MTH PS2 5 Volt Boards = thicker smoke & louder sound?

I don't know about the smoke but the sounds are definitely louder on the ps 2 5 volt boards because there   pushed to the limit if I remember correctly the 5 volt amps are 5 watt where the three volt boards amp are 3 watt!  the five boards are driven harder then they should be and is one reason the amps fail on 5 volt boards!

Alan

Actually, the TDA7056A on the 5V board is rated at 3W and the TPA2000D1 on the 3V board is rated at 2W.  However, I personally haven't seen any significant volume difference between the two boards, and I get more than enough smoke from either of them as well.

GRJ, can you tell us what is the output wattage on the PS3 boards ? Are all PS3 boards out put the same ? ie Diesel , Steam or up grade kit boards ?  My observations have been a wide variance of volume level, seems most diesels are adequate, however the last Alco S-2 switcher seemed very poor, whereas the 44 toners seem OK, ( speaker size seems comparable) also most of the steam engines seem to have way lower volume than previous PS2's. Is this just a software scenario or is it a hardware. If it is software cannot we load older PS2 sound sets with greater volume into the PS3 boards to achieve the greater volume ? Thanks Dean

I believe that most of the sound volume issues with PS/3 have been laid at the doorstep of the sound files.  Several sound files have been reissued to make sounds louder.  A steam PS/3 board set will want to see a PS/3 steam sound file.  With the PS32 board that is used for PS/3 upgrades, you can load either PS/2 3V files or PS/3 files.

Another cool thing about these 5 volt boards is that they are very smooth at 1 scale MPH.(at least mine are). I cant get a proto 3 to smooth out til about 3 or 4 scale mph. I know I know I know.........these are "ticking time bombs", but I have not lost one yet.