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Guys in ps2 5 volt engine with a good known battery and a good speaker. Why would only the prime mover/engine sounds be low in volume while all other sounds are at 100% ? 

Did engine resest and feature reset. Plus checked all volume levels in remote all say 100 including engine volume.check the main volume is all the way up. Engine sounds are turned on. All engine functions are working ok couplers,smoke,PFA announcements,ect. The only issue is a low engine volume. The engine sounds volume does get louder when using the boost to rev up the diesel rpms. You can hear the laboring engine fine then. When rpms are lowered the engine sound is very quiet again.  Is the ps2 board going bad?

Another question, also what is the life expectancy of a ps2 5 volt board on an engine with high mileage? Say an engine that has had the wheels run off of here so to speak. 

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In my limited experience, the magnets in the PS2 five volt locos look like a prewar loco, they appear to be crumbling. A new speaker isn't all that expensive, and a new volume pot might help. As far as life expectancy, I have seen them give up the ghost without warning at any time. However, I had two of the first Proto 2.0 locos, a RailKing Reading SW1500 and a Reading GP40, both lasted many years, logging hundreds of scale miles, needing only the occasional battery when they couldn't be found on the DCS remote. I sold both, and as far as I know they are still racking up run time. Your mileage may vary.

Maybe, I'm not understanding your issue, but I found that when I used the boost, the engine rpm/volume no longer changed with speed. Below is what is written in the MTH DCS manual. I brought my locomotive to 0 SMPH, then pushed the Drift button many times, until the engine sounds were down to idle. I don't use this function on diesels anymore.

For diesel or electric engines, the change in
sound will become more pronounced with
each press of the switch until you reach the
system limit of eight REV levels. The
sound level will remain as you set it until
you press the opposite end of the rocker
switch to return the engine sounds step-bystep
to normal. The system automatically
resets the sound REV level to a prototypical level based on the engine’s speed.

Sorry fellas for not giving you guys the item number. It is a union pacific gp60. Item #          20-2403-1.   I got this engine used it was not mine originaly. Lets just say it was in need of a lot of TLC.  When I got it I tested the electronics and to my suprise it ran,couplers fired,almost everything worked. Even replace the smoke wick and it worked great. It smokes you out of the room.noticed the sounds were kinda garbled and not sounding right. Maybe the battery was low I thought. So I did read engine info in the dcs menu. It read low battery and it did have an original mth 5 volt battery so I reaplaced with a new mth 5 volt battery that was fully charged. Still poor sounds. So then I suppected the speaker may be bad. So I  replaced the mth speaker which was doing as you guys have said.metal flaking ect. Got better sound level all around from the engine. Sounds were not crystal clear but were ok. Then I did an engine reset and a feautures reset. Then noticed that the engine volume sounds were low sounding compared to all other sounds,bell horn,ect. so I checked the engine voume level in the remote it said it was at 100. Then I turned the engine sounds off and on with the engine mute button on the remote. Engine went mute and then got got sounds again. So the mute function worked. I will say overall the sounds are not crystal clear. But the engine sound low volume level has me stumped. I think the board is going out but not sure. This engine read very high miles on the odometer in the remote.  If you need any more info just asked I will try to as best I can describe it for you. Thanks for the info.        

As a side note. I have been using this engine as the middle engine in a mu'ed 3 engine consist at the moment and it is running great. With full sounds comming from tge other two engines it is fine for now. Just would like to get the engine and its sounds working as they should. For now my gamble on this used engine has been ok and I am fine with it.It runs,smokes and looks great after a lot of cleaning and TLC. Maybe since ps2 is long in the tooth I will upgrade it to ps3 when time permites.  THANKS AGAIN guys for helping to solve the sound issue. 

 

 

If speaker and battery are good, and only the engine RPM is weak, everything else loud.  Clear it from any Lashup and also factory reset and turn power off via transformer.  Engine play shut down sounds fully?  If so and that still does not resolve it, reload sound file.  After that it might be the specific sound file so you could load another 5V diesel that you know is loud as you expect.  G

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