Last week I added an ESU PowerPack (a.k.a. current keeper) to the Rapido RDC SP-10. I'm really satisfied with the outcome, however there is a little important twist so I would like to explain how to do it.

I used the  ESU PowerPack Mini, which is that green capacitor as seen on the picture above, and there's more than enough space to add it in the RDC. It's a fairly easy install too.

First I had to open the shell,  as explained in this post here. 

At first I was thinking of placing the keeper in the toilets (geez, these guys really model everything... there's got to be some kind of joke in there!) but the keeper was too large by just a millimeter. Oh well.

At the top, there's the long "motherboard" with the LokSound and in the middle there's a small bunch of red/black wires held by a tie. That location is right under the bulbous fans/exhaust ports and is the perfect spot to place the keeper.

So first the plastic tie had to go. I used a small screwdriver to untie it, or of course you can carefully cut it open. I then used some kapton tape to hold the wires in place.

Once I was satisfied with the location, I soldered the 3 wires to the decoder in the red/white/black orientation as indicated in the PowerPack manual. I had to borrow a Weller with a fine tip at work because my normal one looked gigantic next to the LokSound tiny solder pads. 

Not the best looking job here, it looked better the first time I soldered them; oh well I'm never satisfied anyway; I checked it out for shorts and it came clean, that's what matter.

After I soldered the wires it occurred to me I could have trimmed them a bit. Some more kapton tape keeps everything tight in place.

Now here comes the little trick. I put everything on the track yet when I tried I couldn't get any effect from the keeper. 

I redid the soldering to make sure, checked the red/black wires had power, made sure the CV 113 had a non-zero value, didn't matter, it clearly wasn't powering anything at all. Eventually I asked ESU for some insight.

So here's the trick, according to ESU, on this LokSound, AUX6 is shared between the AUX6 function and the white wire that activates the PowerPack. On this Rapido RDC, AUX6 is used for the rear ditch lights and the factory setting is for them to be programmed as Gyra Lights. 

To use the PowerPack, the AUX6 function must be disabled:

• Using DecoderPro, go to the "Function Outputs" page and change "Aux6 Mode" from Gyra Light to Disabled.
• Using CVs: CV31 = 16, CV32 = 0, CV315 = 0.

The issue I did notice is that when the AUX6 output is disabled, the rear ditch lights are then always on. It's barely visible on the SP-10, it only shows as a very faint light in the rear cab. I have not done it but an idea would be to unsolder the wire on the AUX6 pad on the motherboard, the second from the top as seen on this picture, with the advantage that it's easily reversible:

~Ralf