MTH 30-20009-1 Battery

Looking at your engine layout reminds me of some of the disassembly puzzles I have had to solve with MTH engines. There is always a way to get the battery out you just have to find the hidden screw that gets the one thing out of the way so you can get to the other thing that you need to remove to get to the battery. Be patient and keep looking.

FYI, I have never had any luck recharging a battery. Maybe it was because these were the old white PS2's. Hopefully your charge stays put.

Before you fool with the battery, start the engine up and then immediately turn off track power without pressing Shutdown first. If sound persist for 6-7 seconds, the battery is fine.

The "Battery Low" message is often not indicative that theaters needs to be charged.

This and a whole lot more is all in MTH’s “The DCS O Gauge Companion 2nd Edition", available for purchase as an eBook or a printed book at MTH's web store!

Scott yes it does look trying as its not just "lift out battery" like the diagram says.Turns out battery is fine as you read rest of this post.

But when time comes i'll try and figure it out short of removing the board above it

i may have to bend bracket upwards and disconnect  and slide battery out.

Barry i did a search here on forum and seen you've mentioned similar to other posters and i did try that and i counted about 9 seconds before engine sounds completely go silent .

So ran engine and all functions work properly with the DCS remote including clear sounds in neutral.

Just wanted to be careful as this was bought used with 7 hours on chrono so i figure it sat during it's 3 or so years.

Retired Switchman -  ATU Local 308

Do the sounds play at full volume or are they low?  The Low battery means the voltage at the charge port is below 5V.  This puts a larger load on the boards internal power supply.  The battery can be weak and cause this or the Power Supply board has a fault.

If you unplug the 2 pin connector to the board does the battery test read normal or high?  If so, I would replace the battery as a precaution, unless the charging restores the feature to normal.  G

GGG the sounds do go full volume and get louder. Looking thru remote where it mentions

chrono/Odo/Battery it says low for battery otherwise.

I've read on forum that means it has to do with the battery charging system .

So does low mean it' s charging battery in a low mode because it does not need"

the"high" charge ?

If i replace battery and charge it with the mth charger install and recheck would it say low or high or even ok as I'm curious.

Older MTH AC6000 back from 2002 (bought new) with 5 volt board and 8.4 volt battery recently installed a newly charged battery then checked with remote says "ok".
Unfortunately i never checked the old battery to see what remote said about it as i figured after all the years owning it it needed it after reading some of the threads on the forum.

Really afraid to unplug the board otherwise to see other option as there are many connectors and sort of leery sticking  my hands in there but the sounds do respond to getting pretty loud and or low .

Engine in question 30-20009-1 first appeared in 2011 volume 1 .

The algorithm is a little more complex for the design, but in general terms, it wants to see 2.5V on the 2 pin battery terminal for normal.  That is what it would read with a good 2.4V battery installed.  When the voltage is below 2.5V it reads low.  Normally if a battery was dead or going bad the voltage could not be maintained at 2.5V.  If the battery is disconnected the voltage goes to the open/no load reading of 5V which is the voltage of the internal power supply.  If you did a test with no battery it would say high.  For a 2011 engine the battery should not be bad, but it is possible.

That is why I said if a good charge doesn't fix it I would put a new battery in.  Otherwise the board may have a malfunction preventing a good reading on the 2 pins.  Normally that cause volume to go to half value.   G