Morning Update... I unscrewed the motors from the trucks to validate the question of stuck gears. The trucks and the motors spin freely. After reinstall I again manually turned the flywheel and the wheels turned ok.
With regard to Amp draw (Engineer Joe's question). On the Z1000 now the breaker pops before I can get the dial more than half way turned. Over at the Z4000 the amp draw is almost equal to that of the volts. Nothing else is on the track or using that current. 5 volts 4.8 amps, 8 volts 7.9 amps. I was afraid to move the handle further to even attempt to start the engine.
I decided to unplug the 2 connectors on the board to test the amps and my finger touched a black box on the board (is that the flash?) It was VERY hot after only those few moments at 5 and 8 volts.
With the connectors unplugged from the board I lifted the Z4000 to 18 volts... the amps were minimal .1 or .2.
So I guess I have a bad PS3 board. I will call MTH Monday to see if they will make a warranty repair. I thought about buying an inexpensive PS3 diesel (I found one for $200) and cannibalizing the PS3 board and selling of the rest as a dummy unit. But my fear is that there is something else going on with the engine that caused the board to go bad. Unless I can figure out what that something is... my feeble skills won't be able to diagnose much. I'm good at remove and replace and my skills end there.
Thanks all for your ideas thus far. I'm still open to other thoughts?
Ron
