Lok Sound decoders


railBuilderDhd

railBuilderDhd

Active Member
I have been noticing a lot of post about people using these Lok Sound decoders. I wanted to know if these have become the new standard to use. I have a few QSI decoders as they sounded good and a few years ago I thought they were some of the best you could get.
Now I see the Lok Sound decoders and wanted to know if these are much better and should I be researching more about them?

I know everyone has opinions on what decoders are the best. I just want to know is what's the leading decoder now. It's been a few years since I've done any decoder research. Should I be reviewing decoders and think of replacing what I have now.

Dave
 
I think their the best decoder on the market now. With the right speaker set up they're a world of difference from other decoders. I know it's a big expense but if you can afford to buy the ESU programmer you can swap out sound files with out much trouble. You just need a few days to learn how the software works. If you wanted to add like I did a keep alive then there's a problem of soldering it on the board. Their really set up to use their own current keeper but others will work but even adding their own is a tough job. I called them and asked why they just didn't have something on the board that you just plug in. They told me their thinking about it. I told them I'm 70 years old and don't see all that well anymore. Anything they come up with would be a big help. I soldered both a current keeper and keep alive on two different boards and they work but it was a big pain. I forgot to add if your added another brand keep alive make sure you have an arrangement to disconnect it during programming.

George
 
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Thanks George. I think I need to learn more about the keep alive. I don't know about this and need to figure out if this is even something I need to be doing. So far I've not had the need but I'm not running trains for a long time or have them sitting on a layout waiting to run so I'm not needing what I'm thinking is a keep alive state on my locos. I could be all wrong, it's happend before.

Dave
 
I have some double crossover switches on the layout where I have extended the insulated portion of the frog with nail polish to stop short circuits. Some of my locos lose power for a second traveling over these switches. Keep Alive eliminates this problem. That's why I have it installed on some of my locos. You most likely don't need it but it can keep your trains running nice and smooth.

George
 
railBuilderDhd said:
I think I need to learn more about the keep alive. I don't know about this and need to figure out if this is even something I need to be doing.
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Crash course in Keep Alive (or the same process under any other trade name).

Our locomotives run on DC. Within the DCC system, the DC supplied to the rails is connected to the decoder. The decoder receives commands superimposed on that DC supply and in turn supplies power (voltage and current) to the motor of the locomotive. The power from the rails to the decoder might get interrupted, say by a gap in the rails at the frog of a turnout. If its a very small gap, you may not even notice it, inertia carrying the locomotive across. At a small gap, you might notice a jerk or hesitation, but again, inertia may carry the loco onward. But a larger gap, or dirty track, or a discontinuity between the power pickups of the locomotive, or, or, or, the locomotive stops, since the decoder, and therefore the motor, are no longer receiving power.

Enter the Keep Alive. A Keep Alive device is nothing more than a capacitor. A capacitor is a device that stores an electrical charge. With modern technology, where everything is getting smaller, a small (physically) capacitor can hold a large charge. So when the locomotive encounters a loss of power, for whatever reason, the capacitor automatically supplies power until a) rail power is restored, or b) the capacitor is empty. Don't confuse a loss of power with a commanded reduction in power. The capacitor allows the decoder to keep doing what it was doing. It doesn't interfere with changes to power levels the decoder makes.

Note: the term locomotive is used generically for any device that receives power and generates motion.
 
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Red Oak & Western said:
Crash course in Keep Alive (or the same process under any other trade name).

Our locomotives run on DC. Within the DCC system, the DC supplied to the rails is connected to the decoder.
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Minor correction. Conventional model trains run with DC power supplied to the rails. Speed control is accomplished by varying the voltage.

DCC equipped model trains use AC power supplied to the rails, and the DCC controller then converts it to DC for the motor. The voltage of the AC is constant, and the DC supplied to the motor also has the voltage varied as needed by the DCC controller. So you essentially have a tiny computer controlled transformer on each locomotive. That's how you are able to do speed matching in DCC. If the motor on one engine needs 8 volts to run at 20 scale miles per hour and another needs 9 volts to run the same speed, with DC you're out of luck. But with DCC, after you make some adjustments, they'll both get what current they need to run the same speed for the throttle setting.

So why use AC in the first place? Well, that's how they transmit the control data to the DCC system. It can't be encoded in DC power.

Aside from the nitpick that the power supplied to the rails is AC not DC, everything else in your comment is accurate.
 
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modelbob said:
Minor correction. DCC equipped model trains use AC power supplied to the rails, and the DCC controller then converts it to DC for the motor.
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Minor re-correction. From the NMRA DCC standard S9.1:C: "Digital Decoders intended for "N" and smaller scales shall be designed to withstand a DC voltage of at least 24 volts as measured at the track. Digital Decoders intended for scales larger than "N" shall be designed to withstand a DC voltage of at least 27 volts as measured at the track."

I think this is really a case of semantics. The basic power supplied to the Command Station is DC (an AC supply is internally rectified to DC). The digital command signal is generated from this basic power. The result is a digital signal of between 4000 and 8000 Hz, but not really AC, since the waveform is not a sine wave varying above and below 0, but a modulated digital signal. The voltage on each rail alternates from positive voltage (High) to 0 volts. On an oscilloscope this appears to indicate a plus/minus signal, but it really isn't.

I just didn't want to get that technical in a "crash course"! :rolleyes:
 
Red Oak - Your explanation of the voltage levels makes it sound like it was designed by the same guys that came up with the systems on some aerospace equipment a half-century ago! The ground signals were +24 volt to 0, while the airborne system was + or - 12 volts. To get the two systems to "talk" to each other they needed a "logic coupler" rack. (This was all transistor-transistor logic, TTL, and was fairly big...contained in a series of drawers!)

Regardless of how it is done, the only thing I know is that in HO scale DCC you don't want to have a DC motor on the track. The AC on the rails will burn the DC motors if left there for very long! :( Since I have more DC locomotives that DCC, I can switch back and forth between systems. A toggle on my control panel determines which system is connected. (For those of us who have difficulty walking and chewing gum at the same time... :p )

BTW, I do notice that when I have DCC turned on, a DC engine on a spur, with a cutoff toggle installed on the track, still has its headlight come on faintly! Not sure if this is because the spur power is only shut off on one rail or what!
 
Trail -

If you remember when TTL was actually made up of transistors - you're showing your age too (along with Dave's reference to drinking ripple)! As to the headlight, since DCC is technically RF, you might be getting a small amount of coupling across the gap to the spur, but not enough to worry about. That is one thing with DCC I do do, (okay, two things) all cutoff switches are double pole and I twist the control wires. Not for any effect on the DCC system itself, but to reduce interference to other RF sensitive systems in the house.
 
You've just given me a clue as to why I, and others, get garbled display information on our NCE Pro cab R's at the club (cursor shifting place, numbers appearing mixed in with letters in the display etc or no dashed line to enter them on). I seem to get this interference the worst with mine, but thankfully have proved to be not alone, The wiring in the layout is pretty old and converted from DC, very much doubt any is twisted. There is also metal angle as the legs and table top framing.
 
Red Oak & Western said:
Trail -

If you remember when TTL was actually made up of transistors - you're showing your age too (along with Dave's reference to drinking ripple)! As to the headlight, since DCC is technically RF, you might be getting a small amount of coupling across the gap to the spur, but not enough to worry about. That is one thing with DCC I do do, (okay, two things) all cutoff switches are double pole and I twist the control wires. Not for any effect on the DCC system itself, but to reduce interference to other RF sensitive systems in the house.
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Showing my age? Just because I rode the original Pioneer Zephyr when I was a kid (it had the fourth car in the consist then)? Ironically, the ConCor Zephyr (DC version) is the one that has its red light illuminated. I generally use DPDT toggles, but I'll have to look and see if I used both poles. Meantime, since the spur is one of two accessed by a manual turnout, I just moved the ground throw to an intermediate position, so neither spur gets both side of the DC. Twisting the control wires is probably also a great idea (presuming they aren't already twisted by the rats nest of wires inside my control panel). :rolleyes:
 
Off subject here but on point. When talking twisted wires (not me being twisted). This would be physically twisting the 2 wires together down the leingth of the run.

Dave
 
The other thing you can do too when running a buss, is, where you will want droppers or some other connection to the different wires in the buss, is to form a loop in each wire so it sticks out on either side, twist the buss a little more tightly either side to fix the loops in position and then carry on with the looser twists. Makes it easier to connect the droppers.
 
Im very intrigued by this 'Keep Alive' system. Approx how long will the average loco continue to run in this mode? Maybe a couple seconds or there abouts?
 
From 1 to 6 seconds depending on a lot of factors, including the size/efficiency of the DC motor, the load on the motor, the number of "accessory circuits" active - head lights, ditch lights, etc.
 
I have been told (now that absolves me of all blame it it's wrong) that there is one disadvantage to KA's is, that if a derailment occurs that shuts down the layout power, the loco carry's on it's own merry way till the capacitor discharges.
 
tootnkumin said:
I have been told (now that absolves me of all blame it it's wrong) that there is one disadvantage to KA's is, that if a derailment occurs that shuts down the layout power, the loco carry's on it's own merry way till the capacitor discharges.
Click to expand...

That sounds like it would be true and I could see that being a little problem. More likely a small problem that would be less of an issue then the locos going dead.

Dave
 
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