Does anyone know which speaker lead in the WH-6 is positive, or how to figure it out?

Also, if dual speakers should be WH-6(+) to Speaker #1(+), from speaker #1(-) to  speaker #2(+), from speaker #2(-) to WH-6(-), what would happen if polarity connections were reversed?  That is: WH-6(-) to Speaker #1(+), from speaker #1(-) to  speaker #2(+), from speaker #2(-) to WH-6(+).

This was a super simple install.

1- Atlas HO C420
1- Digitrax 1" 8 to 9 pin harness
1- LM3S - Sound Module
1- Sound Systems Speaker and Baffle
-little Capton tape, 3m 2 face for speaker,

Stock lights had resistors built in.
No cutting required, Plugged, taped, soldiered speaker wires - DONE
Easiest one yet. Maybe 20 minutes.

Has anybody done a conversion of a Intermountain ES44AC that came with SoundTraxx sound /decoder. Our first intermountain loco that was new in the box and super inexpensive. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Looks to be a total gut, not a plug and play. At least it already has a speaker installed. Thank you all in advance. Dave

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