I recently viewed a video of an engine that continued to move after losing power via a capacitor. I am interested in purchasing an engine like this. The demonstration model was an Athearn SW1000 with a TCS KAM4. Does anyone know where you can purchase engines with this ability? Thanks
I’m not aware of any manufactures that include “keep alives” on their equipment but TCS and Digitrax both offer plug ins.
Hi Steelman65:
Tony’s Train Exchange and Litchfield Station will do custom decoder installations. Give them a call:
http://www.litchfieldstation.net/installs/
There are probably others who will do installations too, but Tony’s and Litchfield are both excellent people to do business with.
If I can suggest, you may want to ask the installer about whether or not you need to include a shut off micro switch for the capacitor. Some of the capacitors (keep alives) can interfere with programming if they are carrying a charge. If you are using a Loksound decoder with Loksound’s Power Pack keep alive the shut off switch is not necessary. However, the Loksound Power Pack doesn’t have as much reserve power as many other keep alives. TCS has a really neat drop in Motherboard that has their keep alive built right into it. I don’t know if there are any programming issues with their setup.
Dave
[quote user=“hon30critter”]
Hi Steelman65:
Tony’s Train Exchange and Litchfield Station will do custom decoder installations. Give them a call:
http://www.litchfieldstation.net/installs/
There are probably others who will do installations too, but Tony’s and Litchfield are both excellent people to do business with.
If I can suggest, you may want to ask the installer about whether or not you need to include a shut off micro switch for the capacitor. Some of the capacitors (keep alives) can interfere with programming if they are carrying a charge. If you are using a Loksound decoder with Loksound’s Power Pack keep alive the shut off switch is not necessary. However, the Loksound Power Pack doesn’t have as much reserve power as many other keep alives. TCS has a really neat drop in Motherboard that has their keep alive built right into it. I don’t know if there are any programming issues with their setup.
Dave
Thank you
A guy at the club has a couple of steam engines that have keep alive decoders in them. We were watching him run them when he said watch this and picked the engine up and sat it on the bare wood. It kept right on running. So be aware that that can happen and you need to be careful.
I think you are referring to the Walther’s Mainline Plymouth Switcher which is on page 11 of the Dec issues of MR and discussed in the editorial on page 8. I think the idea is cool and now I want to put capacitors in all of my old locos.
For those not to familiar with stay alive, keep alive, look at the below link. Also, scroll to the bottom and click on the wayback link for the beginning of the process with a single capacitor, resistor and diode.
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm
You can also Google stay alive, keep alive for more links.
Rich
Made Lone Wolf’s link clickable.
Dave