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Hello,

I have a set of 20-20189-1 PS3 F-7’s an ABA set. I went to run them and noticed that the smoke fan motor unit was not working in the trailing A unit. I disassembled the smoke unit. The smoke works but the fan does not. I connected the fan motor to a power source to test it. It worked perfectly. I am by far not a train mechanic. I have very basic knowledge when it comes to this. Could there be something wrong with the circuit board that everything connects to? Any help is very much appreciated. Thank you and have a good day.

Last edited by chefmarkt69
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It’s the gray and green wires near the left gray wire nut.  There may be a two-pin  connector under the smoke unit (you may have to unscrew the smoke unit to access it).  If not, you will have to unsolder the wires from the fan motor to do the lamp test, mentioned above (note polarity) as the wires terminate in the 40-pin socket on the board.

It looks like someone did some repairs as the power wires were spliced/insulated due to a short, pinch or rubbing.

I actually removed the motor to inspect and when I went to reinstall I added some wires to make it a little longer for easier access. I soldiered them and put some shrink tube over the wire to seal them.  As for the the positive and negative. Would the grey be the neg and the green wire be the positive? Sorry for all of the questions.

FAN FET (Field Effect Transistor) blown on the PS3 slave board.I'm hoping it's basically the same part and relative placement as a full blown PS3 board.

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...0#158251952137681860

Being how tiny that surface mount transistor might be, this might be a full board replacement. Ouch $80

https://mthpartsandsales.com/shop/search/results

Keyword search "slave"

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Here's the thing though, it stopped working for a reason. Unlike the black box that I find so many people treat electronics like that they do not understand, don't just blame the FET for failing. Something caused it to fail. Either wiring, or a bad motor, jammed impeller, something causing likely high current draw.

You might be at that point where having a tech look at it, properly fix the problem, repair your old board or get a new one, likely replace the fan motor out of caution to protect the new board might be the right answer.

I just would hate to see you buy a board, slap it in, and then smoke it in the first 30 seconds of powerup. Then you both paid for a board, and still had to send off for repair.

Hi Vernon,

yes now that I think back, when I first started the locomotive the smoke unit fan was making a bit of noise. This is an almost brand new unit that the smoke was never used before. So most likely when I started it up and me not knowing what was happening under the hood say. I took it apart and checked the impleller and me thinking that the impeller was loose. I put a drop of glue on it and put it back together . The glue dried and Jamed and in turned burned the board. All of this caused be me and my lack of knowledge. Thank you for the help so much.

Should be plug and play. But again, this started because of a smoke motor, you replaced with a new smoke motor and lubed it right?

Otherwise, send this to a tech. I'm trying to help you save money. This could have been as simple as adding a drop of oil early on.  It jumped to glue the impeller, lock the motor, burn the circuit board. Mistakes were made, I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but say let's not make more mistakes and continue the pain and expense to your wallet.

And just because you tested the fan motor with a battery pack-

@chefmarkt69 posted:

I did connect the motor to an Rc car nickel metal battery pack and it ran great.

it might be drawing higher than normal current and just kill a new $80 board.  I personally would not trust the original motor after you told me what you did with the glue.

Smoke fan motors are sold under the common repair parts and upgrades link

https://www.mthpartsandsales.c...ts/240?type=products

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@chefmarkt69 posted:

I actually removed the motor to inspect and when I went to reinstall I added some wires to make it a little longer for easier access. I soldiered them and put some shrink tube over the wire to seal them.  As for the the positive and negative. Would the grey be the neg and the green wire be the positive? Sorry for all of the questions.

The gray is positive and the green is negative.

I spoke with MTH parts via email, they said when I get the new board it self learns from the lead locomotive board so no flashing required. I order a new board, fan motor and new impeller. Oh and a new wick might as well do all components in area except the heating element’s. Those are all good. Stay tuned and thank you all for all the help in this matter!!! Now I will have a PS3 board extra but with a bad FET chip on it. No sure what to do with it??

Just checking before I install the new Slave board and smoke unit motor and wick and gasket. I extended the wires from the old board to the smoke unit. I did use the same size wire, it was just a little short from the factory ones. Will this be ok for the new board? You can see this in a picture above. I do believe that the last board fried because the factory smoke unit motor was bad from the start.

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