"Stay Alive" question please.

[Bogallan]

I am new to DCC. I bought the Hornby Club 0-4-0 Red Tri-ang steam loco recently and fitted DCC. It goes, though not very well. So I thought I'd try a fit a Stay-Alive pack. From what I have been reading up, you have to connect the Stay Alive to the +ve and -ve side of the bridge rectifier. I believe the +ve side is simple as you can just solder onto the blue (common) wire. My question is, if anybody can answer it, is where to solder the -ve wire to? Is it where I have drawn the arrow to? If it is, it will pretty fiddly to solder to as it is so small, but I'll give it a go. it is a Generic Bachmann decoder by the way that does not seem to have any Stay-Alive "fly-outs" that would have made it much easier to connect the Stay-Alive pack to. Thank you. (i have included a picture of the reverse of the decoder too for good measure!)

 

[Ducatist4]

I can't answer your question but the workmanship on the board is amongst the worst I've ever seen!

 

[Cowley]

I am new to DCC. I bought the Hornby Club 0-4-0 Red Tri-ang steam loco recently and fitted DCC. It goes, though not very well. So I thought I'd try a fit a Stay-Alive pack. From what I have been reading up, you have to connect the Stay Alive to the +ve and -ve side of the bridge rectifier. I believe the +ve side is simple as you can just solder onto the blue (common) wire. My question is, if anybody can answer it, is where to solder the -ve wire to? Is it where I have drawn the arrow to? If it is, it will pretty fiddly to solder to as it is so small, but I'll give it a go. it is a Generic Bachmann decoder by the way that does not seem to have any Stay-Alive "fly-outs" that would have made it much easier to connect the Stay-Alive pack to. Thank you. (i have included a picture of the reverse of the decoder too for good measure!)

@reddragon has fitted quite a few of these. He may be able to advise.

 

[reddragon]

@reddragon has fitted quite a few of these. He may be able to advise.

I even have spares now Lima locos are departing!

Issue 1 - soldering on a chip is a route to disaster so I got Gaugemaster chips with a socket to plug in the capacitor.

Issue 2 - I used the capacitors because old Lima / Hornby locos picked up from each rail on opposite bogies so stopped at gaps between sections. A dirty loco will instead fail to respond to DCC commands that the capacitor is potentially looking to solve.

Moving old locos to DCC can be problematic. 80's + Lima / Hornby ring-field locos tend to be fine, but even then if too old they faulter. It is rare to succeed with such a loco due to the high resistance / current draw that can be present.