Can you run a 5-volt PS2 engine with no battery?

Well, this gets into a what if??

If using DCS, since the engine is powered constantly by track voltage, technically you can add an engine to a remote or DCS app, and run it for that session (edit- sans battery). The catch 22 comes in that the way the engine stores that ID change is during the final shutdown when power drops and the battery is powering the logic. So if you cycle power after adding the engine, the remote won't be able to find that engine ID, and you would have to add it again and it would increment an ID slot in your app or DCS remote. Again, in a non-obvious way, the act of adding an engine that changes the ID the engine listens to, is not complete until the battery powered shutdown sequence stores that new ID from RAM into more permanent storage.

If trying in conventional, with no battery, when you drop power- the processor likely reboots with no battery backup and you likely cannot get it from neutral into forward.

Besides all that, If they had it open, and removing the original battery, now would be the time to inspect that 5V board for signs of the wincap failure and personally I would recap the board out of precaution, but that's just me.

Further, next month- new MTH PS3/2 stacker boards are coming in, that could replace that PS2 5V anyway........

Under DCS without a battery- yes with caveats

Under conventional only without a battery- probably not

thanks for the advice!

If you are going to remove the battery to test the engine, why not just stick a good one in for the test?

This is, for me, a really interesting topic.  Doesn't apply to any situation for me but I like to learn things, just in case.

I sold all of my PS2 engines, but I had them for quite a while.  ON this forum, the topic of batteries came up a lot during the time that I owned them,   

I always thought I had to wait 'x' number of seconds for the engine to be ready to run.  Sounds like that's not true.  So I have all PS3 engines now but they won't respond until the capacitor is charged.  Why isn't that true with a battery powered engine?

walt

The delay with PS3 is the board waiting for a discharged supercap to charge up. Once it has a sufficient charge on it to safely perform a shutdown, the startup delay is skipped. On PS2, the assumption is that there is always a charged battery present, so no delay. That's why when you use a BCR, it is the operator that (is supposed to) perform the delay upon first power-up of a run session.

---PCJ

@Vernon Barry posted:

Under DCS without a battery- yes with caveats

Under conventional only without a battery- probably not

I don't think any of my PS2 5 volt engines will run in DCS mode without a charged battery.  They will recognize the Watch-Dog signal and turn on silently, All sounds and smoke will work but I was unable to get the engine to move in either direction. As soon as a battery was installed, no problems with any of the movement functions.

Years ago I was on the lookout for a NH DL109. I found one and the seller had a large listing. I called and found he purchased a large collection and didn’t know much about the engine. He was parting out what he didn’t want. When it arrived I placed  on the track and the remote added it. Ran perfect.  Sounds and all. The next day. No Engine Found. As Vernon mentioned above. Figured I’d charge the battery. Took the shell off and no battery to be found. The only thing I can think of. The original owner was a collector. When he  bought the engine. Was just accustomed to removing the battery when put in storage from his Postwar days.