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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

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

I've never successfully fixed the charging circuit on a 5V PS/2 board, and I have no idea what to look for there.  The only fixes I've done on them is the light/smoke/coupler triacs and a couple of capacitors that I could reach.  The other thing is the audio amplifier, I have replaced a couple of those.

3V boards have a lot more stuff that can be fixed.

First, you stated that you have no sounds on this engine, but you do hear it start up after you turn power off to layout.  Seems ODD.  Is the board in the engine and battery in tender or both in the tender?  Something is triggering a restart of sounds, but that really is weird and your PS-2 5V board can be going/is bad.  Your not going to resolve it most likely.  It plays shutdown sounds but does not save data to memory, so when you go to use it again the address is not correct to the Remote and you have to re-add the engine.  Best to upgrade it, but go with the PS-32 board with 5V connectors and new 4 ohm speaker. 

But again I am not really following your description completely since you started saying no sounds, so how do you get shut down sounds.  G

On 02/10 I had an engine that would run under transformer control with no sounds or lights.  I did not check the couplers.

on 02/11 I installed a new Rayovac 9v NiMH battery and had full caps, lights sounds, all DCS functions. Ran the unit for An hour forward, and an hour backwards.  Shut the layout down, had the mystery sounds and the dead battery.

Make sense?

So I have 2 PS 5 volt boards, one completely dead, and one which gets a write error when I try to download a sound file to sector 3.  Where can I find, good steam PS2 boards either 3 volt or 5 volt.  I believe that the PS2 3 volt boards are pin compatible with the 5 volt boards and will be able to use the existing wiring harnesses (excepting the battery lead of course).  Is for the PRR Decapod MTH # 30-1176-1

Thanks

As I responded on the other thread where you made this same post..

Rob,

I believe that the PS2 3 volt boards are pin compatible with the 5 volt boards and will be able to use the existing wiring harnesses (excepting the battery lead of course).

Unfortunately, that's not exactly the case. The 3 volt and 5 volt PS2 boards have different physical headers, although the pinouts are the same for both board types.

You have 3 options:

  • Obtain a PS32 board with 5 volt headers from MTH (these boards are available with either type of header). Although it's a slightly different form factor and is also just a bit larger, it will have the exact same headers as does the PS2 5 volt board.
  • Remove the headers from a defective 5 volt board and from a new 3 volt PS2 board, and swap them.
  • Use a 3 volt PS2 board and replace the existing 5 volt wiring harness with a 3 volt wiring harness.

In the first case you'd discard the battery. In the other 2 cases you'd swap the 8.4 volt battery for a 2.4 volt battery (or, alternatively, for a BCR or super capacitor). In all cases you'd swap the existing 16 ohm speaker for a 4 ohm speaker.

Over all, the first option is, in my opinion, the best one.

Last edited by Barry Broskowitz

John,

Pin compatible Barry, yes I do realize you have to swap the header shells.

I wasn't responding to your post. In fact, I stated that this post was a response I'd posted on the thread that the OP started where he asked exactly, word-for-word, the same question.

Your last option is not very realistic, you're doing a fresh installation!

Of course it isn't by any means a preferred way to solve the problem. Rather, it was included for the sake of completeness and would be my choice of last resort.

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