Can a BCR be installed in a MTH QSI equipped Sound System?

Someone may have all ready removed the battery.

I will look under the boards to see.

On PS1 engines often the red/black wire pair goes to the 9 volt battery connector.

It is a good idea to remove the battery if a engine is stored for a while.

The top of board open Molex two pin connector may be the battery cable connection point.

@PH1975 posted:

I own an early version (20-2189-1) of a Premier Amtrak Genesis engine, the Owner's Manual for which indicates that it's equipped with a ProtoSounds system and, upon removing the cab, it's labelled QSI.  Recently I've decided to replace the MTH batteries in my PS2 equipped engines with BCRs and thought I'd also replace the one in this diesel.  The OM simply states that the NICad type battery should be replaced when the sounds begin to get garbled but there's no illustrations to assist me, and when I removed the cab I didn't see anything that resembled a battery (see pic attached).  Consequently I'm wondering if it's even possible (and/or desirable) to install a BCR in this particular engine? 

Can't tell from the photo ,but  some engines had the batteries in the fuel tank with the speaker. 🤔

The battery on some is not visible at first glance but my PS-1 MTH diesel had one buried on top of the frame, but under the circuit boards.  I wiggled it out the side..  Good luck.

Follow the red and black leads, the battery is on the other end.

Thanks GRJ, your 'red arrow' on the photo is of great assistance!  😉

Well, the photo was what I needed to see.

Yes the 9v bcr can be used with the MTH PS-1 system, which is what you have.  G

@trestleking posted:

The battery on some is not visible at first glance but my PS-1 MTH diesel had one buried on top of the frame, but under the circuit boards.  I wiggled it out the side..  Good luck.

Thanks to everyone who responded and trestleking it was exactly as you described - buried on top of the frame, but under the circuit boards.  However, to complicate matters further the outer edge of the frame is sloped downward at a 30 degree angle towards the center of the frame to create a pit for the battery to rest.  What a PITA to access!  Nonetheless, with a lot of patience a friend of mine and myself were eventually able to coax the old battery out and replace it with a BCR.  Thank goodness I won't have to replace another battery in this particular diesel ever again.     

@PH1975 posted:

Thanks to everyone who responded and trestleking it was exactly as you described - buried on top of the frame, but under the circuit boards.  However, to complicate matters further the outer edge of the frame is sloped downward at a 30 degree angle towards the center of the frame to create a pit for the battery to rest.  What a PITA to access!  Nonetheless, with a lot of patience a friend of mine and myself were eventually able to coax the old battery out and replace it with a BCR.  Thank goodness I won't have to replace another battery in this particular diesel ever again.     

PH11975........👍

Seeing this thread made me go back and check to see if I had installed a BCR in both of my PS-1 CNW Doodlebugs, 30-2159-0 and 30-2159-1.  Whenever I install a BCR, I make a note of it on the underside of the chassis.  On the 30-2159-0, I wrote "QSI - no battery".  After seeing the posts about how the battery can be hidden, I opened it up again to make sure I didn't miss it.  Drove myself nuts looking for a battery.

On the MTH website, the descriptions for 30-2159-0 and 30-2159-1 both imply PS-1; -0 says "...3 Rail HornWith Protosoundr" (sic) and -1 is "...With Protosoundr" (sic), and the exploded diagrams and instruction manuals are the same.  The diagram shows a battery, and the instructions mention replacing it.  However, another big clue is that the MSRP for 30-2159-1 is $100 higher.  (The -0 ran fine and had no sound, but I didn't know if it was supposed to have sounds.)  IOW, the documentation for 30-2159-0 stinks.

Just passing this along for those who have locomotives that were produced around the time when PS-1 was being introduced. If like me, you aren't familiar with all the nuances of MTH locos of the period, I hope it will save you some time and headaches.   

Mallard4468 - Because I'm not sure (from your comments) whether YOU'RE certain of the battery/no battery status of your Doodlebugs, perhaps someone the likes of GRJ or GGG can clarify this for you.  I know GRJ's red arrow on the enlarged photo was of great assistance to me in narrowing down where to focus.

Aside from that, MTH's 'former' propensity to use (in their Owner's Manuals) black &white 'reduced' photographs to illustrate their written instructions used to drive me nuts because in my experience there have been several times where their 'black' arrowheads pointed to somewhere on a 'black' background.  Not the best scenario for neophytes like myself when I started in the hobby several years ago.

The dash zero normally means it doesn't have Protosound.

@PH1975 posted:

Mallard4468 - Because I'm not sure (from your comments) whether YOU'RE certain of the battery/no battery status of your Doodlebugs, perhaps someone the likes of GRJ or GGG can clarify this for you.  I know GRJ's red arrow on the enlarged photo was of great assistance to me in narrowing down where to focus.

Aside from that, MTH's 'former' propensity to use (in their Owner's Manuals) black &white 'reduced' photographs to illustrate their written instructions used to drive me nuts because in my experience there have been several times where their 'black' arrowheads pointed to somewhere on a 'black' background.  Not the best scenario for neophytes like myself when I started in the hobby several years ago.

Thanks.  After a bunch of looking, I'm positive that my -0 doodlebug does not have a battery, nor did it ever have one.  And I replaced the battery in my -1 with a BCR right after I got it. 

I hear you about the reduced photos.  However, in this case the exploded diagram is a line drawing, and the front page shows that it applies to -0 and -1 models.  It very clearly shows a battery, and it's very clearly wrong.  https://mthtrains.com/sites/de...loded/30dl12916e.pdf

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The dash zero normally means it doesn't have Protosound.

Good to know - I was aware of that for the standard gauge engines, but didn't know that it applied to Railking.  And it would have been a whole lot more clear if MTH's description didn't say "with Protosoundr" (they couldn't even take time to spell the name of their product correctly). 

During my career in IT, I wrote a LOT of documentation and instructions, and the use of imprecise or incorrect wording drives me nuts.  (In case you couldn't tell.)

MTH tried to cover multiple models with one description.  Obviously, that leads to the confusion as you know so well.