MTH Aerotrain DCC problems?

Amazingly I had the exact same problem with a Railking MP15 switcher this morning! I cut the wire and put the engine on a toggled off track. I flipped the toggle to on and another engine I had running immediately stopped and my RRampmeter went crazy. I shut down the track and removed the other engine. Put the Railking engine back on the track, flipped the toggle on and RRampmeter went crazy again. I could call up the engine on address three and start it up but had no speed control at all. And what little bit I could control was really rough. I went ahead and installed a switch and it works great in DCS mode. I'm using a Digitrax dcc system and have had no problems with any of my MTH premier engines. I posted in the dcc forum to see if any one else has experienced this. I plan on converting most of my engines to TCS WOW Sound decoders but was hoping to just use the MTH decoder in engines that aren't part of my operating scheme. I hope all of the Railking isn't like this!

Joe Shipbaugh

Well, I took another Railking switcher off the shelf and clipped the gray wire with the result being exactly the same as this morning's. This looks like an MTH problem and unfortunately all of my Railking engines, even though they are brand new, are out of warranty. Looks like I'm going to be doing a bunch of decoder installs. I'm sure this is a blessing in disguise!

Joe Shipbaugh

I can't help but wonder if the gray wire isn't the correct wire.  I think I'll have a look at one of my Premier MTH loco's and see what wire (or wires) runs to the DCC/DCS switch. If that doesn't work I'll try giving MTH a call tomorrow.

Joe

Perhaps you have clipped the wrong gray wire.  I've done 2 RailKing locomotives and both were a pain.  If I had just gone in and clipped the gray wire I would have gotten the wrong one.  In both cases they were black, not gray.  I very carefully looked at several photos I found online and traced the wire from the connector on the board to find the correct wire.  also, when you clipped the wire, did you put tape or shrink wrap over the end to keep the wire from shorting out on anything?  Did you also make sure you didn't pinch any wires putting the shell back on?

(I might be interested in removed PS-3 boards.  I do have one PS-2 locomotive I wouldn't mind upgrading to PS-3 so I can run it with my other PS-3 locomotives in DCC.)

I examined the DCC/DCS switch on one of my Premier MTH diesels and the wire to it is indeed black, not gray.  I found the same black wire on my Aerotrain and clipped it, that did the trick!  the gray wire I cut has something to do with the speed control/momentum of the locomotive. The train will operate with the gray wire cut but it tends to have rather quick take-offs. I reconnected the gray wire and now I have a nice steady, slow take off.

Joe

Glad to help!