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What is a stay-alive capacitor?
A stay-alive capacitor (also known as a keep-alive) is a component that can be fitted to DCC model locomotives to temporarily maintain power to its electronics and motor should the main source of power be interrupted due to dirty rails or insulated frogs.
A stay-alive will store and then provide your model with just enough power to see it over a turnout's unpowered frog, but it is not a battery so don't expect it to provide you with hours of happy running sessions during a power cut. Realistically you can expect a larger capacitor to propel your engine for a couple of inches.
What it will also do is prevent the soundtrack from sound chips dropping out, this is very annoying for modellers that have invested in sound chip technology for added realism and a stay-alive will provide reliability to such features.
Stay-alives will also help protect against CVs becoming corrupted during a temporary break in power, not a common problem but frustrating when it does happen so well worth protecting against.
Stay-alive capacitors are not huge, but they do take up space (which is already likely to be an issue if you have a decoder and sound chip fitted) so always make sure you have enough of it before you purchase one. You will need also to not be afraid of fitting such technology as you will probably have to solder it to your soundboard during installation. Not all DCC decoders are compatible, so double check before committing.
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