# Shourt Line by Soft Works Ltd.



## GnTRailroad (Apr 3, 2009)

Seen this automatic power buffer on evil bay have any of you heard of it or installed one? Reminds me of the Lenz Gold! But works with any decoder.


http://www.shourtline.swl4.com/SL-APB-8300_8,300uF_Automatic_Power_Buffer_EBAY.html 


- George


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Well, there's a tiny bit of smoke and mirrors there... 

It says: "Stores up to 24Votls at 10 Farads" well a 24 volt, 10 farad capacitor would be pretty large... the kicker is the picture clearly shows the capacitor rating, 8,200 microfarads at 25 volts. 

1 farad is 1,000,000 microfarads, 10 farads would be 10,000,000 microfarads, 10,000 times greater than the picture shows. 

It's just a capacitor, and a diode and resistor (probably)... looking at his price list, he does offer a 1 farad unit, for $100. 

If you are using it on DCC, it needs to be connected AFTER the diode bridge on your decoder, not many decoders have this connection indicated... so you need to get the place to connect it figured out. 

Greg 

p.s. the shorting of your loco after a derailment is normal... the short circuit ran from one side to the other, and melted/smoked the pickup wires and/or traces on the main board.


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## GnTRailroad (Apr 3, 2009)

Thanks Greg! So glad that you replied I have read about the Lenz decoder and the dirty track circuit so this sounded reasonable. I did not see the 1 to 10 farad systems until you wrote! Guess I need to read better! Guess the best is just keep the track clean! It is not that hard with the kitchen pads and the stick I made so I can stand up while cleaning my track once every spring.


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Zimo shows the schematic for one of those power buffers in one of their older DCC decoder manuals:










It's a European schematic, so the rectangles are resistors, 100E is 100 ohms, 3K3 is 3.3 Kohms

The US type resistor symbol, the zigzag lines, is a small inductor - it's needed if you use Railcom with your DCC system.

The Lenz Gold decoder has this type of energy buffer as well but it also incorporates a new way of sampling the DCC signal on dirty track so that one retains full control.

They used to demonstrate that by covering the track with thin paper and then run the loco across that and turn the lights on and off and blow the whistle while the engine was insulated from the track with the paper.

Knut


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Just for some more explanation for the interested... the diode allows the capacitor to discharge/power the decoder with no impediment, but the resistor slows the charging of the capacitor (so as not to use a lot of current which can be mistaken for a short circuit. 

The resistor across the + and - of the capacitor allows it to discharge when not powered... a safety feature, I guess... will protect you if you put your tongue on the capacitor? 

Remember that for larger capacitors, the 1/4 watt resistor would be of a higher wattage, etc. 

The Lenz and many other European decoders have inputs for a "storage cap", most American decoders, like the QSI, already have them on board, having learned this lesson long ago. 

Greg 

p.s. The Lenz uses a "capacitive" pickup technique to detect the signal, not the direct inspection of the actual rail voltage/signal. It has some interesting applications and seems to help on dirty track, but there are downsides to this also, it's sensitive to spurious signals and have heard some HO clubs won't allow these decoders on the layout. You never get something for nothing, and of course if it was clearly superior in all facets, all people would include it in their products (I believe the patent must have expired since I'm told they have done this for years).


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

A few additional comments to what Greg posted. 

The 1000 uf capacitor is the smallest value that will provide any effect of power buffering for the smaller scales. 
For Large Scale, Zimo recommends 100000uf or as large as one has space for. 

The diode/resistor charging/discharging circuit may have to be be used for the reasons Greg described but it is absolutely mandatory if one uses the asymmetrical braking feature (Called ABC by Lenz). 

The 3.3K discharge resistor actually has a very practical purpose especially with the very large capacitor we would need to use for large Scale. 
If it wasn't there, the capacitor voltage would keep the memory of the micro-processor active when the loco is picked up from the track, if one then turns the throttle to zero and places the loco back on the track, the loco would move at the previously set speed for a short while. The discharge capacitor prevents this from happening. 

As far as the capacitive pick-up is concerned - I don't think that concept is any older than 5 or 7 years. 
If Lenz does have a patent on it, it would still be in force - patents are good for 17 years, so nobody else would be able to copy their patentable design for current production. 

Knut


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Thanks, Knut on the tip on the symmetrical braking have only read about it.. 

I thought most patents were 10 years... dang... of course there's stuff you can do to "extend" a patent, one of my old employers has done this on my first patent... of course I don't get any royalties! 

Greg


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

The resistor is there to discharge the cap as Greg stated, but it is so after 30 seconds the decoder can be addressed for readinwriting CV's from a clean power startup. 

Otherwise you could wait 10 minutes or more!! 

A on-off switch can be used to disconnect the capacitor. 

Also note that if there are 20 engines on the track, all the capacitors would try to charge at the same time and overload a command/central station. The100 ohm resistor prevents this surge form occurring.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Yeah, when sound systems first came out, a lot of them put a cap right on the bridge with no inrush limiting resistor... another common problem was the DCC system actually sensed a short as soon as you put the loco on the track, the short circuit detector designs in early DCC were not very sophisticated. 

And, as Dan stated, the HO guys would leave a bunch of locos on the track, and basically could not turn the power on with all those caps! There was some befuddlement as sound was beginning to become more and more common. 

As an aside, if anyone has links to the Lenz patent on their pickup "system" I'd love to do some reading there... 

Greg


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Greg, 

Lenz patent on the pick-up system, 
US patent 7 198 235 issues 3 April 2007 
http://www.wikipatents.com/US-Paten...nsmission-of-information-between-track/Page-1


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Greg, 

You can download a pdf version of that patent here: 
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7198235.html 

That way the text is legible - the text in the previous link I posted is prett terrible. 

Knut


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Thanks! Issued in 2007, wow, thought it was older than that! 

Greg


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Or you could go straight to the USPTO.

USPTO Patent #7,198,235[/b]


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Posted By SteveC on 14 May 2011 10:34 PM 
Or you could go straight to the USPTO.


That site never worked for me.
I get the text but not any of the drawings.

When I click on the drawing link I get the Quicktime logo for a few seconds but then nothing.

Maybe it's downloading the drawings but they don't show up in my normal download folder.

I assume this site is set up for IE specifically, I find a lot of government sites are like that as if IE is the only game in town - that site was probably set up years ago when IE was the 800 pound gorilla and the site structure has not been updated since.


Knut


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Yep, same thing happens to me in both FF and IE8, there must be a plugin that is missing... I get the QT logo popping up, but QT cannot handle the file. 

The extension of the image file seems to be .PIW, which according to some searches is a "PI ProcessBook Display Definition File from OSIsoft, Inc"... 

What a mess... 

Greg


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By krs on 15 May 2011 01:00 AM 
Posted By SteveC on 14 May 2011 10:34 PM 
Or you could go straight to the USPTO.


That site never worked for me.
I get the text but not any of the drawings.

When I click on the drawing link I get the Quicktime logo for a few seconds but then nothing.

Maybe it's downloading the drawings but they don't show up in my normal download folder.

I assume this site is set up for IE specifically, I find a lot of government sites are like that as if IE is the only game in town - that site was probably set up years ago when IE was the 800 pound gorilla and the site structure has not been updated since.


Knut 


Knut

You really need to get off the MS denigration kick.

Have you bothered to go here[/b] on the USPTO site, in the *Your System Requirements for Viewing Images* section where it tells you that any browser requires a plug-in that supports...
The plug-in you use cannot be just any TIFF image plug-in. It must be able to specifically display TIFF files using ITU T.6 or CCITT Group 4 (G4) compression.nbsp;
...because no browser has native support to display this TIFF format.

Then if you click the link in that same section that takes you to the AlternaTIFF is a web browser add-on (ActiveX control or plug-in) where you scroll down to...
*3. Standard web browser plug-in (Netscape-style)*
For Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and most web browsers other than Internet Explorer.
...and try installing their browser plug-in. Additionally, if you encounter problems with getting the browser plug-in to work you might want to click the FAQ link.

Or, if you're not running MS/Windows in emulation on you system have you gone back to Apple - Quicktime support and tried to find out if Quicktime supports the required TIFF format using ITU T.6 or CCITT Group 4 (G4) compression.nbsp, and if so what if any special configuration requirements there are. Because it's apparent that your browser is loading Quicktime plug-in to view the images and is failing.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I did not load the plugin, I was concerned of the "age" of the situation, where the site talks about the Netscape and Opera browsers, does not mention FF. That's some old stuff there. 

Of course it is our government... ;-) 

Greg


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Posted By SteveC on 15 May 2011 09:17 AM 




Have you bothered to go here[/b] on the USPTO site, in the *Your System Requirements for Viewing Images* section where it tells you that any browser requires a plug-in that supports...
The plug-in you use cannot be just any TIFF image plug-in. It must be able to specifically display TIFF files using ITU T.6 or CCITT Group 4 (G4) compression.nbsp;

...because no browser has native support to display this TIFF format.




Steve, pleeeeeease.................

All I want to do is to download a simple 12-page patent. 
Storing the diagrams separately from the rest of the file is ridiculous to start with and then using a tiff format that no browser supports natively is even more ridiculous.

I can't believe that this USPTO site expects me to download a plug-in that sounds as if its only use would for this site.

I'm sure I would have found all the information you posted, but I already had a perfectly good and clearly readable pdf file so there was incentive for me to dig any further than to try the obvious.
The paper copies of my patents look exactly like the pdf file I can download from the other site I posted - I find it rather odd that the USPTO site doesn't use the same format on the net as the hard-copy.

Maybe it's time to drop them a note and invite them to join the rest of us in the 21st century.

Knut


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I have got to agree, the government system is antique and obtuse, and there is really no excuse for using a non-standard format for data. 

And it is actually disconcerting that the government gives you a format different from the legal paper it is issued on. Very strange. 

So this must have been something they figured out years ago, and now they are behind the power curve. 

If they don't have plugins for anything other than Opera and IE, that is really stupid, they need at least Firefox and Safari 

But, it is what it is... your government $$ in action, ha ha. 

Anyway, I do have a question, Steve, if you right click on the image file and save it, what format does it come out in? (what is the extension also) 

Greg


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Maybe it's time to drop them a note and invite them to join the rest of us in the 21st century.
Knut:
Yep, just want to wish you good luck with that.









Just remember, it's a very rare occasion when the tail wags the dog.









Greg:
I don't seem to have a problem.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Well, went the the site, there are 2 listed for the plugin, the one for Alternatiff.... found the plugin for "other browsers"... including firefox... ok so says updated April 2011... all right, looks reasonable... installed plugin... restarted firefox... still pulls up the Quicktime... checked quicktime, unassociated from tiff files... same stuff... have not rebooted computer yet, but the file association should take hold immediately... 

so back to my question, what is the extension of the image file? right click and do a save as maybe? 

Really too much effort for something that should not be in the first place... 

I'm going outside for some constructive train running... 


Greg


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Comes down as a TIFF with


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Greg

You might try going into the Control Panel, opening QuickTime, clicking the Browser tab and see if you can change Quicktime's parameters from the files & MIME buttons.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

At the risk of boring everyone to tears, the plugin for IE worked, the one for FF does not, and I still get the QT logo popping up, although I've gone into the control panel and told QT to not look at any image files... It's still overriding something somewhere... 

Which of the 2 plugins did you use Steve, the Alternatiff one or the other one? 

Greg


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Greg

Sorry for the delay, but I had to backup and remember what I had originally done when I got the new computer with Win7 and had to reinstall all this stuff.









I used the Alternatiff viewer.

For MS/IE; I used the first section for the plug-in component auto-install.

Then I used the...
*3. Standard web browser plug-in (Netscape-style)*
For Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and most web browsers other than Internet Explorer.
Download 32-bit version: alternatiff-pl-w32-2.0.1.exe - For 32-bit browsers on any version of Windows....
and saved it to a folder.

I closed all browsers, and then ran the alternatiff-pl-w32-2.0.1.exe install.
When prompted for install location I changed the default location to...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\program\plugins\

... for the install directory (since it auto defaults to MIE) and went ahead and installed. No sense wiping out what I had already done with the AlternaTIFF auto-install.

Next I opened Opera and tried opening the USPTO images and it worked, so I closed Opera.

Next I opened FireFox and tried the USPTO images, and was surprised when it displayed with no problem.
So I went looking for an answer, and checked the following...

c:\users\< user name >\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxx.default\pluginreg.dat

So, I opened it with text editor and found the following after scrolling down a bit....

C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\program\plugins\npzzatif.dll|$
2.0.1.1|$
1303744874000|1|1|$
AlternaTIFF v2.0.1|$
AlternaTIFF|$
3
0|application/x-alternatiff|TIFF Image|alttif|$
1|image/x-tiff|TIFF Image|tif,tiff|$
2|image/tiff|TIFF Image|tif,tiff|$
NPSWF32.dll|$

Which explained why it was working, but not why FireFox was using Opera's plugin folder. I'm still trying to find an answer for that.


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Posted By SteveC on 15 May 2011 12:14 PM 
Maybe it's time to drop them a note and invite them to join the rest of us in the 21st century.
Knut:
Yep, just want to wish you good luck with that.











Steve - I'm sure you're absolutely correct that sending them a note would do nothing.

But all this got me a bit interested, so I did go back to the site via the link you posted.
For the Mac which I'm using right now, it says under System Requirements:

For the *Apple Macintosh®*, Apple's freely distributed Quicktime version 4.1 or later works with our images for pre-Safari Macintosh, but does not provide direct printing capability. It is available from the Apple Web site at http://www.apple.com/software/. *
*Please visit http://www.apple.com/software/ and type "patent" to locate plug-ins for recent versions of Macintosh browsers


Well..........
The Mac I'm using is a brand new one with the latest OS and the latest version of Quicktime (version 10) - and it doesn't work as I already mentioned earlier.
I then went to the apple software site and typed "patent" onto the search field as they suggest. All that came up on all of Apple's site were two pouches made of patent leather


And then a wonderful thing happened - I was selected at random for a survey about that site....would I like to participate?
My answer of course was "yes" (it's usually "no"
In any case, they got all the nitty, gritty if anyone actually looks at the surveys and reads the comments.


But this is one of those web sites where there is no incentive for the web master to fix anything.


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Knut

I know that the following is not an ideal solution, however, I ran across the following on Apple's support forum and thought you may find them of use so I figured I'd post it.

It turns out there is a relatively simple solution to this issue in FireFox. When the image page loads it will appear blank. However, if you right click on where the image should be you can choose to save the image. You will need to rename the image to something meaningful to a location of your choosing. Double clicking the resulting file will by default (is OS X) open it with Preview, which does a nice job of viewing the file, including full scaling. Certainly not ideal, but functional. (Might have a similar solution on Windows). p.s. This does not appear to work in Safari. Either Apple does not consider patents important, or they have some work cut out for them. (might be a licensing/money issue, Apple hates "closed standards") MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2) 

My impression is that this is recent problem with Snow Leopard, its version of Quicktime or Safari. I am positive that I read patents using Safari 4.x on Snow Leopard until some time in December. I was busy with the holidays, so it wasn't until late in December that I noticed the functionality had disappeared. I can still read the Tiffs using my old Powerbook G4 running OS 10.4.11, where both Safari and Firefox can view patents at the USPTO website. It's hard to believe that Apple cannot fix this. AccelView Tiff figured out the USPTO made some change on December 9, 2009 that messed up its plug-in. Maybe that change is to blame. The Accel ViewTiff Plug-In works better than nothing on Firefox, but not well enough for my $59. I'd like the window to be adjustable so that I can enlarge the images at will and view them without having to scroll in that itty bitty little window. If you already have the patent number, sometimes you can use google.com/patents. Unfortunately, Google's indexing is full of errors, and the more recent the patent, the less likely Google is to be able to find it. The images are viewable, at least. I hope that everyone will report this as a bug using Safari>Report Bugs To Apple and will send feedback using http://www.apple.com/feedback/ IMac dual core and Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.6), Safari Version 4.0.4 (6531.21.10) on OS 10.6.2 and on OS 10.4.11 

Someone's post reminded me how this used to work in Safari- - by opening the patent image in a new window. The new window approach doesn't work any more, but you can open patent images in a *new tab.* 1) Follow your patent search to *USPTO Full-Text And Image Database*. 2) For older patents that are not available Full Text or for any patent abstract you want to read yourself, click *IMAGES box.* 3) On the images page (where no images are displayed in Safari!), the left margin has the following linked images: Sections: *Front Page* Drawings Specifications Claims 4) To view any of the Sections, place the cursor on that specific section link, *depress Control and click the mouse.* The Popup/contextual menu will display among other options *Open Link in New Tab.* Select it. 5) Click the new tab to view the image. To enlarge or reduce image size, use the usual Command + or Command - . IMac dual core, Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.6), Safari Version 4.0.4 (6531.21.10)


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Sounds like a lot of plug and pray for computers. Definately not kiss orientated.


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Dan Pierce on 20 May 2011 04:12 AM 
Sounds like a lot of plug and pray for computers. *Definately not kiss orientated*. Sure it is, just not the KISS you're thinking of, computers are more along the lne of "bend over and *kiss* it goodbye."


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