AE Model 2-Wire High Power Plug & Play Stay-Alive

[BritInVanCA]

An alternative to the Hornby stay alive which is generally unavailable at the moment. I was thinking of trying them to deal with power unreliability in my TT120 locomotives but I might wait for the reviews. Also looks like another opportunity for Hornby to say the warranty is void if your decoder dies while connected to one of these so I am cautious. 

Edited March 29 by BritInVanCA

[SteveM6]

Still too big for TT. As you say, may invalidate your warranty.

[BritInVanCA]

@SteveM6 there have been a number of videos finding creative ways to add a power bank to the Pacifics with varying degrees of modification. @Peachy was intriguing 

[96RAF]

3 hours ago, BritInVanCA said:

Also looks like another opportunity for Hornby to say the warranty is void if your decoder dies while connected to one of these so I am cautious. 

It already says that in the famous manual

 

[BritInVanCA]

Yeah. Hornby is turning into the Apple of model railways rather than the Linux. If only there was a standards organization that could certify the entire DCC space (eye roll)! 

[ColinB]

4 hours ago, BritInVanCA said:

An alternative to the Hornby stay alive which is generally unavailable at the moment. I was thinking of trying them to deal with power unreliability in my TT120 locomotives but I might wait for the reviews. Also looks like another opportunity for Hornby to say the warranty is void if your decoder dies while connected to one of these so I am cautious. 

I read the data from DCC Concepts and the AE "Stay Alive" has the same 3 pin connector as the Hornby Powerbank. This means you will not be soldering directly to the HM7000 so you will not invalidate the warranty. If by chance the decoder dies (which I very much doubt it will), you just unplug the "Stay alive" and return the decoder to Hornby. How are they ever going to know. I doubt DCC Concepts would be advertising it as an alternative if it didn't work or damaged the decoder, it is not like they know nothing about DCC. The bigger issue is size, it is bigger than the Hornby Powerbank. Perhaps long term AE will make a smaller pack, which I suspect will sell quite well.

[BritInVanCA]

2 minutes ago, ColinB said:

I read the data from DCC Concepts and the AE "Stay Alive" has the same 3 pin connector as the Hornby Powerbank. This means you will not be soldering directly to the HM7000 so you will not invalidate the warranty. If by chance the decoder dies (which I very much doubt it will), you just unplug the "Stay alive" and return the decoder to Hornby. How are they ever going to know. I doubt DCC Concepts would be advertising it as an alternative if it didn't work or damaged the decoder, it is not like they know nothing about DCC. The bigger issue is size, it is bigger than the Hornby Powerbank. Perhaps long term AE will make a smaller pack, which I suspect will sell quite well.

Keeping quite is certainly an option. I don't know how much testing they do on root cause. BTW on the failure of the decoder I'm at a 50% failure rate at the moment (1 of 2) and I do know of other people with "high" failure rates like 20% (1 in 5) but overall I think they are pretty good.

[ColinB]

1 minute ago, BritInVanCA said:

Keeping quite is certainly an option. I don't know how much testing they do on root cause. BTW on the failure of the decoder I'm at a 50% failure rate at the moment (1 of 2) and I do know of other people with "high" failure rates like 20% (1 in 5) but overall I think they are pretty good.

Unless AE have reversed the connections in the plug, nothing will happen. I am not surprised at the failure rate, I must admit all mine work. The good thing about Hornby is generally there is no quibbling. To do detailed analysis of a broken decoder takes time and I doubt they would bother doing much other than checking if it works. DCC Concepts are marketing this device, if they didn't think it worked they wouldn't sell it.

[96RAF]

13 hours ago, BritInVanCA said:

Yeah. Hornby is turning into the Apple of model railways rather than the Linux. If only there was a standards organization that could certify the entire DCC space (eye roll)! 

Given the NMRA on your side of the pond haven't kept pace with the necessary changes to introduce new standards, the Europeans had to do it and they haven't made much more progress. 

[BritInVanCA]

6 hours ago, 96RAF said:

Given the NMRA on your side of the pond haven't kept pace with the necessary changes to introduce new standards, the Europeans had to do it and they haven't made much more progress. 

I’ll give you a little piece of advice (totally light hearted). Don’t ever fall into the common British trap of lumping Canadians in with Americans 

[Brew Man]

Oooh no! it's like lumping Turks and Greeks together 😱

[ColinB]

4 hours ago, BritInVanCA said:

I’ll give you a little piece of advice (totally light hearted). Don’t ever fall into the common British trap of lumping Canadians in with Americans 

I know, Detroit is opposite Windsor in Canada, just crossing the bridge or tunnel from Detroit that separates the two countries, is like going into a different world. The beer is also better.

[96RAF]

4 hours ago, BritInVanCA said:

I’ll give you a little piece of advice (totally light hearted). Don’t ever fall into the common British trap of lumping Canadians in with Americans 

Having dealt extensively with both countries and their native and imported occupants I can definitely say they need different handling. The Canadians are easy - just feed them beer.