this loco makes intermittent chuffing sounds when going around the track. The whistle and horn do not struggle at all. This is 20-1117L. Is this a battery issue most likely or....?
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Assuming it has not been upgraded, It has a whistle only. Does it slow down or act erratic in a curve? May be a bad tether, or the solder joints on the pins at the back of the engine. Otherwise chuffing generated based on motor voltage. You could try a Reset 18 to set back to defaults. G
It has a Bell. So this means it has been upgraded? I see on the box no Bell listed only whistle. It acts fine otherwise curves and all.
It has corrosion on the battery terminal. How do I tell if an upgrade was done? I have tender shell off. What or how do I reset 18?
Do you have instructions. It will be in them. If not go to MTH website. Any PS-1 engine will give those instructions. But we need to find out if this was upgraded to PS-2. Can you post a picture of the boards, that will help tell what you have. You can clean battery terminal off. If you turn off track power does the engine play shutdown sounds? If so battery and wires are ok. If not, battery may be dead, or wire terminal corrosion has caused problems (open wire). G
OK, PS-1. Get a good battery in it, you can use alkaline for testing. Follow procedure for a reset 18. After pressing whistle once and getting garble an than clear bell, press second time. You only get whistle when out of neutral otherwise get a bell. Quirk of how this works. Manual explains it. G
I did the reset 18. And it works! Thank you so much!!
Glad you got it! G
PS-1 Engines come out of the box programed as mentioned above where as the whistle only works when the engine is running forward or reverse (as I remember, its been a long time since I was up on this). In neutral the bell works, with the whistle button. In the list of program settings one allows you to program the engine where the whistle blows with whistle button and the bell rings with the bell button when using a Z-4000. MTH programed the PS-1 engines (first sentence above describes) because PS-1 predates the Z-4000 transformer. When PS-1 came out the old ZW transformers had no bell button as well as many of the older transformers........Confused?? ME TOO, However I know the PS-1 can be programed where the whistle button blows the whistle and bell button rings the bell...............
Do not charge that white battery. Dispose of it.