RailPro > RailPro Specific Help & Discussion

Who's Using Stay-Alive/Keep-Alive, PBM-2 Capacitor Modules?

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faithie999:
i moved to Tortoise switch machines, and use them to power the frogs in my turnouts.  that, plus keeping the track clean, works for me.  i didn't want to figure out how to cram keep-alives into the shells of my locos.  i know many here do so, but i'm very happy with the tortoise machines.

Ken

Espeelark:
Howdy Rob,
I do not need to use Keep-Alives in my locos. I keep my tracks clean and my frogs are powered through either Tortoise or Blue-Point turnout controls.
Also, in my return loops/staging tracks, I have circuitry installed that kills the power to the track when the train reaches a certain location in it. If I had KA's, the train would go just keep on going - which I don't want.
There is only one application where I used a KA and it was in my short wheel-base SW1500 that needed to go through unpowered diamonds. I used a TCS KA2 (because it was the smallest available) and documented that install here under the "Finished RailPro Installation Examples" folder.

sieggs1:
Hey All,

Interesting feedback.

Maybe it's because I'm coming back to model railroading after a 35-year hiatus and DCC (or rather, RailPro), keep-alives and all this technology is new to me. Back then, as a kid, my locos never ran very well. Of course, I didn't really understand the importance of cleaning track or locos.

I knew I wanted to try a keep-alive with RailPro, so I bought the PBM-2 for about a half-dozen of my locos, since it was RailPro.

Well, needless to say, the costs add up. Pricing is up to $49.99 retail for the PBM-2, but they do work.

Then I saw some folks were using keep-alives other than the PBM-2 successfully.

I also saw Larry Puckett's YouTube videos on making your own capacitor modules. So I ordered the parts, all from Amazon, and built a few.
https://youtu.be/nm2b7MfQrFs?si=ctzjD-S-pv-0StN-
https://youtu.be/bhK4HuJb6Ws?si=tk9QRY0EXbfLDm3h

What's amazing is not only how cheap and easily these can be made (I made two for less than $10 each), but how well they work. At 1/5th the cost of the PBM-2, they can run much longer. I was able to use five 3.0v 2F capacitors in series and fit them into my SW1500 in place of the PBM-2 and have room for a larger speaker. And the things never stall. You can also rearrange the capacitors to fit the space.

I think I will be going this route in the future. It's just kind of a no-brainer. I was very surprised.

I get that if you power your frogs and keep your track clean, you should have minimal issues. However, I like the security of the homebrew keep-alive.

In addition, by using RailPro, we are in a unique situation in that the modules still respond when on capacitor power whereas folks with DCC lose control of their locos for the short time they operate on said power.

Maybe this is all old news but I think this will save me a lot of money.

Has anyone experimented with DIY Keep-Alives?

Rob S.

Espeelark:

--- Quote from: sieggs1 on April 21, 2026, 02:03:46 AM ---What's amazing is not only how cheap and easily these can be made (I made two for less than $10 each), but how well they work. At 1/5th the cost of the PBM-2, they can run much longer. I was able to use five 3.0v 2F capacitors in series and fit them into my SW1500 in place of the PBM-2 and have room for a larger speaker. And the things never stall. You can also rearrange the capacitors to fit the space.

Rob S.

--- End quote ---

Sounds intriguing Rob!
Can you take some photos of the install in that SW1500 so we can see how it all fit?
It would also be interesting to see a photo of your home-brew keep alive all by itself so that we can get an idea of how big it is/isn't.
Thanks!

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