Econami and keep alive

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

Hello,

I’m hoping maybe you can help, I have a proto 2000 gp7 (Blue Box) that I am installing a econami eco-100. all seems to work ok, however I’m not clear on wiring this keep alive that came with it, its just a capacitor there are no wires on it. the directions say to solder the green/Yellow stripe wire to one end and the blue common to the other, that did not work. The decoder seems fine thank god. all the websites mention wires on the keep alive but mine came with none, is there a polarity thing on those? I see a plus and minus on the instructions but the capacitor has no markings.

Any help you may have would be appreciated. thank you!

2

Ward,

The blue (common) wire is positive (+) so that one should go on the “+” leg of the capacitor and the green/yellow stripe on the negative (-) leg. If the capacitor is not marked on the barrel, the “+” leg will be the longer of the two legs.

Tom

3

Take a closer look at the Capacitor- You should see a white stripe on the cap- That is the negative- The non marked is the positive.

4

If you are not aware of this, The capacitor is only for keep alive sound, not to keep the motor running for few seconds over bad spots.

Rich

5

Hi, Ward

Rather than using the supplied capacitor, you could opt to buy the Soundtraxx Current Keeper that will provide a reasonable amount of “stay alive” functionality.

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/SoundTraxx-CurrentKeeper-p/stx-810140.htm

The Current Keeper would take the place of the supplied capacitor. Wiring would be as shown here:

Note the diagram says Capacitor OR Current Keeper.

220 µF isn’t much “storage”, if you have room, the Current Keeper would be a good option and the equivalent of 200,000 µF.

If you opt to use the supplied cap, as Tom points out, the longer leg is + and the white marker on the body indicates —

Good Luck, Ed

6

Thank you everyone, I attached the capacitor and all is working well! thank you for all the replies.