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Difference between 6 amp vs 10 amp large scale Titans?

Benjamin Shell
 

Does anyone know if there is a physical difference between the 6 amp and 10 amp Titans, besides the inclusion of a fan with the 10 amp unit?

I need to install Titans in two locomotives that will always run together on a 10 amp booster district, so they'll never be able to exceed 5 amps each. But I do like to run long trains and push things to the limit, so I was wondering if the 10 amp Titans would give me any advantage (better heat-sinking? beefier components?). I have some of each and can't see a difference, and I put fans in all locomotives, even with 6 amp Titans.

Thanks,
Ben
josh.shedaker@...
 

Ben,
The difference is in the motor FET parts, which are (to my dismay) sandwiched and soldered between the two boards. The FETs on the 10amp version are beefier but also do tend to run a little hotter than those on the 6amp which is why the 10 is issued with a cooling fan. In future runs I want to move to a universal motor controller part and add a connector set between the top and bottom board, to improve serviceability.

I think, if you're running the 6amp decoders now and they haven't given you any trouble, you'd be fine just by adding the cooling fan to your 6amp decoder. You can do this one of two ways:
We support a specific light port in Large Scale firmware for "Decoder Cooling Fan", it's Port 11 in all Titan-ET (Q3), FX-LS firmware. This will turn the fan on at all times when the decoder is powered up.
If you don't want to sacrifice a light port you can wire it between J3 pins 10 and 11 (ground/+5). The thing to be aware of here is; the fan will run any time the engine is on a live track (whether powered up and making noise or not). This also means it will turn on and off with every packet sent by the Quantum Programmer and as such screw up a download and interrupt service mode programming. Make sure you have a means of disconnecting it if you plan to use the Quantum Programmer.

If the decoder has been acting strangely after/while running a long train you can monitor the decoder temperature using the F10 status report feature, all you have to do is check "Engine Temperature(degrees C)" under feature config->status in Quantum CV Manager or set CV55.178.0=8.

I hope this has answered more questions than it's created! 

Best,
Josh
Benjamin Shell
 

Thanks Josh! This more than answers my questions!

I've been wiring the fans between ground/+5v, but somewhere I read about the issue with it and the Quantum Programmer so I disconnect the fan on the rare occasions when I download new firmware.


On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 11:59 AM, josh.shedaker@... [QSIndustries] <QSIndustries@...> wrote:
 

Ben,

The difference is in the motor FET parts, which are (to my dismay) sandwiched and soldered between the two boards. The FETs on the 10amp version are beefier but also do tend to run a little hotter than those on the 6amp which is why the 10 is issued with a cooling fan. In future runs I want to move to a universal motor controller part and add a connector set between the top and bottom board, to improve serviceability.

I think, if you're running the 6amp decoders now and they haven't given you any trouble, you'd be fine just by adding the cooling fan to your 6amp decoder. You can do this one of two ways:
We support a specific light port in Large Scale firmware for "Decoder Cooling Fan", it's Port 11 in all Titan-ET (Q3), FX-LS firmware. This will turn the fan on at all times when the decoder is powered up.
If you don't want to sacrifice a light port you can wire it between J3 pins 10 and 11 (ground/+5). The thing to be aware of here is; the fan will run any time the engine is on a live track (whether powered up and making noise or not). This also means it will turn on and off with every packet sent by the Quantum Programmer and as such screw up a download and interrupt service mode programming. Make sure you have a means of disconnecting it if you plan to use the Quantum Programmer.

If the decoder has been acting strangely after/while running a long train you can monitor the decoder temperature using the F10 status report feature, all you have to do is check "Engine Temperature(degrees C)" under feature config->status in Quantum CV Manager or set CV55.178.0=8.

I hope this has answered more questions than it's created! 

Best,
Josh
ewarhol@...
 

Josh-

 

I also have to say thank you. I was wondering if there was a way to hook up the fan without using a port.

 

I'm going install a DPST switch to turn the fan off for programming. To prevent forgetting to turn the fan back on I'll put a post-it note with "FAN" on top of the engine. Kind of like adding a blue flag to the engine.

 

Eric
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