MTH 5v to 3v

David,

I've heard that it's not uncommon for a capacitor(I think) to go bad in the 5v PS2 boards. Would it make any sense or is it even possible to do a preventive swap (5v to 3v) of the capacitor before the 5v capacitor blows?

No.

Is there more to it than simply a capacitor swap?

Yes. Much more.

Thanks Barry.

Full board swap (5v to 3v) is the best (only) solution?

Are the 3v boards available?

Wait for availbility of the PS3 boards? what would you do?

David,

Is your 5 volt board defective? If not,you have nothing to do until it becomes defective, if ever. I have any number of 5 volt PS2 engines that operate just fine. It is the exception that one breaks, not by any means the rule.

The biggest "congenital" problem with 5 volt PS2 engines is that their speakers fail. The fix is to replace a $10 speaker with a more reliable one, available from MTH.

Dave,  It is an interesting question.  On those PS-2 5V boards that I have seen bad with a short.  Draw high current at power up, one of the filtering capacitors is almost always blown/split.  Whether that was the cause or the reaction is unknown.  There also is a pair of diodes that rectify AC to DC for the board that usually can be found shorted too.

I have one board that is shorted but the diodes seem good, so I am not sure what the fault was/is.

Can't easily work on these boards unless it is an audio amp issue, light FET or light/smoke Line driver.

Wish it was that simple.

As Barry says, once your board does fail, one alternative is to upgrade to the PS-2 3V with 5V connectors.

No PS-3 kits yet, and that will be a much more involved upgrade as all the lights need to be changed to LEDs at this point.  G

Thanks guys.

Barry, no issues yet. Perhaps I was just being a worry wart.