I have a small fleet of Jouef railcars including several of the X73500 single unit diesel railcars. These are great railcars, and I've installed LokSound decoders in all but one so far. My only complaint is that the slow speed performance isn't great, especially over dirty track or non-conductive turnouts. The railcars suffer from the same limits as most single unit locomotive - limited number of pickups wheels (2 of 8 wheels have traction tires, leaving only 3 wheels per side for current pickup).

The ESU Powerpack mini is designed to help bridge the power gaps and lessen the flickering of the interior lighting. Upon opening the shell, I found a great hiding place for the Powerpack right underneath the decoder. This section of the body is hidden from view despite having seats. My speaker is tucked against the drivers bulkhead with a small piece of double sided tape.

Installation
Installation is easy although I did require a magnifier and third hand during soldering. I have some very thin solder I acquired for making Z scale turnouts - this was also a huge help!

The Powerpack instructions clearly show which pads the red, black, and white wires get connected. Once soldered, i reinstalled the decoder and set the Powerpack in the opening below with a small piece of double sided tape on the bottom to hold it into place. I also tucker my speaker back in place.

Results
The railcar's slow speed performance dramatically improved. It crawled through my test track without stopping. I don't have the same issues with my longer railcars - probably due to more wheels on the track. I do plan to retrofit the Powerpack where possible to my locomotives and single unit railcars.`

3 Rail Applicability
The Powerpack can be used with either 2 or 3 rail locos with either DCC or Marklin.

Yes - I will post a pic later today showing the completed install.

I used to run only Marklin 3 rail but my interests have changed and most of the trains I now like are only offered in 2 rail (or have 3 rail versions which are more expensive or hard to find). I used to convert the 2 rail trains to 3 rail but got tired of the expense and effort since it's usually not as simple as it seems.

I am excited to see more and more "dual use" trains on the market. I recently picked up the ESU EHG 388 measurement car which has a removable slider and a DC/AC (more appropriately 2 rail/3 rail) selector switch on the bottom. Very nice! I wish more trains would come this way - I can see the benefits of both 2 and 3 rail, and I don't think either should go away in favor of the other.

To you comment - I have some Marklin locos that would definitely benefit from a power pack. I think all digital locos should come with a power pack style device or the power pack gets integrated in to the next wave of connector so the power pack is a plug in vs. a solder to the decoder device. Think of a power pack 3 pin socket on board the loco.

Cheers!

Gene, you will not get the full sound quality by removing the speaker capsule, although the power pack is an excellent solution, (I've just ordered 10 of them) your tracks must be fairly dirty for this to happen with your shorter rail car(s). another reason for this to happen (dirty tracks) is over oiling motors (Märklin) as DC motors hardly ever need oil.
assuming from the pictures you've supplied, your rail car has 4 wheels (2 on each bogie) without rubber tyres and this should be enough to overcome such occasions having dirty tracks. how ever a power pack is an excellent idea to solve the other possibilities you've mentioned such as turnouts.
over oiling is like a cat trying to catch its own tail, you're going the full circle = over oiling = dirt gets accumulated = mixed with oil = get picked up by wheels= gets deposited on tracks = cleaning tracks and the whole scenario starts again.
to overcome this re-occurring cycle is to fit ball bearings into your Märklin motors, this will preserve your brushes, armature and endless cleaning processes, cogwheels need some oil but very little, as little so there is no excess going onto tracks or ruining your rubber tyres. (rubber and oil don't go together) and we know what happens when oil gets onto rubber tyres. = they expand.

most 3/5 pole drum motors can be easily converted with ball bearings by removing the plastic insert in the back of the motor and placing a 4mm x 2mm x 1.5mm ball bearing into it (no drilling needed) the brush plate needs a 4mm drill bit and a steady hand and a drill with variable speed settings, so long you've got a good eye and you can hold the drill and brush plate in the right angle you shouldn't have any problems, a better idea would be to put it onto a wooden block drill some tiny holes through from the brush plate wholes into the wooden block, insert the screws which normally holds the brush plate to the motor and screw the screws into the wooden block, your brush plate is now secure and now start drilling a hole through the middle of the brush plate (armature shaft) making sure your drill position is 90° to the brush plate., and press the same size ball bearing into the brush plate. the result will be: no more oiling required, the loco runs quieter, smoother and better at low speed, all other motors with disk armatures would have to be drilled at the back of the motor block. drill bit 5mm = ball bearing 5mm x 2mm x 2mm and front bearing is the same as above., also when selecting ball bearings make sure they are sealed bearings and not open. (most of them are0

regards,

John

This has me interested but looking at the ESU product page it seems you can only use it with ESU V4.0 decoders:(

http://www.esu.eu/en/pro...werpacks/powerpack-mini/

54671 PowerPack Mini enery buffer for LokPilot V4.0 & LokSound V4.0 family, 1F/2.7V

I had thought a capacitor could just be connected in parallel to the + and - lines to provide the same benefit without needing a circuit board?
Reading the description it sounds like the circuit board simply limits the charging speed of the capacitor...

The LokPilot 3.0 manual (available under former products) shows how to manually install capacitors for a keep alive function like the power pack. Here's a good article from SBS4DCC on installing capacitors successfully in a LokSound 3.5 unit.

http://www.sbs4dcc.com/t...nd52400v35keepalive.html