LNERGE Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 What is a reasonable test to see if a stay alive is actually working? I have been driving a loco into a dead section but there seems to be no difference between when I have the pack plugged in and when it's not. Is there a magic CV to alter at similar? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelcliffe Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Dunno, give us a clue ? Decoder make and model ? Capacitor type/size ? Type of loco ? Did it work before ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNERGE Posted January 1, 2021 Author Share Posted January 1, 2021 DCC Concepts Zen black with a super sized capacitor pack via the plug in power management board im a Bachmann 25 with an eight pin socket. CV 29 set to 2. Capacitor and chokes removed on loco circuit board. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNERGE Posted January 2, 2021 Author Share Posted January 2, 2021 I must confess to not giving it long enough to charge up before getting stressed with it. I ran the 25 earlier today and slipped a trailing point over and it ran right through the dead section between the signal and points. Stressed i certainly was with it yesterday. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir TophamHatt Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 You can also try a rolling road. Lift up the loco and see if it still runs. Notes: Lais decoders have been known to run the loco in the opposite direction to which it was running when power is cut. The tiny 470uF capacitors that come with many "decoder and stay alive" kits are useless really. While some people are happy their locos will be given a tiny amount of power, I'd want one that will help the loco travel a minimum of 5cm just in case. You'll be amazed with lights and sound how much juice is needed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 Don't assume all Stay Alive's are the same. They vary according to what they're designed to do. Some are only intended to smooth out the power supply and allow locos to overcome momentary dead spots, such as a speck of dirt on the track, or a brief loss of wheel contact with the track. In which case they're not going to keep a loco going over 0.5cm or 1cm of dead rail, or over a dead frog. Other stay alives are designed to keep locos running over dead sections, for anything up to 30cm or 12" or so. These would be much better at keeping running over for instance, dead frogs. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
norman Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 I notice that with ESU they limit the time for stay alive and I wonder why they do this? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelcliffe Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 27 minutes ago, norman said: I notice that with ESU they limit the time for stay alive and I wonder why they do this? A big stay alive can run a small O gauge loco for at least 2meters: I have one, built as a demo piece, and I could have made it run much further with a bigger capacitor bank, there was plenty of room for more! With that much available stored energy, a loco can run over the scenery, wrap a bush around the valve gear, continue over the baseboard, onto the floor, and be half way out to the garden (if not in pieces before then). So, a run-time limit is sensible - a second or so without DCC signal means it can't do much damage. Which then raises the question, why fit such large energy reserves ? And the answer is that there will be (a) negligible voltage drop when using the power reserve, so there won't be any visible or audible changes, and (b) some "tricks" require large amounts of stored energy. For example, Zimo have a really useful "trick" whereby a stay-alive fitted loco won't stop if there is no pickup (dirt somewhere or dead track). If a loco were to stop on some dead track, it would then be unresponsive to any other commands. Instead, should the Zimo equipped loco come to a halt and there is no track power, the loco will attempt to nudge itself along until power is restored or the stay-alive is exhausted. Such nudging has a motor moving from standstill, which consumes a lot of power to make any movement. (There are no settings to enable this, if you've a stay-alive on a Zimo, it just does it, automatically, but won't be visible with a small energy store. ). ESU and Zimo, and I expect others, have limits on running time of stay-alive without a DCC signal. That stops accidents and breakages. Lenz do it differently, but achieve the same result in that their locos will "stop dead" if removed from the track, but will keep running if there is a DCC signal very close (eg. bit of paper or paint on rail). Lenz use some sort of clever inductive measurement to determine whether to stop or not. - Nigel 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
norman Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 Yes Nigel I agree but the manufacturer should not set an arbitrary limit and the end user should decide what is enough. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelcliffe Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 25 minutes ago, norman said: Yes Nigel I agree but the manufacturer should not set an arbitrary limit and the end user should decide what is enough. Which maker are you complaining about ? ESU and Zimo have CVs to set the run time. Lenz runs so long as the loco can sense rail nearby. - Nigel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
norman Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Yes but ESU's time allowed is minimal Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locoman58 Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 16 hours ago, norman said: Yes but ESU's time allowed is minimal Why do you need more than 8.36 seconds please? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamburger Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 16 hours ago, norman said: Yes but ESU's time allowed is minimal ESU bashing? Zimo user? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCCconcepts Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 On 02/01/2021 at 22:40, Richard Croft said: I have used the DCC concepts stay alives in the past and I couldn't tell if they worked either, they are useless. The newer ones might be better but I haven't tried them. They should charge up pretty much instantly, you shouldn't be needing to wait. Richard Hi Richard, The small stay alives as supplied with earlier decoders were for micro-breaks in pickup - not visible run-on as Ron Ron says. The new range of stay alives will show appreciable run-on over dead spots. Distance will depend upon loco speed/current draw and also cut off time if the decoder supports it. As well as charge time - which can be over a minute to reach full capacity in some cases. Regarding charging time - if they are allowed to charge too fast, there is the possibility of overheating a decoder. Particularly if a loco is used on dirty/dead track where the stay alive is constantly charging/discharging. In reality - even though we make stay alive units - a stay alive is there as an aid - it is not a quick fix for dirty/dead track/bad pickups etc. Best Regards, The DCCconcepts Team 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNERGE Posted January 6, 2021 Author Share Posted January 6, 2021 I was definately being a bit impatient and my frustration came to the fore. A positive test for the bug may explain a bit of that lol. I would say it is working as intended now. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dasatcopthorne Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 On 06/01/2021 at 11:40, DCCconcepts said: Hi Richard, The small stay alives as supplied with earlier decoders were for micro-breaks in pickup - not visible run-on as Ron Ron says. The new range of stay alives will show appreciable run-on over dead spots. Distance will depend upon loco speed/current draw and also cut off time if the decoder supports it. As well as charge time - which can be over a minute to reach full capacity in some cases. Regarding charging time - if they are allowed to charge too fast, there is the possibility of overheating a decoder. Particularly if a loco is used on dirty/dead track where the stay alive is constantly charging/discharging. In reality - even though we make stay alive units - a stay alive is there as an aid - it is not a quick fix for dirty/dead track/bad pickups etc. Best Regards, The DCCconcepts Team I have just fitted the following to a Bachmann Class 03 with a Loksound V4 Micro. I mainly fitted it because I get the odd drop out which seems to be a pick up problem. I've tried everything to cure it and this was my last resort. I fitted the Small size Zen 3 wire as this is all I could fit in the body. I cannot see any effect at all. I've left it to charge up for a couple of minutes and CV113 is set to 254. When loosing pick up or switching of there is not run on of the loco or the sound. ?? Dave. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Izzy Posted January 11, 2021 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 11, 2021 18 hours ago, dasatcopthorne said: I have just fitted the following to a Bachmann Class 03 with a Loksound V4 Micro. I mainly fitted it because I get the odd drop out which seems to be a pick up problem. I've tried everything to cure it and this was my last resort. I fitted the Small size Zen 3 wire as this is all I could fit in the body. I cannot see any effect at all. I've left it to charge up for a couple of minutes and CV113 is set to 254. When loosing pick up or switching of there is not run on of the loco or the sound. ?? Dave. With most smaller capacity SA’s there won’t be any noticeable or visible sign they are working in my experience, just that a loco will work smoothly and reliably on track whereas without it this is not the case. Only at very high speed will any appreciable run-on of the wheels be spotted. Maybe as much as a quarter revolution (!). At slow speed half a spoke would be the level at most. But it is enough to get the loco over dirt etc, and this might be happening many times every wheel revolution. Constant charge/discharge while powering things. All my SA’s are home-brew using 16v tantalum packs no bigger than 3/4 220uf so 660 or 880 uf. I have a small pack in a Bachmann 03 with a Paul Chetter/Zimo 648 install and it works well but was a squeeze to hide it all. I have no idea what the small DCC Zen 3 size may be. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted January 12, 2021 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 12, 2021 16 hours ago, Richard Croft said: Sometimes you need to disable aux6 on the v4 when you use a stay alive, that might be your problem. I can’t remember the CV’s off the top of my head but they are on here somewhere. This may help. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyID Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 Not a problem with DC. And you can do an emergency stop by applying a dead short across the rails. {Exits stage-right PDQ) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir TophamHatt Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 On 12/01/2021 at 01:39, AndyID said: Not a problem with DC. No but you get a lot less features with DC... not that we need to flog that dead horse. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyID Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 6 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said: No but you get a lot less features with DC... not that we need to flog that dead horse. Quite so. I posted that because I suspect it's usually assumed that stay alive is only possible with DCC. This version is a bit different of course. It's really more an "electronic flywheel" than a short term battery. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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