Any reason not to harvest PS3 components out of a used 2-8-0 and replace Dead PS2 in a PRR Decapod?

Many early PS2 engines had speakers with the problem of the metal flaking off. I would look at that first.

Speaker or audio amp replacement will be much less than your conversion.  Also, the 2-8-0 will fall short on the harness connections to meet all the light outputs on your 2-10-0.  So you will still need other parts.  Otherwise it can be done.  You just have more wiring then you might think as you need to use the original 10 pin harness modified to six.  G

Like George says, you're setting yourself up for a bit of work, the harness will doubtless fall short, not only in connections, but likely in length as well.

put a fresh nickle hydride battery it is today and has it running, all DCS functions working.  Turned the layout off, it did the engine shutdown sequence.  A couple minutes later w/ the layout dark it did the engine start sequence twice and went quite.  Powered the layout up and the locomotive was unresponsive.

Thoughts?

SO it started and shutdown twice on it's own with NO TRACK power applied at all?  G

Sure seemed to be the behaviour.  Ran it in forward and reverse for about a half hour each way.  Switched a couple of boxcars. Exercised all the softkeys a couple of times.  Shut the layout down, walked into my storage room and hear a startup sequence.  Walked back into the layout room and hear a startup sequence again.  Now when I power up the layout the DCS can not read the engine, nor find it when I force a read from the remote.  When I try to move it from inactive to active, the DCS report that the engine is not on the track.

I don't think PS3 will solve your problem!

Thinking that I would remove all the electronics from the PS2 version and replace with the electronics out of the 2-8-0.  I can fabricate leads my self to address the length issue.  I would leave the smoke unit, lights and coupler in place.  From the 2-8-0 I would harvest the smoke unit and coupler for other projects.  Save the tender for a MOW project.

With the layout shut down, it's impossible for the engine to startup. The battery doesn't power your engine.

Does the PS3 engine work OK on the same track?

So I pulled the replacement battery.  I used a Rayovac Recharge Plus NiMH battery.  Replaced it with a fresh one.  Now the engine responses to reversing unit commands from the remote, the coupler fires, but no sound no lights with the replaced battery.  This behaviour was maintained after doing a factory reset from the DCS remote.

The battery the I installed yesterday and reads at 7.84vdc.  Out of the box they are fully charged and are rated at 8.4vdc.

Other PS2, TMCC, PS3, Conventional all work on the track in question.

Could be the battery clip isn't making contact or a broken wire in the harness which I have seen. Or the PS2 board isn't charging.  Can easily be checked out with a multimeter.

John Allen,

The battery does power the PS2 electronics for short periods of time.  This runs the sound.  A short in the sound subsystem, would account for the battery drain and the engine sounds engaging.  The PS2 logic chip reads the energized circuit from the battery and the de-energized circuit from the track as a momentary interruption in track power and plays the appropriate sound set.  It may not have been a startup/sequence that I heard, I was in another room when it played.  With out a wiring diagram, chip schematic and code documentation, I can not debug this any further.

I am assuming that this is caused by a fault in the sound subsystem in the PS2 boards rather than a physical fault in the wiring.  There is no indication of pinched wires nor other wiring defect that would cause a physical short outside of the chips themselves.

All of this is based on my direct observation, I have absolutely no training in MTH PS2 electronics.  So I may be completely wrong in my assessment.

Just pull the board and have it tested in a PS2 test fixture to see if the board has a problem. GGG is the tech I use and is very reasonable with repairs on these early boards if they can be repaired.

that kind takes the fun out of the process for me

If you like tilting at windmills, just stay on course.

So I put a fully charged NiMH 9 volt in the carrier and left it for about 5 hours and it now reads just over 7.  Repeating it just to make sure the is not an internal short in the battery.

Sounds like the board is broken.