Does any company besides TCS use the keep alive capacitor concept with their decoders?
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All the major decoder manufactures have their own version of the keep-alive. They just call them by different names.
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And I’ve used capacitor packs from different manufacturers on other manufacturer’s decoders. I bought several of the Broadway Limited ‘Go Pack’ caps and then decided not to use their decoders but I installed the caps into WOWsound TCS decoders at a later date with no problems.
Several manufacturers are integrating the keep alives right in the same board with the decoder.
Good Luck, Ed
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Ed, I’d be curious to know how you can combine parts from different manufacturers.
I use Digitrax decoders these days, and you can add a fairly low-cost capacitor from the same company (they call it power extender). I installed one just this week and it seems to be working properly. Total cost is very reasonable.
Simon
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Hi, Simon
In some installs I use a Decoder Buddy which has pads to tap into the U+ and ground. Those are easy to wire any ‘keep alive’ to. I have some TCS motherboards made for Genesis F units with a 21 pin plug but I put ESU decoders on them. No problems. I used the Broadway Limited GO packs on TCS WOWsound decoders. As long as the polarity is observed they all pretty much do the same thing. As far as I recall only the ESU capacitor has the third wire which can effectively switch the keep alive off for programming purposes.
While this photo shows a Soundtraxx decoder and cap, I could have used other makes in either position:
NYC P-2b 237 motor by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
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Thanks!
the keep alive is not really internal to the decode, it’s wired across the rectified outputs of the diode bridge
I see that. The decoder buddy would definitely make it easier.
Simon