Newbie here so please go easy! 
I understand that older MTH engines can be upgraded to PS2. This UP Challenger from '97 has a feature stated as "Accepts Plug-In ProtoSound Systems."
Do the words "Plug-In" mean that it would be easier to add in a PS2 board (as opposed to other locos that don't state "Plug-In")? As I understand, adding ProtoSound can be quite difficult and expensive hence some folks just selling off their pre-PS2 locos since the economics of a retrofit don't make sense.
Thanks!
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There is a vast difference between QSI (PS1-Protosound) and PS2. QS1 was the original sound system installed in MTH locomotives. These are strictly conventional (i.e.Transformer controlled). MTH released PS1, which was effectively a similar system as QS1 with some minor changes (added Passenger/Freght sounds). So the plug in mentioned will allow you to add PS1 components, however you still have a Conventional locomotive (no remote control). PS2 on the other hand is a full upgrade (with remote control), which requires removing all the electronics, lamps, and coupler(s) and installing a PS2 Kit. This is a substantial amount of work, and requires that you know how to solder as well as being comfortable downloading sound files, and loading the sound chip via a home PC. None of this is rocket surgery, but you have to question if this is a viable way of moving forward. Some will go ahead with the upgrade; others will choose to sell the loco, and use the money to buy a PS2 version of the locomotive on ebay. Both are good options; it depends on how comfortable you are with upgrading the electronics.
Hope this helps a bit
rOd,
Thanks for taking the time to write your informative response. After reading your response, I saw where the RailKing PS2 version of the same loco (I think), #30-1188-1, recently went unsold on ebay for $325. As I understand, upgrading that earlier version of the UP Challenger would cost about $300 (including labor).
Would you mind clarifying where Loco-Sound fits into the QSI/PS1/PS2 family of products?
Thanks again,
James
IF I have it correctly, Loco Sound is more of a Old fashioned Bell & Whistle & Chuffing sound board.
Not a Protosound system at all in most respects.
Per what Russell said, Loco-Sound is a pretty rudimentary system.
Yes, PS2 conversions are a little pricey if you are having the work done by someone else. Where it makes sense, is if you have one of the original PS1 Big-Boys, UP turbines or other 'what was then' high end locomotives, paying $300 bucks is not a bad option; as the second hand market for PS2 engines of similar quality are till going for good money.
The other thing about Locosound engines is that they have speed control. The sounds are very rudimentary and amount to synthesized facsimiles of a bell, whistle/horn, and steam chuff/diesel prime mover sounds. Compared to PS1 or PS2 sounds, they're terrible. However, since they have speed control, Locosound engines run as slow and smoothly as a PS2 engine. They also have fan-driven smoke units. No command control, though.
Locosound came out as a low-cost, conventional-only alternative to PS2. If I recall correctly, the Locosound boards use the same plugs/connectors as the PS2 boards, and the speed control electronics, as well as the smoke units, are identical to those found in PS2 engines. Thus, upgrading a Locosound engine to full PS2 sound and command control is much easier than doing an upgrade from scratch.
I got smoked on another forum section about a comment I made concerning continued availability of the electronics for Lionel and MTH. The mechanical E unit has served for many decades with Lionel, but with the advent of basically, computer controlled locos, who will keep updating, repairing, or building boards from scratch? The IC's used in these devices go unavailable in just a couple years, that requires someone with the tech savvy to take a newer chip and adapt it to an old circuit or rebuild a board entirely. Several responses came back saying things like 3D printing and software engineers in the hobby would probably fill the bill, so, if that is the case, who is building the 'plug in' boards to put in 30 year old locos that either did not come with them, they were an option, or to replace bad ones? There is a ( relatively ) inexpensive MTH Challenger from 1996 for sale now with no sound boards, does have the whistle, but no other sounds. To put the boards in it, you have to find someone parting out a loco, or a set that just shows up for sale one day, or know how to make more modern boards function in an older loco. There could be a day when your Lionel 2-6-4 is still chugging around the layout passing you dead MTH, parts unavailable show piece.
You’re so right! But things are not likely to change. I’ve got any number of Lionel/MPC locos with the most awful sound. Ditto for early MTH ( “ three clanks and you’re uncoupled). So I mostly enjoy running my TMCC and DCS engines, although these too are getting rather long in the tooth. I’ve even sold engines I really liked because I just couldn’t stand the “Sound of Steam.)
I also think that too many of the very high end locos ( some of which I own and enjoy) will see the failure of critical parts, because doors that actually open are so vulnerable.
I too have had the experience of being visited by my grandchildren ( who love seeing trains run) and having my TMCC stop working for reasons unknown. Solution: I hooked my KW’s, put a 726 (1946 version), a 2046 (1952) a 2353 and a couple of others on the tracks and everyone had a blast.
But all this having been said, we accept that our TV’s, refrigerators and other appliances, let alone our cars will die after 10-15 years. Why should our trains be that different?
@CALNNC posted:I got smoked on another forum section about a comment I made concerning continued availability of the electronics for Lionel and MTH. The mechanical E unit has served for many decades with Lionel, but with the advent of basically, computer controlled locos, who will keep updating, repairing, or building boards from scratch? The IC's used in these devices go unavailable in just a couple years, that requires someone with the tech savvy to take a newer chip and adapt it to an old circuit or rebuild a board entirely. Several responses came back saying things like 3D printing and software engineers in the hobby would probably fill the bill, so, if that is the case, who is building the 'plug in' boards to put in 30 year old locos that either did not come with them, they were an option, or to replace bad ones? There is a ( relatively ) inexpensive MTH Challenger from 1996 for sale now with no sound boards, does have the whistle, but no other sounds. To put the boards in it, you have to find someone parting out a loco, or a set that just shows up for sale one day, or know how to make more modern boards function in an older loco. There could be a day when your Lionel 2-6-4 is still chugging around the layout passing you dead MTH, parts unavailable show piece.
Not to pick on you because you are quite correct in many ways but ...
If this is what you believe then you should only buy postwar. Buy nothing newer than 50 years old. You have that option and it will seemingly get you where you want to be.
On the other hand you also have the option of complaining about the newer stuff. You're doing so currently, and it's obviously getting you nowhere.
Which of these two directions should you choose?
Mike
BTW - Bellyaching about decisions covering such long stretches of history amuses me. If you'd like perhaps you can go back to 1972, and with the benefit of hindsight and knowing what has become of electronics generally since then, ask Lionel why they were making such a poor decision to add electronics to their products?
Answer, also with the benefit of hindsight: If they hadn't at the time they would not have survived the 70's and 80's. They were barely alive.
Knowing only what they did at the time, and not what we know now, I think that they invested in their future well --ultimately they survived.
@D&H Man posted:Locosound came out as a low-cost, conventional-only alternative to PS2. If I recall correctly, the Locosound boards use the same plugs/connectors as the PS2 boards, and the speed control electronics, as well as the smoke units, are identical to those found in PS2 engines. Thus, upgrading a Locosound engine to full PS2 sound and command control is much easier than doing an upgrade from scratch.
Well, they do use the same connectors as the 5V PS/2, but there would still be a bunch of wiring to go to full command capability.
@CALNNC posted:I got smoked on another forum section about a comment I made concerning continued availability of the electronics for Lionel and MTH. The mechanical E unit has served for many decades with Lionel, but with the advent of basically, computer controlled locos, who will keep updating, repairing, or building boards from scratch? The IC's used in these devices go unavailable in just a couple years, that requires someone with the tech savvy to take a newer chip and adapt it to an old circuit or rebuild a board entirely. Several responses came back saying things like 3D printing and software engineers in the hobby would probably fill the bill, so, if that is the case, who is building the 'plug in' boards to put in 30 year old locos that either did not come with them, they were an option, or to replace bad ones? There is a ( relatively ) inexpensive MTH Challenger from 1996 for sale now with no sound boards, does have the whistle, but no other sounds. To put the boards in it, you have to find someone parting out a loco, or a set that just shows up for sale one day, or know how to make more modern boards function in an older loco. There could be a day when your Lionel 2-6-4 is still chugging around the layout passing you dead MTH, parts unavailable show piece.
I have to go with Mellow Mike here, I think you should concentrate on enjoying the hobby your way, buzzing E-Units, AC motors with jackrabbit starts, and of course the mechanical puffer smoke units.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to enjoy it my way. My way it with all that fancy electronics, great sounds, great smoke, fancy gimmicks like electrocouplers, swinging bells, cool lighting effects, etc.
Maybe in your zeal to stay in the 1960's, you haven't kept up as far as replacement electronics. I've upgraded a ton of older MTH steam to full command control and sound with ERR boards and with the MTH upgrade kits. I've also bought boards from Lionel parts and done Legacy upgrades. If you have a dead MTH Challenger and can't get it running, that's not my fault, I can sure get it running, and a host of other people posting here on OGR would have no problem getting it running.
That Challenger came with a QSI reverse unit with a whistle board. Later numbering systems would have had a “0” suffix. The add-on protosound system was to add a top board that had rudimentary sounds for use with a conventional transformer (no DCS). Conversion to PS2 or 3 is a bit more complicated…
I enjoy the hobby and have all decades of Lionel, plus new computer run Lionel and MTH and it is all great. Considering that O gaugers run their trains until death, I'm am just making the observation that at some point that $2-$4K buck loco will be dead as a post when the components are no longer available, while the $27 E unit loco keeps on ticking. Hopefully someone will come along with an electronic E unit that bypasses the computer for that situation so they could run again. I repair comm gear, one particular model is still manufactured and sold. Some of the IC's in it are marked as 'obsolete' by Newark, Mouser, Digikey and others, and can only be found in places that sell obsolete IC's, or from Taiwan and China via ebay. Function specific chips for a particular item are made in a quantity that supports the planned number of manufactured units, and and amount for possible repairs over a certain period of time. Would venture a guess loco's are the same way and the chip supply does have an end point.
I'm figuring that a majority of the electronics in my trains will outlast me, so that's truly not an issue here. 
I have electronic test equipment from the 1980's that still runs like the day it was new. If my newer Legacy stuff has the same 40 year longevity, I'll be around 120 before it craps out, so I don't think that's a major issue for me. 
I have the original solid state AM radio that came standard in my 1973 Dodge D100 pickup because I got fancy and replaced it with an FM stereo and 8 track player. The radio has 3 major components, a front end IC that does the tuning, another IC for IF amp and detection, and one power transistor on the back to drive the speaker. It still works and sounds just fine as a shop curiosity running off a 12 volt power supply and feeding a big speaker. But those chips in it are non-existent if they went bad and for some reason I wanted to fix it. When a place like GE wanted to make a IC based clock radio, they would order 100,000 of their custom chip plus a certain number of spares, build and sell the radios and service them until the parts ran out. That is why it is much easier to repair a radio from 1939 that it is one from 1979. You can find NOS 1939 radio parts still, or those parts were big enough to rebuild, not so the modern one. I hope my high end computer locos run forever too, but sure hope when they don't I can find the parts to fix them, unlike my thread that started this, about finding the boards or substitutes for that 26 year old MTH Challenger.
@CALNNC posted:I hope my high end computer locos run forever too, but sure hope when they don't I can find the parts to fix them, unlike my thread that started this, about finding the boards or substitutes for that 26 year old MTH Challenger.
Like I said, there are a number of options to revive the MTH Challenger, you just have to select one.
@CALNNC posted:I have the original solid state AM radio that came standard in my 1973 Dodge D100 pickup because I got fancy and replaced it with an FM stereo and 8 track player.
Try this. It will look stock and sound great!
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