Low PS2 Battery

Are you sure it is a PS2 3v?  It was delivered in 2004.  They were still using some 5v boards at that time. In any event, especially if it is a 5v board, check the speaker.  If the magnet is delaminating, that will cause the sound to be low.  A low battery in PS2 will cause the sounds to start loud (normal) then drop to a lower volume.

The operator’s manual says it has two 1.2V NiMH AA 2500mAh rechargeable batteries.  I have a 2-8-8-2 from 2004V1 like that.  The rechargeable batteries are easy to find, easy to replace and not expensive.  I replaced mine a few years ago.  Since your batteries are 16 years old, I would replace them.  Old batteries can leak.

Not sure if battery replacement will resolve your issues with conventional operation, proto-coupler or volume.  I’m assuming you have already tried to adjust the volume.

The batteries can be replaced with a 3V BCR, but I don’t recall if it’s a plug on the board or if you need to cut and solder wires.  I wouldn’t recommend going for a PS3 board.

Check the charging plug, if it's rectangular, it's a 3V board, if it's round, it's a 5V board.  FWIW, the User's Manual does specify this is a 3V system with two NiCad 1.2V batteries.

I'd just pop a super-cap replacement in there, then you won't have to worry about batteries again.  Easy to make with a few bucks worth of parts.

I do believe it's a 3V system. I will check the plug and confirm. 

I would rather get rid of the batteries if possible. I have a very loud startup and then the volume drops off. The supercap replacement looks to be a 5.4 V 1.5F cap with the matching connector plug that I can steal off my battery. Is that it?

You got it, in this case I used the JST-PH 2-pin connector that plugs directly into the top 3V P/S board.  You can also chop off the Molex plug and connect it to the existing battery harness.

John - Are you still making them or was that just a one off since you had excess parts?  I recently installed the two I bought from you a few years ago.  I cut off the male plugs and soldered on the female plugs from the old MTH batteries.

I still make them from time to time.  I buy the caps in quantity, so I typically have a couple hundred on hand at any given time.

I've been messing with the DCS system and it seems that the app/system remembers the engine, but the engine has to be added every time (or I'm doing it wrong). I assume that has to do with a low battery as well. 

With that said, I took a picture of speaker, batteries, and the connector (I think). The speaker magnet looks weird but I'm not sure what delaminating is but I'm guessing I got it. Can I save it? Or do I gotta go to MTH for a replacement?

You can see why the rear electrocoupler wasn't working in that picture also. I actually took this tender apart to start trying to fit that second smoke unit in that I posted about before. I found this smashed wire for the electrocoupler and decided to fix that. It works very well now. This is my first experience with electrocouplers and I just think they're the coolest thing! 

The batteries match the 1.2V description for a 3V system. I think I traced the wires correctly and the plug is circled in red. I was running out of time for the night after fixing that coupler and I didn't want to undo the wire bundles so I might have it wrong. We'll see next time I get on the bench. 

That is a 3V board, and you can use a simple supercap replacement for the battery if you like.  You NEED to stop running until you get that speaker replaced!  Those flakes are very bad news!  The speaker plating also can flake inside the voicecoil.  If it shorts anything to the frame, at a minimum you're going to likely take out the audio amplifier.  That's $40-50 to get replaced.

I make these for my use, just a connector, a bit of wire, and a 5V 1.5F supercap.

Ohh boy. Sounds pretty serious. Will another replacement from MTH do the same thing? Or do I need to go to a third party supplier? 

EDIT: Nevermind the questions about the connector style and wire gauge. I will just steal them from the battery holder. 

The current MTH speakers shouldn't flake like that, it was a specific time period that the Star speakers had that issue.

Nice. I'll have to see about tracking one down. 

@BillYo414 posted:

Ohh boy. Sounds pretty serious. Will another replacement from MTH do the same thing? Or do I need to go to a third party supplier? 

EDIT: Nevermind the questions about the connector style and wire gauge. I will just steal them from the battery holder. 

The new speakers are supposed to have solved the defective plating problem. A few friends wiped out some boards when this first started happening and no one realized it.

I could be doing it wrong but I seem to be having a heck of a time finding a replacement speaker. I tracked down the part number as BF-0000034 but I only seem to have an option to add it to my wishlist. So I'm hunting on other websites but cant find 4ohm, 3 watt, 50mm x 17.5mm. I'm on the phone with MTH now to see if it's available or not. 

I did find a few 40mm speaker options at 4 ohm, 3 watt. that might have to be the solution. 

Here's three potential candidates at Digikey.  They're not 3 watts, but that's not a chiseled in stone requirement.

Speaker Search at Digikey

I was afraid someone might find it after I said I couldn't haha ohh well, thanks! I placed an order. The cap should be here soon. 

I assumed the 4 ohm, 3 watt wasn't negotiable because it would be hard on the board. 

3W is just the maximum rating of the speaker.  Some of the PS/2 and PS/3 models have a 1 watt very small speaker, the Climax locomotive comes to mind, as well as many of the diesel switchers.

Well good deal. Now I know in case I ever encounter this again. 

I believe those speakers will have a lower profile too which will be handy for smoke unit upgrades. 

I gotta bump this thread. The connector that came with my BCR2 didn't match my PS2 3 volt board as described above.

So I did what any electrically challenged guy named BillYo414 would do. I snipped, soldered, and swapped the connectors between the BCR2 and the battery pack so that it could connect to the board. I made sure not to let red and black touch because I wasn't sure if that mattered. I put the loco back on the track, put the handle at 18v, let it sit (for a minute).

No dice. I still have low volume and the battery check on the DCS Premium app says "low". The double checked my pins to make sure I didnt break anything. Pins looked ok so I popped the whole board off the tender to look for a disconnected wire but everything looks as I would expect it to look.

The only other thing I did was chop off the charging port. Do I need that? I could wire it back in. I just didn't see why I would need it. I have a spare BCR2 if I need to just try again.

You don't need the charging port unless you want to go back to the battery.

Don't let the wires touch anything!

The volume will stay low until the caps fully charge. The remote will say low because it's charging the caps.

So...? if the caps are charged,

1st) try killing the power and seeing how long the sounds keep playing.

try resetting the engine to restore full volume.

Still bad speaker in there?

First off, look at the picture I posted.  The red wire should go to the positive side of the supercap and the black wire to the negative side of the supercap.  Note the orientation of the connector in the picture below, this plugs directly into the top board on the PS/3 set.  If your connector isn't taking the plus side to the right place, that could explain your issues.

@Engineer-Joe posted:

You don't need the charging port unless you want to go back to the battery.

Don't let the wires touch anything!

The volume will stay low until the caps fully charge. The remote will say low because it's charging the caps.

So...? if the caps are charged,

1st) try killing the power and seeing how long the sounds keep playing.

try resetting the engine to restore full volume.

Still bad speaker in there?

I'm glad I got the charging port right. And I won't. We used to make stun guns from disposable cameras as kids. I don't know how big this cap is but I know what happens when you inadvertently discharge a cap.

I will try to kill the power and I'll try a factory reset. The speaker was replaced and works well.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

First off, look at the picture I posted.  The red wire should go to the positive side of the supercap and the black wire to the negative side of the supercap.  Note the orientation of the connector in the picture below, this plugs directly into the top board on the PS/3 set.  If your connector isn't taking the plus side to the right place, that could explain your issues.

duh...how did I not check for red to red and black to black that makes so much sense. I just matched colors from the connector to the wire caps. I never checked plug to plug.

Well, the positive side of the cap has to be in the position shown for the red wire for the supercap battery replacement to work.

Err, ummm, wouldn't it explode if wrong?

Actually no, but they don't function well.  Supercaps are actually non-polar when they're manufactured, but in the factory test they take a "set".  For that reason, they are polarity marked so they can be connected properly for the best results.  However, you can hook them up backwards and they sort of work, with the emphasis on "sort of".

I swapped the wires real quick yesterday but it still didn't work.

I'll return to the bench for tinkering after Christmas. I don't want to keep rushing.

If you have the version with 2 AA batteries in a holder, you could use 2 alkaline as a temporary test.  If you still have low audio, or if it does not play shutdown sounds when track power turned off, or if it does not retain memory it can be a bad Power Supply board, and it can also be a bad processor all depends on actual symptoms.  There are several types of faults that can occur.  No charging, but does engage battery, no buck circuit, no battery connected, over charge.  So.... may not be bad battery or bcr.   G

I do have the 2 AA batteries. I will give that a shot.

I couldn't stay away last night and I was down at the basement workbench when I should have been sleeping. I starting pulling the board and bracket it seats in apart out of curiosity. I was looking for something to be burned or just disconnected but I didn't notice anything. We'll see. I'm being lazy today and just hanging out with the family. We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Well it worked for a second today. I started the loco up and it was very loud. So I checked the battery and it said "Battery ok". I had the tender shell off since I was tinkering the other day. I buttoned it all up and brought it back to the test layout...and then it didn't work I was kinda beat from working on prepping the floor for benchwork so I decided to call it a day.

The wire for the rear coupler was smashed when I got the locomotive. It wasn't cut, something was clamped on it (tender shell I assume) and it had bad continuity. I will be looked very closely tomorrow for smashed wires since this worked with the tender shell off but didn't work with the tender shell on.

I also didn't try the AA batteries. I will be trying that if the tender shell comes up innocent.

If you get it working with the shell off, DON'T PUT IT BACK ON!  Make sure you find the source of the failure as grounding almost anything on a PS/2 or PS/3 board is very bad for it's health, and doing it multiple times will most likely kill them!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you get it working with the shell off, DON'T PUT IT BACK ON!  Make sure you find the source of the failure as grounding almost anything on a PS/2 or PS/3 board is very bad for it's health, and doing it multiple times will most likely kill them!

For once, giving up was a good move haha I only tried it twice. I was feeling calmed down so I just went downstairs to remove the tender shell and try it. No dice. Fired right up but no loud volume and powering down at the transformer meant that the locomotive and app forgot they had communicated.

I'm going to go to the PS2 board manual and see if it has any guidance before I keep bugging you guys. I'll update if I find anything.

You left same batteries in?  Do the AA.  G

I used the original batteries when I first got it. Haven't tried the alkaline AAs yet.

I tried the alkaline AAs and things were loud and they stayed loud. Plus the engine entered a shutdown sequence a few seconds after I cut the power. It also remembered me when I powered back up and I didn't have to go back in to manually add the engine through the app. And it said "Battery Ok" on the battery check.

So I'm thinking something is wrong with my BCR2. I charged it for two minutes at about 19 volts so I feel like it MUST be charged. Can I check cap charge with a multimeter? I ordered a BCR2 because the caps I bought weren't in stock at the time. I think the fastest path to getting up and running is just to buy replacement batteries and call it a day. I mostly wanted to go to the caps because the extra smoke unit I have fits in the tender if I have a cap instead of a battery Pack. But sometimes you gotta play the long game. Either way, I think my boards are ok.

>>Can I check cap charge with a multimeter?<<

There is a very simple BCR2 test you can do with your multimeter to check the integrity of the connector pins and ensure you have some amount of working capacitance.  Do this test with the BCR2 removed from the engine's circuit board.

Set your multimeter to Ohms on the R1 scale. Touch one of your meter probes to one pin; the other probe to the other pin. (Don't worry about red-black polarity. )  You should immediately see the resistance go to Zero ohms. Keep your meter probes on the pins. After a few seconds you should slowly see the resistance rise. For example, after a minute the resistance may be in the low hundreds range.  You'll continue to see the resistance get higher and higher, but very slowly.  If you see this happening, your BCR2 is probably working fine.

Of course, this test won't tell you the exact capacitance but it will give you a basic level of confidence that the BCR2 capacitors are functioning and the connector is OK.

@Bruce Brown posted:

Of course, this test won't tell you the exact capacitance but it will give you a basic level of confidence that the BCR2 capacitors are functioning and the connector is OK.

Just knowing if it's functioning would be fine! Then I can assume it's simply the wrong capacitance and feel like I'm onto something haha I'm just hoping I'm right that the boards are fine. Although I've probably stressed them out pretty bad running like I have. I will see how the resistance moves tomorrow.

So you may have a bad BCR, or you have a bad power supply board that does not want to charge the batteries.  If that is the case running with batteries will work, you just need to recharge them with a charger.  Or get the PS repaired.  Which I can do if that is the issue.  G

Ohh...I thought that AAs working would clear the board but I see why that's not the case now. I don't have much interest in repairing boards myself.

Today didn't go according to plan at all so I haven't had time to run downstairs and test the caps. It's just been one of those days. Hopefully I get some time later tonight.