Preventing old protosound 2 (5 volt) board from blowing?

Usually when the 5V board dies, it's really dead!  I don't know if the 330uf cap is the cause or effect of the failure, or perhaps it's just a lousy cap and slowly dies over time, that's my suspicion.  FWIW, almost universally, when I find that cap showing signs of failure, it's the WINCAP brand, that raises a red flat in my mind. I'm pretty sure I've never seen the other capacitor brands in that 330uf cap location that showed signs of failure like the WINCAP brand does.

Many times I've been told that some diodes in the middle of the sandwich of boards are the parts that die and kill the board.  I know they run a lot of the parts close to the limits, so things get hotter than they should, probably another reason that they fail prematurely.

Is there a list of the symptoms of a dead board somewhere?
I just tested a "New Old Stock" early 2000s PS 2 engine tonight and I think the board is dead, but the engine is operating conventionally. Does that make sense to anyone? It's basically a Williams Genesis at this point. I "heard" the electricity, but the board isn't booting up. That's a dead board, right?

I'm asking because I studied Economics, Linguistics, and Warfare. I have no idea what I'm looking at inside these models. I really lost out on this last auction haul.

If the locomotive runs conventionally, the board is not dead.  It may have a DCS issue, but the board is required to run conventionally.

No, the board typically draws more current when a capacitor shorts or puffs out and bulging cap this damages the rest of the board circuit, why waste your time on a lost cause!

Alan

@CharmCityAirLine posted:

Is there a list of the symptoms of a dead board somewhere?
I just tested a "New Old Stock" early 2000s PS 2 engine tonight and I think the board is dead, but the engine is operating conventionally. Does that make sense to anyone? It's basically a Williams Genesis at this point. I "heard" the electricity, but the board isn't booting up. That's a dead board, right?

I'm asking because I studied Economics, Linguistics, and Warfare. I have no idea what I'm looking at inside these models. I really lost out on this last auction haul.

In your case, if it runs conventionally (has a good battery) but quiet in DCS and won't add.  Do a recover engine to see if you can get it to recover and reset the ID to default.  Must use TIU#1 and best if Fixed 1.  If it recovers and the remote will say that.  Add the engine.  If it says no engine to recover (try more than once).  But if no joy and still runs conventional that is a one failure that can occur.  Loss of DCS functionality.  G