BLI Pennsylvania M1a/b

[Chris333]

I don't know why they aren't standard, but it's only a few bucks for a couple caps.
http://www.dccwiki.com/Energy_Storage

[peteski]

Super-Caps is just another name for a keep-alive device (a very high capacitance capacitor aka, Super-Cap and some auxiliary circuitry) which is sold by several decoder manufacturers. Lenz IIRC was the originator of the circuit.  Some decoders already have solder pads for adding the keep-alive circuit, while on other decoders you have to wing-it.  There is lots of info about this all over the Interwebs (and even here on TRW).  Check the DCC forum.

While the DCC track voltage does flip polarity several times a second, that is useless to the decoder.  So each decoder contains a bridge rectifier to convert the pulses into DC voltage.  The stay-alive circuit is hooked up on the rectified DC side of the decoder.

[peteski]

I don't know why they aren't standard, but it's only a few bucks for a couple caps.
http://www.dccwiki.com/Energy_Storage

The elephant in the room is the physical size of the Super-Caps.  Especially for smaller scales like N or Z.  Decoder would have to be rather large to have on-board keep-alive circuit. Not something you could shoehorn into N scale Atlas 4-4-0.    Sure, in larger locos such a decoder would be installed, but to me it makes more sense to keep the decoder and keep-alive boards separate.

[Chris333]

I've seen them installed in On30 0-4-0's so surly  there is room in this mighty tender.

[nstars]

@gkoproske at the risk of further distraction from the topic and sacrificing precious respect points, I feel you are cherry-picking quotes to justify your conclusion. If you read the whole thread, there are several accounts of the power of the Centipedes, most consistent with mine, which says the Centipedes can easily pull 30 cars up a 2% grade. In the end, to each their own. I'm so far thrilled with all my BLI products, Centipedes and M1s included!

Eric,

To support your claim (and to keep it short so we indeed can go back to the M1 topic ), I got 23 cars up our 2.2% helix pulled by only one centipede unit without the traction tires. Concerning the hiccups, that is easy solved. Just take your time to run in the engines so the blackening can wear off.

Marc

[nstars]

I've seen them installed in On30 0-4-0's so surly  there is room in this mighty tender.

If John Columbo can install a capacitor in a small road switcher (I believe it was either the VO1000 or the RS3) than it should certainly fit in a M1 tender. Experience with other sound decoders (like Loksound or Soundtraxx) is that most loco's do indeed need a capacitor. The question is of course if there are already capacitors installed. If I look at the Spookshow photo's of the decoder than I see 2 yellow box like components which I suspect are capacitors. Can't see what the values are.

As mentioned before another reason could be the blackening on the wheels. The blackening is not conductive and giving the engines a good run in tends to solve the problem.

Marc

[rschaffter]

That is annoying if the treads are too wide.

All of this just further reminds me that the code 80 track on the now 10-year-old layout probably needs to be replaced.

I checked the width on the NMRA gauge, and the wheel doesn't enter the slot, as it shouldn't.  It was a few thousandths too wide. I checked the width with calipers, and they were all 0.078", both flanged and unflanged. Spec is 0.072", nominal, and I measure the slot at 0.073", so the width is on the wide side, but at the edge of standard tolerance by my measurement.  Perhaps the sideplay in the blind drivers is allowing them to bridge the frog... 

[eric220]

Geez, somebody got upset over the capacitor discussion!  Down votes ahoy!

[SkipGear]

Box one of ours arrived at the shop today so I can finally add something to the discussion.....

Beautiful detail. Haven't had a chance to put one on the track yet but I see one glaring error that is disappointing me. The traction tired driver is not geared. Only the two blind drivers are geared and one of those is not connected to the side rods. It's basically an HO frame design shrunk down to N. I would suggest not putting these in long haul duty under heavy loads for extended periods of time or you will wear out the crank pins.

It's not going to stop me from buying mine but I also won't be running them for hours on the Ntrak layout pulling their max load.

[peteski]

Geez, somebody got upset over the capacitor discussion!  Down votes ahoy!

I'm not sure what you mean.  I don't see any upset posts about the super-caps or keep-alive circuit.  No down-votes either.

Speakikng of this subject, the capacitors John is installing aren't a true keep-alive setup (which uses super-caps and will keep the model running for several seconds without track power).  John is simply adding few tantalum caps to the filter cap which is already present on most (or all) decoders on the raw-rectified-DC side. The capacitors John uses have much, much smaller capacitance than super-caps, and will only power the model for less than a second. But sometimes that is all it takes to smooth out the model's performance.

[reinhardtjh]

The traction tired driver is not geared. Only the two blind drivers are geared and one of those is not connected to the side rods.

I saw that noted on the Spookshow review and wondered why BLI would do that.  Would traction tires not work well on a blind driver?  I'm also surprised that only one would be attached to the driving rod (that part wasn't mentioned in the review, or I missed it).  Helps with quartering, I suppose but puts all the stress to drive the leading and trailing drivers on one set of pins.

I guess time will tell if the decision was correct.

I'm still picking up all my preorders when they all arrive at the shop.

[eric220]

I'm not sure what you mean.  I don't see any upset posts about the super-caps or keep-alive circuit.  No down-votes either.

Every post mentioning capacitors had been down voted. Somebody fixed it. 

[peteski]

Every post mentioning capacitors had been down voted. Somebody fixed it. 

Interesting.  Maybe someone thought that a new loco right from the factory should be reliable operationally without installing any modifications? 

[StewRRFan]

The coupler issue is interesting and a bit a head scratcher.  The manual has an entire section on DCC easy consist set up.

[peteski]

The coupler issue is interesting and a bit a head scratcher. 

While I don't own this model and not planning on getting it, I think that any of the  s here won't have much of a problem installing either a Z or an N scale MT coupler in the pilot.   But it won't be as easy for an average N scale modeler.