Help PS-1 programming issues

anyone ???

@Bill Sherry,

Your actions follow the directions found in the owner's manual that came with my MTH E8's quite precisely, and I know that I've used the same features with the E8's in the past, in order to accomplish the same things that you're trying to accomplish, without issue.

If they don't work with yours I can only think of two possibilities:

1. The vintage of your unit may not match mine.  The earliest of MTH's Proto 1 units, mid 1990's, do not behave well on occasion, usually because they're ultra-sensitive to following the directions precisely, particularly with respect to throttle position/voltage, and/or the sequence and timing of button pushes and steps.  Mine is late 90's.
2. You may be hitting the required voltage points approximately, but not precisely.  Again early ones are very sensitive to this.  I have this challenge even with the E8's, but it's more pronounced with my earlier-vintage Allegheny.
3. You may need to activate, or reactivate, the enabling of the bell button; see Feature 20  (a long shot perhaps).

The immense amount of "functionality" packed into Proto 1, all controlled by the whistle/horn button, bell button, and throttle, as a last great flourish before MTH moved to DCS, is quite intimidating because it's very, very detailed.

Be thankful that no one ever tried to extend conventional control any farther than this.  PS1 is bad enough.

Good luck with it.  Your feedback, when you do figure it out, will be very helpful to the rest of us that are fans of Proto 1 in spite of its pickiness.

Mike

I thank you very much and I will give your recommendations a shot and will post the outcome.  Again, thanks. 

Later instructions do not specify voltage.  Hae it on the layout moving in forward.  10 or so volts in my opinion.  Follow instructions and see if you get the response in sound.  Obviously, you need a fully charged good battery.  G

Thank you both for your inputs.  I finally got it.  I must have tried another 20 times first.  The instructions say what I listed above and after you let go of the horn button at the final step you will hear a short horn blast after 2 seconds.  Then you throttle up.  All along I was getting the short horn blast but not after 2 seconds - it was immediate, and I thought the procedure failed.  I did try throttling up several times but had no change.

So I said let me proceed based on the fact I did get a horn blast and I will work on the timing of the throttle up step.  After several failed attempts I throttled up at the tail end of the horn sounding and that did it.  Now I see why the instructions say to throttle up immediately after the single horn blast. They even wrote immediately all in caps.  So I was basically there the whole time but the waiting for the horn after the 2 seconds threw me off.

Again, thank you both for helping me out - much appreciated.  JP

Excellent.  Nice job, and thanks for coming back with the feedback.

More evidence supporting the claim that Proto 1 is VERY finicky.

Mike