engine response

Pull the shell off and inspect the flywheel's tach tape. It should be clean and so should the tach reader's head pointing at it. The gap should be around the thickness of a dime.

 Take a meter and check for continuity from each of the three tach reader wires to the (seven wire?) plug on the board. Sometimes they break right off at the reader.

 There's not a lot else for you to check unless you have a spare reader to swap out.

You can put a piece of white paper in front of a working one to see it respond and speed up. With your's, that wouldn't do anything.

Just a note on opto's. If an "invisible" infrared light is used in the circuit, and you cant see it working with the naked eye, a digital camera will likely see the infrared, and convert it to a light level you can see(on your screen). This is useful because the circuit may use two components built into one, or two separate ones, an emitter(led,bulb), and receiver (the eye). A camera confirms there is light to be seen.

The white reflects light back at the receiver. The black absorbs it, not reflecting. That's how the decoders control the motor by"counting" the tape. 

 I might just have to go check that out! Very cool.

Smoke works on some to reveal a visible beam too. Not as healthy.

.....For aiming a focused led beam to a distant receiver mainly. 

Have you got another engine to try?  You may have a problem with the TIU or Handheld.  Are you using Fixed 1 or Fixed 2, or a Variable channel?

All of my other MTH PS2 and PS3 engines work so I don't imagne its a bad TIU or Handheld. On the other suggestion about taking the top off and checking the flywheel/tach tape etc I read about that possible troubleshooting tip in the manual, but I don't feel comfortable taking things in the engine apart. I may call MTH and see about sending it in for repair. Thanks for your suggestions.

Dan

dan,

   Send it to GGG here on the OGR he does great work, and is a MTH Tech.

PCRR/Dave