HO and DCS TIU and DCS REMOTE

To upgrade your brother's HO PS3 engine's sound file or firmware, you would need the following:

• Either an MTH TIU or a DCS Commander is required to upgrade a PS3 engine, HO or otherwise. If a TIU, it must be running DCS 4.20.
• If using a TIU, the power source for the engine must be DC and one of the Fixed channels must be used. Further, no channel should have AC voltage input to it. A DCS Commander can use AC power, since it converts AC to DC at its output.
• Loader Program 2.30 must be used. An earlier Loader Program can actually render a PS3 engine inoperative.
• The actual sound file or firmware upgrade for the engine.
• The DCS Remote is not used in the PS3 engine sound file or firmware upgrade process.

Hi Joe,

Can you use the DCS TIU and DCS REMOTE to upgrade early MTH HO engines with the expanded DCC features in MTH's August 17, 2011 announcment?

That depends on the engine.  Any SD70ACe, Little Joe electric, or Bi-Polar electric, can be upgraded.  Steam engines, however, use an earlier version of the PS3 decoder that cannot accept the DCC update.

Barry and Dave,

Thanks for the replies.  He has SD70ACe's so I sould be ok.

Joe

Power to the track must be DC. Can the TIU be powered by an AC MTH Z-1000 or Z-500?  Thanks,   Joe

Joe,

Power to the track must be DC. Can the TIU be powered by an AC MTH Z-1000 or Z-500?

Yes, that's entirely true. There isn't any conflict.

Joe,

Yes you can use an AC transformer to power to the TIU through fixed1.  Run the DC through Fixed 2.

Dave

sorry...slow typer

Dave,

Yes you can use an AC transformer to power to the TIU through fixed1.  Run the DC through Fixed 2.

Actually, that's a bad idea.

As Marty Fitzhenry and I recently found out first-hand, PS2 (but not PS3) engines will come up in conventional mode, and stay there, if they are on a channel receiving DC power and another channel on the same TIU is receiving AC power. This was demonstrated using a Rev. H2 TIU.

A follow-up call to MTH R&D confirmed that AC and DC should not be present on two channels of any TIU at the same time.

Regardless, the Aux. Power port may utilize either AC or DC regardless of the voltage supplied to the TIU channels themselves, without any issues.

Thanks for the info Barry & Dave. Much appreciated.   Joe

Barry,

I have run my HO(ps3) on DC going into fixed 2 and O scale(ps2/ps3) AC on fixed 1, on the same TIU, with no problems.  

Why would you run O scale on one channel with DC and O scale on another channel with AC?  All HO is PS3.

Am I missing something here?

Dave

Dave,

Am I missing something here?

It simply is what it is. Your TIU worked in that configuration, Marty's did not. MTH says it's not good to mix AC and DC on the same TIU.

I'm just reporting the news...