1996 MTH Rail King - 1113 LP (Proto Sound 1) 4-6-4 NYC Dreyfuss Hudson Steam locomotive

The locomotive you reference is strictly for conventional control.  Neither of those remotes will operate it.  At the time the manual was written, MTH had no remote controls, so that's why they didn't mention it.

But if you have a TIU on the layout, the DCS remote will operate the loco in conventional mode.  This will give you walk-around control, plus whistle & bell.  I had a DCS system for several months before I had any PS2 locos.

You say you already have a Z4000 transformer.  There is an MTH device, that includes a remote and a box that plugs into the Z4000, which gives walkaround, bell, whistle control for much less dollars than the DCS.  It was called the 40-4001 system; may now have a new number, and may be hard to find.  If you go to MTH web site and search for that number, it will show several dealers in US who supposedly have them in stock.

Thanks gunrunnerjohn

I'm getting acquainted with the loco and its features via the MTH Z4000 transformer.

You wouldn't happen be related to Harry Henning by any chance are you?  

Cheers

Thanks RJR, I looked it up. I'll keep my eye on eBay for one. Cheers

Nope, but I'm well acquainted with both of the Harry's, I do the MTH repairs for Henning's Trains.

Sydney, I'll add that if you ever go to DCS, the DCS remote will also operate the 40-4001 receiver.  I have one on my layout.  A very reliable system.

I have this fine locomotive.  It was my 1st "modern" O-gauge locomotive.  After getting an old Marx set from Goodwill for my son, and spending time cleaning it and getting it running, I got a taste for O.  So I got on ebay and starting looking for some of my favorite locomotives to see what was out there.  This one popped up, and at a couple hundred, I bought it.  It was late 2007 I think, and MTH just had released passenger cars, so I bought a set too and now I had an 11 foot long train.  It's seen it's fair share of bumps and bruises.  My son tripped and fell on it, repairs were required (Broke a side rod, and broke the truck mounts off of the tender frame.  MTH had the rod, but not the tender frame, so I used long screws and a nut.), my nephew raced it off of the track onto the tile floor, so it's got a dent from where it hit and slid.  I ran it with a weak battery and got it in deselect mode, requiring a new chip from MTH (After it sat for 2 years because my local MTH store told me MTH no long made or had chips for it.  But they'd love to upgrade it to PS2 for me.).  And as you can see, I've upgraded the wheel set to get the disk wheels I like better.  Just remember, it is now known as 30-1113-1 by MTH if you need parts.

SInclair, I suggest you contact a supertech like gunrunnerjojn or GGG before accepting unrepairability of the PS1.

You should be able to get PS/1 chips for any PS/1 equipment, I order them about every month or so for various locomotives.  MTH burns the chip from the original manufacturing files.  Whoever told you that you can't get PS/1 chips is mistaken.

It's usually not a chip that goes unless something cooks in the power supply, many times you can replace one or both boards and move the chip.

Unless you like leaving it on the shelf, it can certainly be repaired.  Of course they'd like to upgrade it to PS/2, they make a lot more money than just selling you the PS/1 parts you need.

Good to know RJR, thanks for that info... I'll keep that in mind when shopping..

The Z-4001 remote control for the Z4000 was supposed to go back into production, but I don't see them anywhere right now.

Guess unless I flat out say it everyone assumes the worst.  When I said;

requiring a new chip from MTH

I meant that I got a new chip.

As for the issue, it's a well documented one, but one that gets missed because of how rare it is vs the common 3 clanks of death.  Here is one document about it.  It is problem #2, and possible locomotives that can have it are in table 2.  In a nut shell, QSI was trying to make a way to allow you to individually run and control multiple conventional locomotives at once by using transformer button pushes to select the locomotives.  It was so convoluted that MTH asked them to take it out.  Well, they only took out part of it, the part that actually lets you select and deselect the locomotive, but left the selected and deselected modes in the code, with the locomotive always being in the selected mode. If you run it with a weak battery, it can end up getting in the deselected mode, but with the code to reselect it missing, it's stuck.  The only fix is a new chip that ignores the selected/deselected memory location.  GGG one time wrote a thread about his investigation and finding here, which is what lead me to contact him, learn how to trouble shoot it, and find out that I could buy a new chip, which I did.

Actually, you can reset the memory, but the problem is still there waiting for you to encounter the same conditions.   To be technically correct, it's not the chip that gets scrambled, but rather the parameter memory on the board.  The actual removable chip is strictly a read-only chip.

The reason most folks just buy the replacement chip is simply economics, if you're going to spend the money, you might as well get the chip that insures it will never happen again.

John, Your not really accurate either:

"Chip" is short for microchip, the incredibly complex yet tiny modules that store computer memory or provide logic circuitry for microprocessors. 

The PROM and Serial EEPROM are the 2 devices no?  One is Read Only and the other is electronically reprogrammable by the circuit board processor.

So it is a "Chip" that gets scrambled.  The 8 pin Serial EEPROM.

It does take a special PROM to allow the EEPROM memory to be corrected.  Or the new PROM from MTH just has different software that never looks for a Deselect setting at startup.

It is funny, some techs don't know PS-1 parts are still available from MTH.  They just don't warranty the PS-1 engines, and have stated that some parts are obsolete and once out of stock they can't be had.  DCRU as an example.    G 

George, you're splitting hairs here.  The chip that he's talking about is obviously the EPROM, I realize that some "chip" has to contain the volatile memory.  Should we mention that it's a CMOS OTP PROM as well?

My point was, and still is, that there is no damage to the module, and it can be reset to work with the original chip.  Most people think of the "chip" as the PROM chip that contains the sound programming for the PS/1 module.  Yes, I realize it takes a special chip to fix the deselect issue, again that is an option available to an MTH tech, as you well know.

Not really I am just being specific, we use chip pretty loosely on this board.  You had corrected Sinc yet you really don't know what "chip" he was referring too. 

Actually you don't have an MTH "chip" to correct a deselect.  MTH has you order a new prom that over looks that memory location on the EEPROM.  It is actually still set to deselect and if you reinstalled the old chip the engine would still be deselected.

I am the person who read through the old QSI documents and then extracted some hard to get information out of Art Boynton Deceased QSI tech).  I found the memory locations that contain the ID information and then through trial and error found I could use a QSI chip to access those memory sections and reset them.  At that point the old chip will still work.

MTH had specifically not wanted their version to have IDs, while QSI went forward with IDs.

Just some early engines that had PROMs with software that would look at the ID memory and read it, but would not let you select it.  If the memory got the wrong data loaded during a shutdown on weak battery you wound up with a deselected engine with a chip that looks at that memory state and took action on it, but with no way to change it.  Later MTH PROM had software that would not even read the memory segment.  That is why the new chip works.   So that is the full story on this specific PS-1 issue.  G