[Dr_C2]

Hi Paul,

The newer DPR C8515 decoders have a different style of capacitor to replace the silver cylindrical one. The old style capacitor is an ‘electrolytic’ capacitor while the new style is known as a multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC). To achieve a similar value of capacitance, six are used - four on the top-side of the decoder and a further two on the underside. They are the small brown surface mount devices in your photo.

So the function of the big capacitor is retained. That said, there is still some debate over the design purpose of the big capacitor. I suspect it this there to reduce the likelihood of microcontroller resets when crossing dead-spots.

One other detail, some folk have observed harsh throttle response when using the newer C8515 with ARC pro when switched to ‘analog mode’ which technically is a PWM mode not pure analog. In this case removing the DPR chip makes better sense.

Apologies the answer is a bit complicated :)

Clive