I can’t help noticing that with each successive iteration of these instructions, they change in detail - the reference to the “air release sound” being an example.
@chucksartor, yes we did cover it before. I tried it, it didn’t work, I replied to that effect. I’ve tried it again; it still produces no useful outcome.
@GGG, if the loco made any sort of consistent response, I could describe it. It doesn’t: responses seem to vary at random, with the only consistent characteristic being that it is not possible to get the loco to run predictably, or for any length of time when it does run.
I will also remark that there are no signs of damage to the boards.
From the various threads on the forum, I can only conclude that MTH did not do the necessary development, or possibly tried to achieve too much, or both, and as a result there are various systemic problems which the loco is prone to, and any “fix” might end up the same way, or might not. There seems to be no way to tell. The actual control system seems to be an example of a well-known engineering fallacy by which the designer attempts to control and excessive number of functions by insufficiently differentiated inputs, resulting in unreliability and increasingly unpredictable results.
I’m very disappointed. I have a couple of other On30 locos with QSI boards and they give no trouble at all. Also, tbh, I’m not much interested in whether these functions work or not, provided it runs reliably and produces whistle and bell sounds.
I already have one MTH loco which has lost its electronics because a previous owner gave up and removed them. This one looks set to join it.
