PS-1 Locos: Upgrading to TMCC or PS3?

On mth club (MTHRRC) website, PS2 kits were $159.  I believe they're no longer available.  As far as I know, PS3 kits will have higher prices and are not yet on club site.

Personally, I'd look to buy a ps2 kit from someone who has them.  You can eliminate the battery withna $5 supercap.

TMCC is possible, but you'll have to settle for the sound that are offered by ERR, you can't retail the PS/1 sound with either a PS2-3 upgrade or a TMCC upgrade.

Thanks for the intel guys- WOW those kits are expensive! On one hand I see the reasoning for those upgrading any old locomotive to PS2 or 3, but you think MTH would have something for owners of existing products/club members to upgrade. R&D aside those definitely do not cost $160+ to make... (even when factoring wholesale margins etc...) Especially when you factor in that the older locomotive boards seem to fail over time, leaving owners stranded?

I'm not bashing MTH- I'm a big fan- its just things like this that highlight the hobby becoming very inaccessible these days.

Marklin was guilty of the same for many years with their digital upgrade kits in HO scale. They still are to a degree, but a few years ago they finally realized the need to go full digital on everything, and offer a very reasonable kit ($35 without sound, ~$100 with) to upgrade older equipment) so owners of old equipment aren't left in the dark. The cheap kits don't have all the bells and whistles, but it keeps your trains running on the layout.

Sounds like I better save my pennies for newer locomotives or older TMCC ones for now!

jpcanton:

It would be nice if there was a simple and cheap why to convert from PS1 to PS2 or PS3.

Nothing is cheap anymore, not even the newspaper!

For me, I had several PS1 engines that I did not like the sound or control, but got them for a good price. I run both TMCC and DCS. After doing some research, I felt that upgrading this engines (steam and diesel) to TMCC was the best way to go for me.

The installs were easy, and if I got into trouble, I called Electric Railroad Co, where I bought the upgrades, they were most helpful. Solving both simple and complex questions I had. 

I found them very helpful. Even though I could have bought the upgrades for slightly less from other dealers, I felt I wanted to go direct to the source for the first install in case I had any issues. 

Not taking anything away from ERR's dealers, I am sure they would have given me the same support, but I just wanted to establish a contact with ERR just in case there were some issues.

After my first install, a F3 diesel, I sold the PS1 components on the OGR forum to help defray some of the costs.

HO and O scale are two different worlds, so the costs will be different.  You have to haul a lot more weight with O-gauge, so you need more robust drive components.

If you want basic command control with no sound, you can go cheap with TMCC as well, the ERR DC Commander will give you full TMCC with everything but sound.  You get directional lights, smoke or strobe light control, and electrocoupler support.  Obviously, it won't have cruise control, that costs more.  The DC Commander can be had for $63.95 from Modern Toy Train Parts.

I want cruise and sound, so I pay the premium.

Thanks guys. When it comes to Marklin its actually rather comparable to O scale minus steam locomotive pricing for some reason. 

The $65 TMCC kits should be worth it for a few older upgrades I've got. Otherwise the $180 in updates is a bit rich for my blood, at least compared to buying a newer locomotive ready to go.

If you have something that you really like is is fairly unique and not available in modern releases, then the upgrades make sense.  If you can get a similar item from the factory in the same price range, I'd go for the factory made one as a rule.

That's great advice and exactly what I consider prior to an upgrade.

At the risk of unleashing criticism, another factor to consider is that a 20 year old Korean-built loco may be better quality then one of current geographic origin.  For example, the smoothest running locos I have are from early 90's, and all still have original traction tires.  None have failed.

I think I covered that in the "really like" comment.  I agree, some of the older stuff is bulletproof, something to consider when upgrading or buying new.

Being a big fan of the PS-1 locomotives, and having several myself, There are some that I won't be upgrading to TMCC because I don't want to loose the sound set.  And for those I'm planning on wiring my layout when I build it in such a way that I can still run conventionally on all the tracks.  My ZW-C sure makes it easy to run them with my Cab-1 handheld.  The only thing I'll miss out on is cruse, but with enough power drops in each block, it shouldn't be much of an issue as my layout is "flat."

Good philosophies guys. I'm just trying to get some locomotives going to play with, which when done all at once plus track has me breaking the bank.

If/when a permanent layout ever happens (basement is a must in future home purchases...) Then I'll wire the whole thing for conventional, TMCC and DCS. Extra work but its worth it to me...

For now its taking over the floor for the holidays and the occaisional weekend when the other half is away!

I can't speak for TMCC, but wiring a layout for DCS & conventional is no different than wiring for conventional.  Just use a minimum of 14-gauge stranded wire for track hot and ground feeds.  My layout was built in 1992 for conventional.  When DCS came out, I just plopped the TIU between transformers and track.

If the layout runs DCS and conventional, you should be fine for TMCC/Legacy.  Wiring for DCS is more critical than TMCC.  Except for really large layouts, you will rarely have any issues with TMCC signal strength.