Zimo pins to wires?

[peterm1]

I've used the common positive to operate a light and a stay alive and haven't had a problem.

[John Besley]

24 minutes ago, peterm1 said:

I've used the common positive to operate a light and a stay alive and haven't had a problem.

 

Ok that's what I was wondering, where does the neg go to on the stay alive then

[Nigelcliffe]

1 hour ago, John Besley said:

 

Ok that's what I was wondering, where does the neg go to on the stay alive then

 

The decoder 0 volts, often labelled as "ground" or "mass"(German) in diagrams and documentation.   

 

In the case of the MX600, it is a solder pad on the decoder, illustrated earlier in the thread.

 

The stay-alive is providing a temporary power-source for the decoder, so it is connected to the decoder positive and decoder ground, which power everything in the decoder.  

 

 

10 hours ago, John Besley said:

 

Yes it's 0.60am comes under the max for the decoder

 

I'd regard that as marginal.   Yes, its under the rated continuous, but not by a large margin.   You'll probably be OK, but I'd want more headroom, so different decoder. 

 

[John Besley]

54 minutes ago, Nigelcliffe said:

 

The decoder 0 volts, often labelled as "ground" or "mass"(German) in diagrams and documentation.   

 

In the case of the MX600, it is a solder pad on the decoder, illustrated earlier in the thread.

 

The stay-alive is providing a temporary power-source for the decoder, so it is connected to the decoder positive and decoder ground, which power everything in the decoder.  

 

I'd regard that as marginal.   Yes, its under the rated continuous, but not by a large margin.   You'll probably be OK, but I'd want more headroom, so different decoder. 

 

 

Ok what Zimo would you recomend?

[John Besley]

15 hours ago, Izzy said:

 

Unless you intend to replace it at some stage in the future and use it elsewhere I'd suggest just cutting off the plug and surplus wires and hard wiring it into place. So if no functions are needed, just motor control and stay-alive pack then remove the green, white, yellow. 

 

It's red and black to the track/pickups, orange and grey to the motor tags, while the blue (common positive) along with another connection made to the ground are the stay-alive connections.  I re-use the white for the ground. You do not connect stay-alive to the motor itself. You must of course use the appropriate stay-alive pack/parts. Here is where the pad for the ground connection is on the MX600. On the underside.

 

 

As per here:

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Bob

 

The back of mine is differnt... which tab is ground

 

 

 

[Nigelcliffe]

3 minutes ago, John Besley said:

 

The back of mine is differnt... which tab is ground

 

 

 

 

 

You'll have to trace it yourself (I'd guess one end or the other of the row of five).    The official documentation has "ground" on the top surface of the decoder, between two components, and is more tricky to connect.    Zimo's tech support might tell you if you ask, but they may just point to the official manuals.  

When asking about other decoders, I'd look for 100% head-room.  So, a 0.6A motor would need a decoder rated for 1.2A continuous.   I might go lower in some situations.  

 

 

[Izzy]

2 hours ago, John Besley said:

 

The back of mine is differnt... which tab is ground

 

 

 

 

Oh, seems they have revised the design, no doubt to do with component availability and suchlike. Okay, here's the original, Zimo recommended connection point which I used until I was made aware of the alternative.  You do need a fine point tip to get to it. Unless of course the top surface arrangement /design has also changed......!

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Nigelcliffe said:

When asking about other decoders, I'd look for 100% head-room.  So, a 0.6A motor would need a decoder rated for 1.2A continuous.   I might go lower in some situations.  

 

 

 

As the MX600 has a continuous current of 0.8A and a momentary of 1.5A wouldn't that be enough for a coreless motor with a stall of 0.6A? ( I'm presuming the quoted 0.6A is stall not running value and the C1320 is a coreless from High Level Kits).

[Nigelcliffe]

39 minutes ago, Izzy said:

As the MX600 has a continuous current of 0.8A and a momentary of 1.5A wouldn't that be enough for a coreless motor with a stall of 0.6A? ( I'm presuming the quoted 0.6A is stall not running value and the C1320 is a coreless from High Level Kits).

 

I'd like 100% headroom, so 400mA at a MX600 with its 800mA continuous rating.     

 

I've no idea what motor is in use.   However, if it is one of High Level's recent coreless, then I'd be surprised if it got as high as 0.6A.   I've not tried stalling one and measuring.   

 

[Izzy]

37 minutes ago, Nigelcliffe said:

 

I'd like 100% headroom, so 400mA at a MX600 with its 800mA continuous rating.     

 

I've no idea what motor is in use.   However, if it is one of High Level's recent coreless, then I'd be surprised if it got as high as 0.6A.   I've not tried stalling one and measuring.   

 

Thanks Nigel, that’s interesting, and food for thought as usual.

 

Bob

[John Besley]

3 hours ago, Izzy said:

 

Oh, seems they have revised the design, no doubt to do with component availability and suchlike. Okay, here's the original, Zimo recommended connection point which I used until I was made aware of the alternative.  You do need a fine point tip to get to it. Unless of course the top surface arrangement /design has also changed......!

 

 

 

 

 

As the MX600 has a continuous current of 0.8A and a momentary of 1.5A wouldn't that be enough for a coreless motor with a stall of 0.6A? ( I'm presuming the quoted 0.6A is stall not running value and the C1320 is a coreless from High Level Kits).

 

That is the stall ampage 0.6A

[John Besley]

Having just carefully wired up the stay alive... now nothing works... the controller can't read the decoder ...

 

Any ideas? Have I screwed up the decoder, it did work as I went through all the set ups before adding the stay alive and they worked

[John Besley]

Actually found the decoder had shorted out... order another now on its way.

 

Set to and wired up the second loco this time with a sounder Ms490F which works very well on the test bench, although it does seem to stop completely requiring a slight nudge to move again... i need to check the connections for the LaisDCC 872007 stay alive i take it these are as used for the capacitor as supplied I did wire this into the Common + (not the Cap+ from underneath) and ground however this doesnt apper to be correct so removed it.

 

Sound project for this is the Ruston 48DS

[peterm1]

I always use the supplied Cap' and ground tabs if they're there. I don't know why you wouldn't.

[John Besley]

4 hours ago, peterm1 said:

I always use the supplied Cap' and ground tabs if they're there. I don't know why you wouldn't.

 

Simply because that what the instructions said to use ...

[Izzy]

5 hours ago, peterm1 said:

I always use the supplied Cap' and ground tabs if they're there. I don't know why you wouldn't.

There are two different arrangements for the MS490. A direct connection for a small 16v capacitor up to 1,000uF, and another for complete stay-alive packs using the normal common + and ground. 
 

@John Besley There are some decoders that won’t read on a program track once stay-alive is added. Those I’ve encountered like this to date (CT & TTS) also need analogue running turned off to work, although I do this by default anyway. I have not encountered these issues so far with any flavour of Zimo, sound or non-sound, but I also don’t use large capacity stay-alive such as LaisDCC, nothing over that 1,000uF figure. This might also have an impact.

 

With regard to the MX600 going duff I would suspect the stay-alive connections were the culprit and must be different to those I posted, the ground connection. 

 

It’s all a learning curve …….

[John Besley]

Fortunately that one only cost me £26.00... otherwise its an intresting learning curve, I am tempted to send both chassis to Digitrains once I've got them both up and running as they recommend the station alive... if they blow up the decoders then it's another issue...

[malc60015]

18 minutes ago, John Besley said:

Fortunately that one only cost me £26.00... otherwise its an intresting learning curve, I am tempted to send both chassis to Digitrains once I've got them both up and running as they recommend the station alive... if they blow up the decoders then it's another issue...

For a small fee digitrains will solder the ground wire on MX600 they supply.

 

No connection just a happy customer.

cheers malc

[Lemmy282]

There should be no problems with the Lais stay alive. I have several that work perfectly well with the Mx600, both the original and revised circuit board versions.