I've bought a couple of 5v boards and haven't had an issue, yet, but I haven't run the heck out of them either. I ensure property battery charge before running. MTH made thousands of 5v boards. I don't know what the actual fail rate is and I haven't seen any hard data on fail rate other than anecdotal stories here on the forum. As we all know, anecdotal stories provide no sound evidentiary basis to form a scientific conclusion. While certainly they provide a cautionary tale, they do not tell the whole story about the 5v board. I would imagine more than 100,000 5v boards were produced. How many have failed? I do get a sense many still operate. They are constantly for sale here and on the Bay and advertised as operational. I've seen far more advertised as functional than non-functional. But, that's just another anecdotal story. Without real numbers, we are all just relying on personal experience and stories from others.
I struggled with this very issue on a recent purchase. A forum member was selling a set of locos that I really wanted. I knew the powered unit was a 5v board and had a good discussion with the member on the subject. Thankfully, the loco had pretty light use. Nonetheless, I knew making the purchase included accepting the risk of the board failing either when I first put it on the track or some day in the future or never at all. I chose to accept the risk because I wanted the locos as they had meaning to me and what I'm modeling. I know if the board fails while GRJ is still around and doing upgrades it'll end up on his bench. To me, the ownership of the models outweighed my concern for the risk involved. I'm glad they are part of my railroad and I intend to keep them running for years to come--even if that involves more money for a new board.
