My first experience with a TCS KAM4 decoder

[railfan4life]

I recently installed my first TCS KAM4 decoder and am pretty impressed with the results.  I was experiencing a problem with an Athearn SW1000 stalling at slow speeds when going through my double crossover. Rather than add some additional wiring to the double crossover, and since this was the only engine having this problem, I swapped out the engine's decoder to a KAM4. The KAM4 has a keep-alive capacitor that is able to store a few second worth power to keep the engine running over dead spots. Installation was straight forward and now the engine can slowly go through my double crossover without stalling.

If you're interested, I posted a short video showing the before and after operation of the switcher.

Demonstration of Keep-Alive DCC Decoder in Short Wheel Base Locomotive



Cheers,

[pacbelt]

Nice demonstration!
I'm surprised that NOBODY has had anything to say about it. By this time, everything in my fleet has a Keep-Alive equipped TCS decoder, or another decoder that I have adapted a Keep-Alive unit with. I now couldn't imagine running my layout without them!

Of course, this is NOT a substitution for proper track maintenance. But, for the occasional dead spot, dead frog, or anything....
These have been a PERFECT solution! On top of that, TCS's Auto-BEMF makes everything I have crawl, accelerate, and just run, smother than they ever have. That includes ALL of them, from various manufacturers.

Thanks for sharing!
~ Carmine

[riogrande]

Carmine,

While I haven't commented, I have taken note - especially because I have a couple of Athearn SW1000 just like the one in the video - same road number too. Its on the to-do list along with 50 other things!

Cheers

[nebrzephyr]

It appears the lights still blink and even go out when it goes over the "dead" spots. Wonder if there is a way around that? Bob