up cleanly failed because I was following the incorrect documentation.

The correct info, in a nutshell, is that the side terminal is the ground ( - ) and the middle terminal is the positive ( + ) as is illustrated in the diagram above that Ed posted.

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

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