Dead PS1 Conrail

I put in a new 9volt battery which i checked on a meter and it read 9.0 volts

A voltmeter won't test a battery under load. Thee reading you got may well just be a surface charge on a weak battery.

The big issue, did you try to power it up and then put in a new battery or did you put the new battery in before you attempted to power it up for the first time?

If it was a white battery, throw it away.  Those old white ones are junk by now.  Like Barry stated, the battery needs a load on it to get a good reading. 

DO NOT HIT THE BOARD WITH THE MAKE PS CHIP IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE 3 CLANKS OF DEATH.

What is the MTH item number?

Before I put the battery in it did the same thing as after...nothing but cab light. It was original Proto-Sound Reset Kit 50-1023,off white battery. How do you test a battery under load ?

Are you saying you tried it and then put in the fresh battery?  To test a battery put a load on it with a light bulb.  If you still get a good reading with the light bulb load, you are good. 

Do you have the MTH engine item number handy?  What transformer are you using?  Is this an engine you have had for a period of time?

Ive had it for 6 months, i think at one point it made half a loop and stopped dead-no lights. The battery I put in was a new duracell.

Transformer is MTH 750 with 100 watt brick

EMD SD60 

Conrail 5502

3 rail w/ proto sound

MT-2043

I know what happened.  You should have some good MTH repair people in your area.  It needs to go on an MTH repair mans bench.

Cab lights are CV off track power, so that is normal.  Is the volume turned up with the volume adjustment screw?

With a new battery and volume turned on, if no sounds need to have it inspected by a tech with reset chips.  Probably an easy fix but could be a few different things.  G

I will have to see if I can locate the volume screw. Thank you both very much for your help.

When it stopped moving, was the horn sounding?

just another thought(we're in trouble) PS-1 was designed to run on pure sine  wave transformers. ZW KW 1033 etc.

I found the volume screw and turned it all the way clockwise and powered up the unit.......(wait for it...)  I got TWO  clangs and engine sounds. I repeated this three times and it did the exact same thing every time, and still not moving. I rechecked the control box it is a Rail King Z500 and the brick for it is an MTH Z 500. Is that a pure sine wave type ?

Put a lighted passenger car or caboose on the track with the engine.

Nope! Is that the only transformer you can get your hands on ?  There may be a special work around but I don't know what is with the z500. There's a good chance  it's just a transformer problem. No old Lionel stuff kicking around?

The locomotive will not leave reset unless you are under 10 volts to the track when you push the direction button.  If you get 2 dings again when you do push the button, add a lighted car to the track like Herb said.

When you power it up over 10 volts, you have to bring the throttle down till you hear the air release and one dink. then you press the direction button. If the engine shuts down and restarts with 2 clangs after pressing the direction button, the battery is weak or dead.

What Sinc and Riverrail said.  Now that you got sounds, should be easy to get moving.  G

Hi George the z500 is a brick used for powering up the Z500, or Z750 or Z1000 Rail- King electronic transformer controller, i had a problem with mine doing strange things it ended up being a bad Z750 controller not the Brick power supply which powers up the transformer controller my controller was defective, after replacing the controller everything worked perfectly!

Alan Mancus

P.S. the rail king controller is a good controller to use if you can't afford a 40-4000 MTH  one ,you can rotate the controller control fast and just count the up and down counts if your trying to reset the engine!

Alan Mancus

Resets ps1 engines using the above  method each up down of the control know counts as 1 rest . for a rest 18 count eighteen times then press i believe whistle button. also worked great for change change chuffing volume , uses rest 6, 6 times up and then down and each time you press whistle but the sound chuffing will change and step down one step at a time. Works great if you don't have access to z40-4000 mth transformer!

Alan

i have managed to get an MRC Tech II transformer. Will this work as a pure sine wave transformer ? If so can you walk me through the process from beginning to end ? At this point Im a little confused about how to execute the procedure. Thanks again

I can't answer you about the transformer.  But I can step you through things for the PS-1 locomotives, but you'll need to remind me what you want to do so that I don't give you the wrong info.

thank you very much. I am getting two clangs and no movement at start up. It has been suggested to do a reset 18, I think with a pure sine wave transformer. I tried but I wonder if I.m missing something ??

After 2 c;langs and start up, lower voltage to less then 10V and use the direction button, or use the throttle to lower voltage to off and slowly raise it.  If it still doesn't move follow the reset #18 instructions in the manual of any PS-1 engine.  G

Being MTH doesn't have the manual for your locomotive on their site, here is a link to a GP38-2.  It has the information you need as the system would be the same.

http://mthtrains.com/sites/def...ction/20dl14652i.pdf