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I purchased 5 BCR's at a train show told to be new. All mentioned are QSI. 1 installed in a railking and it did not charge or work that engine has issues so I ignored the problem. 2nd one installed in a MTH BL 2 and worked off the start, charged and did a normal shut down all was good. 3rd installed in a MTH Amtrak let charge 2 minutes and all was fine. Reassembled body and retested and nothing. removed body tried another BCR left on track 2 minutes Nothing. tried another BCR and nothing again. reinstalled 9 v battery and engine operated normally. I sent back the BCR to J&W all tested good. Sent back all new ones. The man stands behind his product. My Question, Did the BCR damage the charging system in my Amtrak? anybody else have this problem? I have always heard its a great product but my luck has not been so good.     Respectfully Roy O

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PS-1 boards and PS-2 too, can develop charging issues.  So despite the fact a battery is connect and provides good voltage, it is not automatically charged.  For a BCR that means it won't work.  It can't charge so it can't provide a source of power.  A battery will, until it drains.  I bet you find your battery not working after some time too.  G

My recollection from someone far more expert than me was that charging a dead battery, charging a new battery, or charging a BCR at high voltage would burn up the PS 1 board, and that any charging should be done at a lower voltage over a longer time rather than at a higher voltage.  This goes back years.  There was a guy that specialized in working on ProtoSound 1 systems who had a site up a decade or fifteen years ago; it is my vague recollection that he recommended not using the BCR unless the PS 1 board was modified somehow so that the higher voltage would not burn it up.  I believe he said the newer boards designed after the BCR had been out a while was designed to permit their use so it would not cause such issues.  I do not pretend to be expert in these matters, but that is my recollection of what someone said who knew a lot more about it than I did, or do!

David

I had a BCR take several minutes of running before an address change would stick. I did not do any tests during that period. I can only conclude that the particular engine's charging circuit took longer to charge the BCR. That engine has worked fine ever since. That was after the following engine issue...

 I had another instance (first one) where a used engine had dead batteries. The 3 volt board still acted like it had a dead battery, when a BCR was installed. I swapped the BCR with a set of the stock special AA batteries from another G scale MTH engine. Both engines ran fine ever since with that swap left in place.

All other instances of installing the 3 volt BCRs has been fine. I try to check them more after a swap and also monitor their life.

So I like G's post above about charging a dead BCR. Maybe these two are my oldest (bought used) G scale engines have weaker charging circuits? Also another thought, maybe they got that way from running with dead batteries?

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