Hey All,

Just wondering how many of you use some kind of Stay-Alive/Keep-Alive capacitor in your locomotives?

How many of your locos have one?

What brand do you prefer to use? RailPro's PBM-2 or something else?

Do any of you roll your own stay-alive capacitors? If so, how do you build it?

I'm curious.

Rob S. "Sieggs"

Thanks Richard. They sound great!

Hi Folks,

This is rather long as it describes my journey into Deadrail. As I’m starting a new S scale layout, I made the decision to go Deadrail and battery powered. I’ve already made an investment in Ring Engineering’s RailPro wireless control system and through research discovered the Stanton Battery Power Supply (BPSv5).

What I didn’t find through research was info concerning the use of batteries, specifically the BPSv5 and RailPro. I want to give a huge shoutout to Neil Stanton of S-Cab fame as he did loads of work to demonstrate that the BPSv5 does indeed work with the RailPro control module that I had sent him. He also discovered the RailPro module has 2 inputs for their Power Backup Module (PBM) and suggested these might be the inputs to use as they will bypass some of the input circuitry and provide the RailPro module a higher voltage. Neil had discovered using the track input could sometimes lead to the module sending a low voltage warning although the module still ran fine. Plus the PBM inputs would provide the RailPro module and the Stanton BPSv5 a common ground which has many benefits.

While waiting for Neil to send the ‘kit’ back, I contacted Ring Engineering about Neil’s suggestion to use the PBM inputs to power their module and they confirmed the common ground theory but would not go as far as condoning the use of the PBM inputs. So, time to find out and hopefully the module doesn’t complain.

Once I received the kit, I wired a locomotive using the battery and BPSv5, the RailPro module Neil used for his experiments with one exception. I wired the BPSv5 to the PBM inputs on the RailPro module. Sorry for all the TLA (Three Letter Acronyms) in this paragraph. With some hesitation I powered the locomotive keeping an eye on the voltage and current being drawn. Also kept checking the temperature of the modules. Everything was within expectations and the temperature of the modules stayed cool for the short back and forth runs of the engine. I have not been able to do any long term testing as I’m waiting to get track laid.

In conclusion, I believe that the “RailPro, Deadrail, and S Scale” experiment was a great success and a thank you Neil Stanton and the Ring Engineering support team for making this possible.


- Jeff C

Here is the wav file of the #10 Shay at Sugar Pine in California.  I think it sounds pretty good and hope you can use it too.

Thanks,
Richard
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Hey Jon,

I was doing some track editing on a musical The Buddy Holly Story last night and had a smallish issue re-rendering the wav files out.  Got it working but just not sure what trick was...too many things to tweak I guess.

I'm happy to share the whistle...let me know how to send.

Richard