I picked up a DC versio of an Atlas GP15 and then added a TCS drop in decoder along with one of their small Keep Alive capacitors and ended up with a locomotive that runs incredibly well, even through insulated turnouts and areas of slightly dirty track.
The installation is fairly easy, although I had to transfer little clips from the original board to the TCS board and ended up dropping one on the floor and I couldn’t find it. The clips are just to ensure better contact with the locomotive body, and so I just added a small drop of solder on one of the terminals so it would be a snug fit when installed. The keep alive capacitor is installed by soldering the two wires to two terminal pads on the decoder board. Not hard, but the pads are of course small on an N scale board.
Overall, I’m really happy with the conversion and the result is a very good running small N scale locomotive.
Atlas GP15
►Trainworld: https://www.trainworld.com/atlas-40004992-gp15-1-union-pacific-baby-wings-696-atlas-40004992.html
►Midwest Model RR: https://midwestmodelrr.com/atl40004990/
►Fifer Hobby: https://www.fiferhobby.com/atlas-gp15-1-locomotives/
►TCS ASD4 decoder: https://tonystrains.com/product/tcs-1279-asd4-n-scale-decoder (may find elsewhere for less)
►TCS KA-N1 keep-alive: https://tonystrains.com/product/tcs-2010-ka-n1-n-scale-keep-alive-capacitor
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You can watch the full video below.
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