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.

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

Had some posts of a railpro layout build.  Last one was on using foam for road bed.  They are gone. 

What happened?

Kind regards,

Max

Until you pair the HC with a module (LM, AR etc.) Nothing will show on those pages.

The locomotive photo needs to be uploaded to the LM from the HC once it has been paired (found). When that is done, you need to change the setting for locomotive picture on the LM, using the HC. LM's will always display the default image (Ring Diesel) when first found.

I don't know what brand of track your using but zooming in on that 90 degree crossing it appears each leg of the crossing is well and truly isolated from each other.

There isn't anywhere particularly special that the AR-1's should be attached to, as long as they are powering the correct piece of track. Using your first pic as an example, for the BL-TR (Bottom Left - Top Right) leg I'd attach an AR-1 roughly where the tape measure is. For the TL-BR leg I'd do the same thing, mirror image of the first (this is based on the legs being isolated with the plastic joiners at the green lines). Then the AR-1 are powered (input) by what ever is powering the inside track loop, and the output of the AR-1's power the legs of the cross.

- Tim