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For the negative side, any of the many green marked spots will work. The green circles indicate large areas of copper on the circuit board which are the "ground" of the decoder. If you want to attach your cap to those areas, you have to scrape off the green solder mask layer and expose the bare copper.As far as red and black wires go, it is up to you, but in the DCC world red and green are colors are assigned to right and left track connections. You would not want to mix those up with the decoders internal ground and positive voltages. That is why other color wires are used for the capacitors. Blue is usually the internal positive voltage and black with white stripe is often used for internal ground.
I pulled this table together a while back, because it can get confusing (and note, after the Com+ column, things can get wild)
The negative wire point of attachment I was referring to was the exposed solder joint, therefore no scraping to find a copper pad. Is that OK or is there a reason not to do that. And thanks for those wire color suggestions. I figured there was probably something that those in the industry would use as a "standard" but I didn't have a clue as to what it was. I'm learning all sorts of stuff I never wanted to know.
Thanks John. I do remember you mentioning the capacitor hookup last but I had forgotten about that. Good I didn't already install them. I'm pretty sure I won't need them on my layout but if I ever do run elsewhere or ever sell something, it'll be best to have them based on prevailing wisdom. And who knows, I may find I actually do need them. Does 200uf sound adequate for decent backup, the minimum if a soul was going to bother at all? I know it can vary but at some point is it the job of the decoder install to cover for atrocious track conditions?
I've found that somewhere around 400uf is really necessary to make a serious dent in sound dropouts. And that's not going to help with really dirty track - I'm talking about relatively clean track (and wheels) where you still get dropouts from truly momentary loss of electrical conductivity. I keep my track and wheels pretty clean, but I noticed dropouts on my road units at slower speeds, particularly when traversing my yard ladder (which uses all powered frogs, so it isn't that). So I put in two 220uf 16v tantalum caps, and that cured things. It looks like you have room for caps on the shelf at the rear (or is that the front - can't tell) under the decoder. These days, the preferred caps seem to be the polymer tantalum caps that are only 2mm high (they are more tolerant to over-voltage than standard tantalums); you can get 100uf, 20v ones, and I'll bet you have room for 4 on that shelf. I'd put them in, even if you don't think you'll need them.https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/panasonic-electronic-components/20TQC100MD2/P19854CT-ND/6202259John C.
With this tool I hope not to enable the on board smoke generator.
Don't worry, that circuit is very robust and very difficult to disable.
That's really superb work. The speaker enclosure is ingenious; I wonder if it would fit other hood diesels besides the RS11.
Indeed, looks great. Makes me wonder if we could 3D print an enclosure like that instead.
Very nice indeed. Would you post a video when done?, would love to hear and see it.