Author Topic: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?  (Read 28221 times)

nortoneye

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2018, 01:34:36 PM »
Talking to Tim at Ring yesterday he mentioned they are developing their own "keep alive" that he feels will be better than what is out there now, no timetable.  I have a k-4 on order to try this out.

jim

Rtardif

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2018, 07:07:28 PM »
I’m still pretty new to this hobby but is there any disadvantages to hard wiring the LM3S to the loco and getting rid of the motherboard. Besides the time and having to add a resistor for each light 

William Brillinger

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2018, 07:20:17 PM »
I’m still pretty new to this hobby but is there any disadvantages to hard wiring the LM3S to the loco and getting rid of the motherboard. Besides the time and having to add a resistor for each light

Nope. In fact hardwiring is the best choice  for reliability generally.
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Modeling the BNML in HO Scale, owner of Precision Design Co., and RailPro Dealer.


Dean

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2018, 06:55:34 PM »
TCS makes 9 PIN to 21 Pin adaptors.

    http://tcsdcc.com/Zen/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=401
Dean

William Brillinger

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2018, 08:37:12 PM »
TCS makes 9 PIN to 21 Pin adaptors.

    http://tcsdcc.com/Zen/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=401

Yes, but they do not connect on all the needed circuits, as is, to leverage the KA in the board. A full 21pin connection is required. I've been discussing this with TCS for a while now. When TCS releases a full breakout board then this will be a piece of cake. Then we can build a harness with the 6 and 9 pin connectors on it already.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2018, 08:41:39 PM by William Brillinger »
- Bill Brillinger, RPUG Admin

Modeling the BNML in HO Scale, owner of Precision Design Co., and RailPro Dealer.


William Brillinger

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #20 on: February 17, 2018, 08:42:24 PM »
Or... if Tim would release a 21pin version of the LM then it would plug right in.
- Bill Brillinger, RPUG Admin

Modeling the BNML in HO Scale, owner of Precision Design Co., and RailPro Dealer.


TwinStar

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #21 on: February 18, 2018, 10:26:23 AM »
Talking to Tim at Ring yesterday he mentioned they are developing their own "keep alive" that he feels will be better than what is out there now, no timetable.  I have a k-4 on order to try this out.

jim

How long has this been 'in development' now?
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William Brillinger

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #22 on: February 18, 2018, 10:33:23 AM »
How long has this been 'in development' now?

My earliest note from Tim Ring about that is from March 2014.
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nortoneye

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #23 on: February 18, 2018, 05:54:20 PM »
obviously not high on the To Do list!

G8B4Life

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #24 on: February 19, 2018, 07:51:08 AM »
My earliest note from Tim Ring about that is from March 2014.

Which makes me wonder just how many ways are there to connect some super capacitors, a resistor and a diode? Unless TR knows something that no one else does. In the meantime TCS and others keep selling their keep alives and taking RP customers money away from RE  :o

- Tim

Alan

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #25 on: February 19, 2018, 12:20:34 PM »
We discussed (guessed?) the keep alive issue with a LM3 in a past post. The LM3 has a ground pin on the connector, not present on LM1 or LM2. The ground pin is what facilitates attaching a conventional keep alive. However, there is a caveat - a keep alive connected across the ground pin and the blue positive wire places a power source, the keep alive, "downstream" from the current overload protection within the LM. This means if there is a short on an output pin and the keep alive is charged then there will be no current protection for the output transistor when the keep alive discharges through the short. Output transistor goes poof, output no longer works.

We speculated Tim may be working on a current regulated/limited version of a keep alive. This approach would spare the output transistors in the event of a short but would also limit drive current to the motor to <100mA (output pin limit). Likely 100mA is more than sufficient for motor drive current in all but a few cases like single locomotive under heavy load.

I'm guessing this current protection dilemma may be the reason it is taking Tim a long time to bring a product to market. If the LM had pins that connect to the output of the internal rectifier (upstream of current protection) then all would be well. That likely entails more change than it sounds like.
Alan

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When I was a kid... no wait, I still do that. HO, 28x32, double deck, 1969, RailPro

Dean

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #26 on: February 19, 2018, 04:58:22 PM »
I looked into adding KA to my RailPro engines. I even bookmarked the link to the wiring diagram posted here. But, to install KA to my RailPro engines would cost almost $500. Instead, I bought a small wire brush and spent an evening repairing and cleaning my layout. I used the small wire brush to clean the outside of switch points and the inside of the stock rails. I made sure the points were being held tight against the stock rails. I gave the track a good cleaning and applied an extra, extra light coating of graphite to the rails.

I have not had an engine drop out in 2-3 months.

I would rather spend my money on more RailPro decoders.  :)
Dean

nortoneye

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #27 on: February 19, 2018, 07:36:14 PM »
that was basically TR's point-clean track eliminates the need for KAs.  What did you use to apply graphite?  I have not heard of that before

jim

Dean

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #28 on: February 20, 2018, 09:18:17 AM »
Once I got the rails clean I rubbed a stick of graphite on a one-foot section of track. I did this at various places around the layout. Then I ran a train around the layout to spread the graphite. The idea is to get a microscopic layer of graphite on the rails. I have grades on my layout that are 2% and the trains go up them just fine.
Here is a link to another discussion on graphite. http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/267715/3030468.aspx

Another link  http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/17181
Dean

nortoneye

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Re: Motherboard replacement - useful or waste of time and $$?
« Reply #29 on: February 20, 2018, 12:30:26 PM »
Thanks,  I'll give it a try!