# QSI Titan Foam Support Warning



## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

A fair number of peole use the foam block that comes with our plug-and-play decoders as support for the "J2" row of pins when there's no socket to support that side. A few people on the QSI Yahoo group have reported that the foam that ships with the Titan is electrostatic foam, and may cause the Titan to not work properly if the board is plugged into the foam and power applied. 

So just keep that in mind. It's not something I've seen firsthand, but it's no fun smoking a board, either. If you're going to use foam, make sure it's "ordinary" foam.

Later,

K


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

No QSI decoder should be left unsupported on only one set of pins. 

The only pins on the second connector on the original QSI are the speaker outputs, so it's virtually impossible to cause any problems. 

The pins on the second connector of the Titan do indeed have functions. 

The pink foam is non-conductive from the point of view of the decoder. 

The black foam is more conductive and could possibly cause some issues. 

In any case I recommend NEVER supporting ANY QSI only on one end, it could cause undue stress on the pins in the socket, and it is conceivable that extended vibration could cause a problem. 

If you are not connecting to the pins on a Titan, cut them flush with the bottom of the board and affix with double stick tape. 

I've never had any issues either way, and I HAVE accidentally left the decoder in black foam and powered it up. 

If there was any smoke, it would most likely come from the foam, not the 50 amp transistors on the board! 

Greg


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Minor correction; the foam would have been on both sets of pins, not just the J2 side. I was thinking "old school" Quantum installation using a surplus Aristo interface board where only one end would be supported. My bad. Here's the post I'm referring to: 

_"This decoder is supplied with all of its pins embedded in a foam block. When we smoked the two decoders the first had its pins cut off but was resting on the foam, the second, straight out of the packet still had it's pins fully embedded in the foam block. 

In one of my more lucid moments I wondered whether the block had another use apart from protecting the pins (ie., whether it was also conductive to protect the decoder against electrostatic damage.) Turns out it was. The resistance was upward of 2K Ohms between any two points. We'd joined all the pins together on the foam block. 

No warning in the instructions (though I think there will be now) because it was assumed that we'd be plugging it into a loco not hard wiring. So if you have one of these that you're about to install please take note."_ 

As an alternative to foam or cutting the pins off, I'd hot-glue some DIP sockets to whatever it is I was going to mount the board onto. That will hold both ends very firmly, and preserves the pins if you were to ever want to re-use the board in a socket-equipped loco down the road. (Obviously, cut the pins off the DIP sockets, and don't glue them to a metal surface...)

Later, 

K


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Thanks for the update. 

Yes, all black foam AND all pins would not be good, since there's higher voltage and current present on the "primary" set of pins... 

You can buy the "magnum" socket from people other than QSI, the Aristo one will work fine... has sockets on both ends. 

QSI Revolution in "magnum" socket:









AristoCraft Revolution and Aristo socket:


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