HELP with MTH engine non-responsive

The engine is a 2-8-2, NOT a 2-8-0 as originally posted

Have you tried deleting the engine and re-adding it, or using the "recover engine" routine? Also, have you tried to run it on a non-DCS track to see if it will run properly in conventional?

PS-2 5V systems can fail unexpectedly.  If all the connectors are plugged in, harness is fine, and no broken or pinched wires the board may have died.

Can you read amperage when applying power?  The hum is not good.  Try conventional to see if it works.

A MTH Tech can test the board separately.  If bad, the board is replaced with a PS-2 3V board with 5V connectors.  This requires the battery and speaker to be changed along with the battery harness.  At this point you have all new electronics and if you chose a Heavy Mikado sound file you can have the Quillable Whistle feature added if the Flash board is used in the repair.

If no MTH Repair tech in your area, I can do the testing and repair.  My e-mail is in my profile.  G

G,

PS-2 5V systems can fail unexpectedly

This more often happens after an event, such as someone opening the tender and replacing a speaker. The result can be a pinched wire, short to ground, etc.

Barry, GGG and SW Hiawatha et al:

This morning, I was able to restart the engine in DCS - did not try conventional. The engine came up and all functions worked. Did a shut down, then a start up, everything was fine.

Took it out for a run on the layout (12 by 8) ran fine, sounds worked until it reached on section of track. It lost sound for about 5 ft, engine ran ok just no sound. 

Then the sound came back - by the way, the tender shell if off the tender during all this testing.

Continued on the loop a second time and third time, sound was fine until it hit the same section of track, lost the sound again, but sound came back at the same spot it did on the first loop.

Parked the engine, and put on another engine, MTH VO1000 and ran it over the same loop, it NEVER lost sound. Did this twice.

Pulled the 2-8-2 out of the siding, ran it around the loop once, lost the sound. Second time around, NEVER lost the sound. A third, no loss of sound. Everything seemed to be OK. Bell, whistle, volume control, direction, etc all worked OK.

So at this point, shut the engine down, and decided to let you all know. 

What this means, well I sure as **** don't but maybe you or other have some ideas.

Will re-install the tender shell later this morning and see what happens and keep you posted.

Thanks,

RAY

I'd take a CLOSE look at the speaker and see if the plating if flaking off it.  Many of the older PS/2 speakers failed and usually end up taking the audio amp with them.  If you see flaking, you need to replace the speaker.

John,

I did replace the speaker a couple weeks ago. In fact, I replaced 2 speakers with the bad plating. The other was on an MTH SD24.

One would think that since these are KNOWN defective speakers, that MTH would have covered these under warranty or some call back program. 

Ray

Is the main board in the engine or tender? I had a 2-8-0 with board in engine that was intermittently  shorting out the metal shell. Lined the boiler with electrical tape and all was well... Try the battery test.. remove track power.. sounds should continue on for at least 6 or 7 seconds. Track power not shut down with remote.

Yes his is a 2-8-2.

Barry,  I have had a 100 of these boards pass through my hands.  The blown caps, and diodes are on the power supply side, not the processor end where the outputs are.  I am sure it can happen but I have seen too many that had clean undamaged engines.  I think a batch of bad components or a process problem at some point effected some batches of these boards.  Unfortunately the 5V power supply was run near max output on this design.  G

I've had two fail in the last three months, both just came out of the box DOA after running a few weeks before.  No derailments, no disassembly, just packaging.