Model Railroading > Keep Alive Units

I'm looking into installing keep alives into some of my HO scale locos and im curious if the experts out there would have some reccomendations. I'm looking for keep alives to put in my ATH Genesis gp9 w/ tsunami 1, I've opened that engine up a couple of times and theres not a whole lot of space to work in there so don't know if that will limit my options. The second keep alive I wan't in my ATH RTR sd40-2. There is an ECO-100 decoder in the sd40-2 that I had installed a couple years back. Thanks in advance for your help.

There's a good article in the new October 2019 Model Railroader on page 54/55 titled "Another look at stay-alives" in their DCC Corner.  Talks about the differinces between the manufacturers and their color coading standards as well as their performance.
 

Keep in mind the keep alive will keep the locomotive moving after it derails or after it goes by insulated rail joiners into dead track. The larger the keep alive the farther it will move perhaps to places you don't want it to go.

Will keep this in mind, I mainly use my engines for switching and I'm getting pretty sick of the engines "crapping out" as I call it over the frogs.

There was a thread on here a while back where the modeler installed a TCS KA-4 I think in the short front hood after removing the front weight. However I can't find it.I just finished installing TCS KA-1 units in 4  Atlas Rio Grande GP 40's using the Tsunami GN 1 boards from my Genesis GP 40-2's. I re-inistalled Tsunami 2 decoders so I could get a better decoder and the correct Rio Grande Nathan M-3 horn. The take out decoders don't have the M-3 horn and the 4 GP-40's are trailing units. My 3 other Atlas GP 40's got Tsumami 2 decoders. The KA-1 keeps the locomotive running for close to 10 seconds. The original poster lost some tractive weight by discarding the front weight . You could cut down your front weight and use the KA-1 as it is smaller and thinner and get a bit more tractive effort in an already light weight model.

You may want to look at Wiring for DCC at http://www.wiringfordcc.com/index.htm for ways to improve switch performance

Fredo Wrote:
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> There was a thread on here a while back where the
> modeler installed a TCS KA-4 I think in the short
> front hood after removing the front weight.

Definitely recommend the KA4 in the GP9 short hood (remove the upper weight above the gear tower).
Be sure to attach to the specific points on the Tsunami 1 as referenced here (scroll down to the TSU GN diagram)

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm

DO NOT ATTACH the KA4 to the 14 volt pin on the tsunami 1 GN version, it doesn't power the motor. Use the diagram on the website.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/19 08:52 by KA7008.

I used the GN1000 drawing as to where to solder the wires and it works perfectly