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My take on the 5V boards is I buy those locomotives with the thought that I have to replace the board.  While some 5V boards will run for a long time, there have been so many random failures of those boards I wouldn't assume that to be the case.  Many people recount stories of taking the locomotive out of storage and having it dead when they put it on the tracks.  The motor drivers run fairly hot on the 5V boards, my sense is they're running pretty close to design limits with a lot of components on those boards.  I have some 5V boards in my parts box that I keep just to replace any of mine that fail.  I've had one of those turn up dead while living in an anti-static bag in the parts box, I put it on the tester and it was dead!

I knock at least $100 off the price I'm willing to pay for the locomotive vs. the 3V board for that reason.

docsavage posted:

I am astonished that the failure rate is so very high. Does MTH offer an explanation for this or is it just the consumers tough luck?

Like GRJ said, these boards can sometimes run a long time, and other times be dead in a just a few years after they were installed.  MTH didn't really give hard reason behind this but I wouldn't put all of the blame on them as some other areas of the electronics industry (computer motherboards) suffered from the same problems as these 5v boards during this manufacturing period.  The biggest point of failure were cheap capacitors that failed prematurely.  The 3v boards were built after this time of these bad capacitors.

I've been extremely lucky with my 5v board equipped engines (about 10 in my fleet) and haven't had a bad one yet, But I do expect them to go someday and depending on the engine, I may upgrade the board or just replace the whole unit.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The boards are 15 years old, and it was the first PS/2 design.  There is no "explanation" of the issue, but it didn't take long for them to come out with the PS/2 3V boards.

Thank you gunrunnerjohn. I'm a big MTH fan. In my opinion an "explanation" is in order. Are we to expect that all electronics are going to expire or fail within a 2 year period? 5 years? 10 years? I appreciate the facts stated here about bad components on Ps2/5 volt boards. That's an explanation I can understand. New replacement boards are relatively expensive in relation to the cost of the engine. I respect your opinion, while I believe there should be a better path to longevity, I'm not sure what that would look like. I am reluctant to buy Ps2/5volt engines and new Ps3 engines as they also seem to have a high failure rate.

Again thanks to gunruinnerjohn and all for your feedback and explanations. We all benefit from the OGR forum.

An explanation might be in order, but I don't know if one is forthcoming.   Truthfully, I'm a fan of the 3V PS/2 board as well, I've had the best luck with those.  I have a PS/3 steam upgrade board that failed right out of the box, I have to see if MTH is going to replace it.  I've installed probably 30-35 of the PS/2 upgrades, never had a bad board.  Out of half a dozen of the PS/3 upgrades, I'm already up to two bad boards.  Not a record I actually was inspired to attaining!  

Before the peanut gallery chimes in, these are brand new sealed upgrade kits, and I take them out using proper static precautions.  My first step is to connect them to the MTH test set and load sound files, so bad wiring is not possible, they're just bad from the get-go!  That hasn't inspired confidence for me in the PS/3 system.

I don't think it's reasonable for a 15 year old plus board to be covered under any kind of warranty or have expectation that they should all work under all conditions and usage.  My main inquiry was to gauge the risk and how to approach the buy, which is summed up nicely by several posters.  I will go into any of these with the expectation of having to replace.

GRJ, your knowledge is always valued as I know you have quite a bit of experience with this.  When looking for electronics info I always pay attention to your posts.  Not to take away from many others who post with their experience as well.

MTH and other hobbies like this in general can never know how someone uses their loco and blanket warranty for long periods.  Even with MTH diagnostics of time and scale mileage only show so much.  Someone could have 10 hours usage with 100 scale miles and that seems good, but if they constantly pulled 12+ car consists up 3% grades several hours per day it's likely more taxing than a loco with 500 scale miles and 80 hours usage pulling a 6 car consist across level grades for an hour per day.

TexasSP posted:

Are there any issues or precautions to know if considering a purchase of a loco with the 5v board?  My understanding is that they had issues, just not sure what and why along with how serious and how concerned I should be if looking to purchase one.

When I was at a train show the best advice I was given was only buy the 3 volt PS2 locomotives... anything earlier are just good for parts.

I have had no problems with my 3 MTH 3 volt board locomotives.

Last edited by J Daddy

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.

Hello guys and gals

I thought the Ps-2 systems is better than the Ps-1's ?  From what I read here seems to be not so.  I have a railking NW-2 with the PS-1, it is still working good and being 17 years old.  I Bought my first BCR for it but was defective and replaced with second BCR.   The stock number is 30-2157-1 made in 1999 which I purchased new in the box last August.   I been expecting the Ps-1 boards to fail but never did !!

The earth is violently broken, The earth is split open, The earth is shaken exceedingly. Isaiah 24:19 NKJV

Tiffany

 

Basil posted:

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?

All true, but remember that techs see a lot of locomotives, and the quantity of 5V boards that are dead vs the 3V boards that are dead is telling.  I am fairly certain in the ten year run of 3V boards there were a lot more of them produced than 5V boards in their roughly three year run, but I've replaced a bunch of 5V boards, and not that many 3V boards.  Also, since the 3V board set is separately replaceable, many times you're only replacing half the boards or individual components.

I have a large box of dead boards, I just toss one in when I get it.  It has a few 3V board pieces and about 30 or more 5V boards.  That may not tell you anything, but it sure tells me something!  I've actually experienced a spontaneous failure of 5V boards twice in my limited selection of 5V locomotives.  The only 3V board failures I've personally had on my locomotives had in the same period were easily fixed, usually caused by shorted lighting or coupler wires taking out the associated FET.

You can draw any conclusion from that anecdotal story you like, I know what conclusion I draw from it.

Last edited by gunrunnerjohn
TexasSP posted:

I don't think it's reasonable for a 15 year old plus board to be covered under any kind of warranty or have expectation that they should all work under all conditions and usage.  My main inquiry was to gauge the risk and how to approach the buy, which is summed up nicely by several posters.  I will go into any of these with the expectation of having to replace.

GRJ, your knowledge is always valued as I know you have quite a bit of experience with this.  When looking for electronics info I always pay attention to your posts.  Not to take away from many others who post with their experience as well.

MTH and other hobbies like this in general can never know how someone uses their loco and blanket warranty for long periods.  Even with MTH diagnostics of time and scale mileage only show so much.  Someone could have 10 hours usage with 100 scale miles and that seems good, but if they constantly pulled 12+ car consists up 3% grades several hours per day it's likely more taxing than a loco with 500 scale miles and 80 hours usage pulling a 6 car consist across level grades for an hour per day.

IIRC here these failures have been occurring for a long time and some on near new in the box engines.

gunrunnerjohn posted

An explanation might be in order, but I don't know if one is forthcoming.   Truthfully, I'm a fan of the 3V PS/2 board as well, I've had the best luck with those.  I have a PS/3 steam upgrade board that failed right out of the box, I have to see if MTH is going to replace it.  I've installed probably 30-35 of the PS/2 upgrades, never had a bad board.  Out of half a dozen of the PS/3 upgrades, I'm already up to two bad boards.  Not a record I actually was inspired to attaining!  

Before the peanut gallery chimes in, these are brand new sealed upgrade kits, and I take them out using proper static precautions.  My first step is to connect them to the MTH test set and load sound files, so bad wiring is not possible, they're just bad from the get-go!  That hasn't inspired confidence for me in the PS/3 system.

All our PS/2 5V units run fine. (So far:-) Your PS/3 failure rate is not confidence building John!!

Last edited by BobbyD

The boards are old.  How many of us have a 15 year old computer that still runs?  Buy the PS3-2 replacement board and you will be in good shape.    The boards are old and nobody should be astonished.  I have many in a box and will not sell one because the thing will usually come back and bite me.  Over the years I have had George (GGG) Galyo rebuild many PS2  3V boards and I replaced the 5 V boards with the newer better board.  Today we have available the PS3-2 board that will replace the old 5V board.  That is also the hot set up.

 

I tell people who find a 5V board to use a new fully charged green MTH battery.  NEVER and I mean NEVER try to get it done with an old white battery.

Last edited by Marty Fitzhenry

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