Loco died

We can not help you without make, model #, maybe pics.

I'm guessing it is  a p s 2  5 volt board and the noise you heard was not a click but a pop in which the capacitor blew apart a common failure in p s 2 5 volt boards . possible will need to change you're board and send it to a repair technician!

Alan

p.s if you can come up with  a item number we can tell you for sure!

It is Mth 20-2340-1  gp38-2, protosound 2, Illinois  central

it shows a delivery date of 2001! Pretty old for a brand new engine.

What gets me is I turned it on with the body off and all seemed fine and it went fwd as normal for a foot then bit the dust. Am I not supposed to run it with top off?  It seems that's the only variable to what normal operation is. If I had turned it on with top off and it was dead I would assume I touched something I shouldn't have earlier. However it did start up fine and then died, like it didn't like going with body off

Bought it brand new from a hobby shop, looks to be mint. Maybe a re -release? 

 in any case I've had it about 2 weeks and all was fine with the exception that my smoke unit smelled not so good. To give a little back story I put some 20 dtops Eliminator in it yesterday to fix that up. It was after that that I noticed it would not smoke anymore, so then I turned all the call you down and I could not hear the fan anymore which I always used to be able to hear, that's why I opened it up today, my wick looks fine everything looks good in there. Fan turns freely. I put a drop of oil on the fan shaft and that's when I decided to turn it on to see if I could see my fan moving and catastrophe  struck

What, pray tell, is Eliminator?  Nothing should be put into smoke unit except smoke fluid.

Re-releases would carry a new model number, and a re-release of a 2001 loco would have vastly different electronics.

Quite possibly the 5-volt board failed.  You can return it to LHS if you can get them to take it, or you can contact a QUALIFIED tech (not just any schlemiel who says he/she is) for their opinion.  I recommend GGG, Marty Fitzhenry, or Gunrunnerjohn.

Eliminator is made by JT's Mega Steam, for eliminating smoke unit odors

Definitely a 5 volt board . The battery has to  be  shot, try disconnecting it. The engine will add and run in command mode without a battery, just not very well and you can't change any settings and have them stick.   The battery may be shorting out the system. I don't see the battery in the pic  maybe it's in the fuel tank.    I know wishful thinking.

Look harder Gregg.   It's also the newer green NiMh battery, should still be OK.

Yeah there it is...   so much for that theory. 

hi RJR so who is this message intended for!

contact a QUALIFIED tech (not just any schlemiel who says he/she is) for their opinion!!

I've been a technician in nuclear power for over 40 years what have you  worked on a clock !trouble shooting down to component replacement level microprocessor boards!l

repair technician

It seems the consensus is that it is a 5 volt board, are there any thoughts on why this would have specifically happened after I took the body off and it ran forward one foot? It seems like it would be tied in to that event.

repair technician posted:

contact a QUALIFIED tech (not just any schlemiel who says he/she is) for their opinion!!

I've been a technician in nuclear power for over 40 years what have you  worked on a clock !trouble shooting down to component replacement level microprocessor boards!l

I think he was referring to someone that had attended the MTH training and had the test tools available for proper troubleshooting.

Johnny B posted:

It seems the consensus is that it is a 5 volt board, are there any thoughts on why this would have specifically happened after I took the body off and it ran forward one foot? It seems like it would be tied in to that event.

Very hard to say, a lot of stuff could have happened.  Diagnosing stuff like this in ASCII is close to impossible.

John is correct.  Our hobby still has many who consider themselves experts.   Find a real one who is qualified.  I get many calls from people with ruined engines that went to some of these experts.  Your engine is very old.  I hope you did not pay new engine pricing for this thing.

John, the green battery is the one to use.  Lets hope it had some life left in it.  

Johnny B posted:

... All it does is click when apply power and click when cycling fwd, neutral, revrs. Thoughts?

That version of PS board should "click" when initially applying power.  

If operating properly you should also hear a "click" on every 2nd DIRECTION button press as it cycles thru fwd, neutral, rev, neutral, etc.  That's the relay clicking to change direction and is normal behavior.  But to repeat, it should click on every 2nd button press since going to neutral doesn't count so to speak since the engine doesn't change direction.  This would be a good sign since a lot must be happening in the electronics for this to happen.  Yes, this is ignoring the elephant in the corner that you don't have motion, lights, sound, smoke.

On the other hand, if you hear the "click" on EACH button press, that suggests the electronics is starting all over as if you are initially applying power.  That's a bad sign.  You said the engine behaved correctly before this so I'm assuming the battery is installed and functional.

That version of PS electronics has not been made for 15 years (or so) so I'd say that engine has been sitting new-in-box on the store shelf for over a decade.  I wonder if a warranty applies for such an old product but if you bought it in good faith as a "NEW" product and you've only had it for 2 weeks I'd think you have some recourse.  Removing the shell should not void the warranty.

Running without shell is not a problem.  Someone opened it to replace the battery at some point.  Unfortunately, the PS-2 5V board can fail like that.  Lots of different reasons why, but it is an obsolete board and not under MTH Warranty for that age.  Your repair is to upgrade to PS-32 with 5V connectors, but that will be expensive.  So this should go back to LHS and hopefully they will refund your money.  G

I believe it was clicking on every button press. It is in the lhs now and the mth tech is gonna be by later in the week to ck it out. They said it was under warranty so we'll see how it goes. Maybe just dome kinda warranty through them....hmmm.  

Please report back what the LHS tells you.  If the electronics is defective I don't think it's cost effective - even for an LHS - to repair.  From what I can tell from the MTH website, that was the only Illinois Central GP38-2.  If that's why you bought it in the first place, if the LHS suggests upgrading the electronics, or swapping the shell onto another "new" PS2-5V diesel chassis that they have on the shelf, or whatever, tell them to let you think about it.  Post your options here on the forum and you'll get all kinds of advice.

Will let you guys know what I find out, thanks for the help. I figure since I'll probably be on here  more often now I'd give a little background on myself . I've been waiting about 8 years for one 2 show up in a hobby shop. I would occasionally  check online but the particular type I wanted was never available. I grew up on the edge of a small town with a narrow farm field right behind us and the tracks leading to a factory right there about 80 yards from our house.  In the early 80s , almost everyday, My brother and I would sit there at the back sliding glass window of our dining room watching the orange and white Illinois Central engines moving around cars for a couple hours. So needless to say when it showed up there at The Hobby Shop couple weeks ago I had to had to had to get it. I just pulled out all my o gauge stuff I had when I was a kid about a year ago and start setting it all up and getting some new Rolling Stock Etc, now that my kids are of an age to enjoy it. About 8 years ago I built a table and set up all my stuff when I got it out of my dad's attic, at that time I had one infant child, so the train went into storage as new kids needed the bedroom. Know about 8 years later I have 4 Kids and I ended up sacrificing my guitar room downstairs for the train set, so I've been slowly getting back into it over the last year. So I have a little background with model trains, but all that is my experience as a kid, most everything is new to me so I'm fumbling through the learning curve. I think I paid about 280 for the engine. I do know that there's protosounds three and protosounds 2. When I bought the engine I didn't know that put a sounds to was an old version that had been around in a while otherwise it might have alerted me about the age. I do recall that the LHS guy demonstrated it for me using DCS controller and did tell me what the scale mileage was on it,  I don't recall whatever it was very negligible. Some running on test track and that's about it I guess. Until my little misadventure with it it was running beautifully, with the exception that the smoke unit smelled odd to me. Sorry I'm rambling a little bit, I'll stay in touch with news.

Look again at my above post on hobby shop experts.   Again, I hope you did not get burned with the price.   I would demand my money back.   Just because someone owns a hobby shop does not make them an expert.   

Update, the hobby shop had another engine of the exact type and just swapped it for me because the board on the original one was bad... I have a big question though, I have my wife go pick the new one up and she did not have them test the smoke unit while she was there. Nowhen  I got it at home the smoke does not do anything other than I can hear the fan going.  I remember when I bought the original engine  and was having it tested The Hobby Shop guy mentioned that he was running it in dCS and would turn up the smoke to Max so that it would work for me when I got home since I only run conventional, he said that if he left it on low that it would be stuck like that and I would not be able to get it to work in conventional. Is this true? I'm wondering if it was just set to be off in DCS and now the only way I can get it fixed is to take it back there or somewhere else where I can have it turned back on in DCS. That seems weird to me. I did the factory reset in conventional mode according to the manual but I'm not sure if that applies to this DCs memory issue. Any help appreciated.

In conventional you turn smoke ON and OFF using the tiny slide-switch under the chassis.

As with your previous engine, you should hear the smoke fan whirring whenever smoke is ON.  I believe what your LHS guy was saying is you can't change the level of smoke in conventional with this particular engine.  There are other MTH Protosound engines where you have a knob control to adjust smoke level from OFF to FULL in conventional.

If he hears the fan the smoke unit is on.  It may need fluid, or if this was used before it could have a burned wick.  If you had an amp meter you could see the power increase between smoke on and off.  Hate to say it but the shell needs to come off and the smoke unit needs to be inspected. G

Lhs guy definitely said a dcs adj could be locked in then stuck that way in conventional...he "thought"....sounds unlikely. Anyway it's fixed. I put in about 6 drops, no smoke then about 10 more, ran , no smoke. 2 days later I opened it up, ckd wick, bone dry, but like new. No sitting liquid in unit. Looked around, no evidence of spill or overflow. Put 20 drops in it, let sit for half hour. Put cover on. All good now. Mysterious.

MTH smoke unit with the new wick require lots of drops.  Even older ones can take 20-30.  G

GGG, by "new" wick do you mean a replacement, or that MTH issued a different wick?

Happy New Year, George.

The current wick is like a rope, been around for a few years now. G

I think your dealer knows nothing and hosed you.  I also hope you got it cheap enough to put up with his stories.

Since this is an older engine (as in manufacturing date), it probably sat for a long time. So, the smoke issue on the 2nd one is not mysterious at all . . . . If anyone would have bothered to look at the manual that is. And I quote; " When storing the engine for long periods of time, you may want to add at least 15 drops of fluid to keep the wick soaked with fluid and prevent it from drying out. After removing the engine from storage, it is advisable to add another 25 drops of fluid, letting the wick soak up the fluid for 15 minutes prior to operation."

Since was in the box for who knows how long it could have required sitting for a while with oil in the smoke unit to bring the wick back to life. Considering the mfg date of the loco, I think this would apply.

I bought a used USRA Mallet. Very little smoke out of it in conventional mode when I first ran it with about 10 drops in it. Charged it on the track for about 5 hours. Put about 10 drops in it and let it sit overnight.

Put another 5 drops in it the next day and let it sit in neutral for a couple of minutes and the volume of smoke kept increasing. Added another 10 and it smokes extremely well since then.

It would also be worth it if you don't have a charger to
1. turn off the smoke
2. put it on the track and run the voltage up to 10-12v with the engine in neutral ( I used a meter to measure my track voltage)
3. let it sit for 6-7 hours

This is in the manual. Even if everything works, the battery charge could still be low from sitting because they are NiCAD batteries and will gradually lose their charge. Intermittent running won't get a full charge on the batteries. 

I find it difficult to accept the proposition (since deleted from the above post) that low battery voltage can cause low smoke volume.

Bob, that is a good one.