Zen Decoders and Stay Alives any good ?

[Too Tall]

I was looking for a 6 pin decoder I could use with a stay alive without braking the bank, and saw the Zen 6 pin Nem blue+ that come pre wired for their own stay alives.

Looking to fit to the Hornby TT120 Class 08, so:

1. Are they reliable decoders and work well with the Elite ?
2. Which size stay alive do I need (small and medium are the only ones that I think willl fit) ?

[Fishmanoz]

TT, I was hoping to know about this but have had a slight mishap.

I purchased a Zen without stay alive a while ago. First thing I discovered was that it is too wide to lie flat in the tray. I fiddled around with it before being happy I could fit it on a slant and put the body back.

Fired up the Elite - no response. Reverted to DC, the blanking plug and analog controller - no response.

At that point, I discovered I had fractured one of the wires to the socket so re-soldered and tried again. Now working DC but no response DCC after a range of tests. So now in the process of warranty return with DCC Concepts.

As for a stay alive, I think the cab is the only place you can fit one. I didn’t go this way as my 08 was working reliably over points on DC and was hoping this would carry over to DCC.

[5Dublo2]

I have Zen decoders in 3 locos (one of which also has the Stay Alive fitted) - worked OK with a Hornby Select so no reason it should not work with an Elite.

However be aware that the way the Zen Stay Alive system connects up is:

1) The Zen Decoder is pre-fitted with a trailing 3-wire lead that terminates in a small plug

2) The small plug on the decoder wire fits into a socket on a small shrink wrapped PCB that comes with the Stay Alive Capacitor

3) The Stay Alive Capacitor is on a trailing 2-wire wire lead that also ends in a plug and connects to the PCB.

This means you have 3 things to find space for: The DCC decoder itself, the Stay Alive PCB and the Stay Alive Capacitor

[Too Tall]

Thanks guys.

@Fishy yep I have already made room for the hornby stay alive, which is larger so should be OK. Mine doesn't reliably crawl over Hornby points, despite me ensuring all contacts on the wheels are OK, I dont want to be shunting and keep having to nerf gronky along !

@5Dublo2 I didn't realise that, I assumed the capacitors were mounted on the board.

But as there is room for the HM7000 8 pin chip, speaker and hornby stay alive (as done by you tuber TWW) hopefully I can find a way, fingers crossed !

Edit ... just realized how sizeable the stay alive pcb is !

Still, I'll see if I can shoehorn it in, as its on the way kissing_closed_eyes