MTH PCC street car sound question

There is no sound chip in PS-2.  You load sound file.  Have you read directions for conventional PFA.  Once you activate it you press direction button to stop and have it play sounds.  After a few seconds you can press direction button again to get next sounds.  Etc until the last press will play the leaving station and unit will move.   G

Thanks for the reply G.  These Pittsburgh PCC cars are hard to find, so I was hoping that I could find one from another city and swap the sound chip.  Yes I have read and understand the feature.  I use the feature regularly and most of the time it works perfectly.  But intermittently the street car acts up like I describe above.  The street car is actually my brothers.  He sent it to me to work on for him.  In the past, he has returned it to an MTH repair center, but the intermittent problem always comes back.  Do you think it's worth trying to have it repaired again?  Are parts still available for these?  Thanks much.

Rick

Later...it acts as if the battery is dead, so each momentary direction button press (power interruption) acts as if it has been powered on for the first time.  But the battery is new.  So, I wonder if the charging circuit for the battery is bad?  I'll take some voltage readings at the battery with and w/o power from the track applied.  Is the charging circuit easy to repair?  Discrete diodes or a bridge rectifier?  TIA, Rick

Have you affirmed continuity between the battery and the circuit board? One of my units suffered a broken wire inside the clip that snaps onto the battery.

Thanks Richard.  Battery clip and wires are okay.  I measured the voltage at the battery to be around 9.8 VDC w/o track power and around 10.1 VDC with track power.  This seems high to me?  Any comments?

I may have figured out the problem and could use help with solving it.  See the picture...that green wire is supposed to be soldered to something.  Does anyone know where to solder it back to?  TIA, Rick

That green wire and small PCB is for a fix for a faulty battery charge circuit.  Rarely works when installed.  You may be better off upgrading to a stacker or a PS2 3v flash board for trolleys as those wires are difficult to reattach.

Hi hope you get it fixed!

C:\Andy\File Exports\Instruction Manuals\30DL17835I.PRN.pdf (mthtrains.com)

Alan

Jon, thanks SO MUCH for the diagram.  Yah that wire was indeed difficult to reattach.  There is very little room in there.  But I did get it reattached and the street car is working again.  Just guessing, but my speculation is that the small PCB was added by the hobby store that my brother had it serviced at back in the day due to the charging circuit being damaged by a BCR that either my brother or the servicing hobby store installed.  And,  when the hobby store installed the PCB back in the day, that green wire wasn't properly soldered (e.g. cold solder joint) thus causing intermittent problems.  And when I was fiddling around try to fix this street car, I dislodged the badly soldered green wire.  In any case, the street car is working properly now and I appreciate the help!

Jon, if the charging circuit is indeed bad, and the PCB ends up not being an adequate resolution and the intermittent problems return can you tell me any more about these stacker and PS2 3v flash boards for trolleys?  Like are they available, from who, and is it something that I can install or would I need to send the street car to you or someone?  Again, thanks much!

Rick

The PS2 3v boards are no longer available and you would have to find a flash board that already has the code in it for a trolley (it would have to come out of one). MTH no longer has the capability to flash the PS2 boards.  The flash board is used in powered units that have special features, like station stops, operating pantagraphs, etc., where the that info is not contained in the hardware table imbedded in the sound file.

The stacker board with the correct 5v connectors is a bolt-in, except in some cases the wires may have to be extended due to the heat sink being on the opposite side of the connectors.  The stacker boards have hardware tables for all types of locos, so no special board is needed.

Due to my workload, I am not taking customer repairs nor do I perform upgrades.

I appreciate your reply Jon.  The street car continues to work well, so I'm hoping no further work on it is necessary.  And, FWIW I think this one is a PS2 5 volt board.  I'll research stacker boards just in case.

Rick