PS one failed after replacing smoke unit.

Please take this with a grain of salt because I really would only be guessing at what went wrong, but sometimes things fail just because it's time was up regardless of what we did.

I had  a friend who had a new motor installed in his car and complained about the shop who did  the work because his transmission went about two months later. I told him that the trans was just as old as his motor and had just as many miles on it. In short the new motor was just too powerful for his sloppy old transmission.

The same thing may have happened with your control board. Maybe!

Good Luck.

Well for one thing that part number is no good so can't really tell what smoke unit you installed. 

Casey Jones2 posted:

Well for one thing that part number is no good so can't really tell what smoke unit you installed. 

Double "A" followed by five zeros and 11 is a valid MTH part number and the one I assume you mean. I've always understood that to be the standard MTH PS1 smoke unit and as you say it's basically a drop in replacement. Not sure if by pigtail you mean the standard power connector that comes with this unit or how it could have been reversed; did you wire the connections in exactly the same way the original was?  Are the connections to/from the board solid? This engine was issued in 1999 and I've had trouble with my few PS1 engines of that vintage with board connections if not the board itself failing. If it ran OK for 15 minutes and some features still work I'd suspect that a connection worked loose or got overheated.

forget the exact number of the smoke unit but it was identical to the one i removed. There was no wiring to do, the original connector from the engine to the smoke unit plugged right in. The new smoke unit from MTH came with a new connector with a white and a red wire just like the one in the engine. It was the same except the colors were reversed. So if i used the connector MTH sent with I would have to reverse the red and white wires from original.

Steam locos with PS1 electronics are completely separate from the smoke units.  Smoke units are powered by the track through an On/Off switch.  The PS1 electronics are also powered by the track through the thether. I doubt swapping the smoke unit has any connection to the failure.  PS1 thethers have 4 leads, 2 for power and 2 for motor power.  Since turbine sounds are present, but no movement, either the motor leads in the thether, the wires to the motor, or the relay/relay driver on the board are bad.

I have several PS1 engines from the late '90s, like the detail and specific engine sounds.  However, the PS1/QSI electronics have been replaced with ERR CC/RS and run as good as they look.  The PS1 gave too much trouble, including frying out on me for no obvious reason, at times.  The ERR change out is not complicated, as stated, only four wires to tender for the steam engines.  Yes, the headlight and smoke run off track power, and 18 volts for TMCC is too much.  You can change out lights with incandescent grain of wheat/rice bulbs also from ERR.  The turbines I have with great sounds, still running, and use the Cab1 in conventional, with Aux1 / 9 on the keys, you still get all sounds and good running.  But, whenever someone comes up with duplicate sounds for RS, or a manner to make use of the sound chip in TMCC/RS, hey, too, will be changed over.  I do not run DCS on my layout, strictly TMCC and that is fine with me.  I now have over 30 engines with TMCC, either original Lionel or changed over by myself with ERR and Digitronics products.  Hope you find a good solution to the PS1 dilemma.

Jesse   TCA

I suspected the board from the beginning. I have no output from the board, the red power wire feeds back through the tether and goes to the board. If I reversed that I figured I would have caused more problems. Any thoughts on MTH PS3.0 upgrades compared to ERR. I plan to just change the electronics over but I'm looking for the best steam turbine sound choice. Anyone know where I can sample these (sound files) before I buy?

check your 9 volt battery to see if it is charged.  also you might have to do a reset 18.  board could be locked up.

Battery, Broken wire in tether, broken solder joint on engine PCB.  As most common checks.  G

I had a similar problem with a ps1 railking Allegheny .After about a year of non use  and replacement of a traction tire the engine failed  after about fifteen minutes of running. I bought the engine to the Mth repair facility at York and they stated the.problem was caused by a dead nine volt battery which damaged the circuit board.After replacing  the circuit board and a new battery the engine ran fine.I have replaced the battery with a BCR .The battery seems to be the weak link in the PS1 system. I also have the Railking Turbine and I replaced the battery with a BCR. If you want to do a complete electronics change  over check with Dallee or one of the other after market sound system companies.