MTH PS3 No-Coast Stop in Conventional

In my opinion, that is nothing to be concerned with. However, my other question would be, why would you do that? In case of an emergency I can see doing that, and I have do just that too, but under normal operations, I NEVER hit the "direction" button until after I have slowed and stopped.

That seems odd to me. I use the direction button all the time during switching moves. I'll have to try a new engine.

What do you have the decelerate set at?

You probably need to adjust the decel. rate on your DCS remote. It is probably at 0 right now.

Probably should have noted I'm running conventional with a Z-1000. Original post updated!

 

 

Something's amiss there!   If you had a train behind it'd  probably derail.  The only thing I can suggest is a feature reset.  menu/advanced/ reset engine/ feature reset. It's almost like the motor has no fly-wheel.

 

I see we're just seconds apart posting... try a conventional reset with the whistle bell combination.

 

Place the engine in neutral, then press horn, bell, bell, bell, bell, bell.  Two horn/whistle blasts will tell you the reset was done.

Here is my Theories:

1. MTH engines in Conventional do not cruise to a stop when direction is pushed. I have experienced this activating the PFA.

2. The tether might need to be pushed in a little more.

3. Factory Reset.

But it is guaranteed that Number One is the best answer possible.

 

Not my MTH engines...and I've had plenty of MTH engines over the years. All coast to a stop, some a bit smoother than others but not as bad as this engine. 

 

Tried a conventional reset, no change. 

Yeah! Mine also coast  a bit.   I did have one early Williams diesel with no flywheels and it would also stop dead in it's tracks.  Where do you go from here? back to dealer?  try it in command mode? take it apart?   Does the cruise work?  You'll get to the bottom of it, maybe not today though.  good luck.

 

One more thing.. could the running gear be binding. side rods, crank etc. No way to turn the  flywheel without taking it apart.

Thanks Gregg. One thing is MTH did this in PRR and Long Island road names. However, they screwed up and put the wrong sound files in the LI engines - they put the PRR file in. I was going to take it to my local dealer tomorrow to have the "proper" sound file put in. However since they are files for the same engines, just road name specific, I doubt that would change anything. Guess I'll ask them to look at it. Otherwise, it runs great and have no intention on sending it back. 

Gregg, 

 

I prefer not to mess with a new, under warranty engine.

 

Cruise works. Also pulled out my TIU and Remote and tried that...runs and coasts to a stop as it should with no problems. Tried a factory reset before unhooking the TIU and that did nothing. 

Thanks guys ! 

 

I was having same issue with my new ps3 berkshire  in conventional with z-1000 as poster said !

 

I will get the DCS system ! 

 

 

It sounds like the flywheel is not large enough to free wheel the larger motor.
Romiller49

Interesting the WRG is having the same issue with the Berkshire. 

 

Romiller sounds like he may have the answer....that motor is huge and the flywheel was dwarfed by the motor. I guess I'll just be careful with it and use the throttle vs. the direction button for switching, stop/start, etc

I don't know but  it  really locks up fast. I can't believe it suppose to work like that.

 

 

Recommend you post this to the MTH DCS forum for further dissemination and more expertise.  It should not do that. 

I have a RK Imperial PS3 L1 Mikado (PRR) and just experienced the exact same issue.

 

I tested it both using aTIU channel with the DCS signal turned off and also with a  plain old KW straight to the tracks. In both cases the engine stopped dead when the divrectionbuitton was press or when power was turned off.

 

Under DCS, the engine runs fine. Since I never operate conventionally, this is a non-issue for me, personally. However, I plan to send the link to this thread to MTH.

Barry - Good to know it isn't just my loco. 

 

I took my loco to the local dealer...the repair man was out for the weekend but the owner is also an MTH tech and looked at it quickly. He thinks the flywheel is way too small for the motor, which according to him, MTH is using much larger motors now. 

 

Since MTH also screwed up the sound file on the LIRR version, he has it until he can get the corrected file loaded. I hope to get it back next weekend (and I hope the matching caboose I ordered, which MTH says is shipping, comes in as well!)

 

Thanks for sending this off to MTH. Would be interesting to see if a recall or some other fix is made for their customers at no cost. 

Since 2000 MTH has used a Mabuchi RS-545 motor in this loco, which is quite large and takes up most of the room in the firebox area.  Some photos of the current model would be helpful to determine what kind of motor it has.

 

Since the advent of Protosound 2.0 (also around 2000), MTH has used capacitors built into the PS2 (and LocoSounds) system to augment the mechanical energy of the flywheel, providing a gradual stop.  By comparison, PS1 locos didn't coast well at all.  Not only were the flywheels not large enough by themselves, but the gear ratios are pretty tall (around 14:1 to 16:1), which means the flywheel is also not turning very fast.  The MTH worm gears are self-locking which means the wheels cannot turn the motor, so you get an abrupt stop.  The problem is exacerbated by rubber tires.  Lionel overcomes this problem by using back-drivable worm gears on most of their Legacy locos.  This is a good feature.

 

It's also true that there is a parameter accessible only with the DCS system to set the deceleration rate.  I usually set mine to "1" which gives maximum coasting.  And yes I do use the direction button for stopping and switching.

 

Hopefully the only problem here is that this batch came from the factory with the deceleration setting initialized to a minimum or faulty value.  The real question is: if a user sets it to "1" under DCS for long coasting, is this setting still stored for use in conventional mode?  This is very, very important when I let my young nephews run my locos on a conventional layout.  They are also fond of using the direction button on the transformer. Those hard stops aren't good for the drive rods, motors, gears, rubber tires, etc.

 

I'll be following this thread.  I'm eager to see what other posters and MTH have to say.

Ted,  Where did you get the information about the capacitors?  When you hit the direction button the relay reverses polarity on the motors and the Motor FET stops conducting.  Since the board doesn't loose power with the battery, there is no capacitor involved with keeping the motor running.  If there was it would be trying to reverse it since the relay swapped polarity on the motor.

 

It was all mechanical energy from the flywheel.  G

 

It looks like smoke is ON in the video?  Does turning smoke off change the coasting behavior when you hit Direction?

 

I got an engine recently that had some crazy value set into some parameters. I removed DCS version 4.3x after that and went back to 4.2. I didn't know what had caused my system, and several engines, to act up. I am now seeing certain time of releases to have some stuff from the factory that demands a reset. (keeping it vague)

 That's why I asked what the decal was set at. Running in conventional, I realize that he didn't change it. I'm just wondering as well, if it was factory set to a high number.

 I think that resetting the engine, would cure this? Unless there's some component failing on the board.

GGG I'm not sure what's really happening electronically.  But I see what looks like some good-sized capacitors in the PS2 board stack.

 

What I can tell you from direct observation is that my Premier PS1 steam locos (like the 20-3032-1 Berkshire) don't coast worth a darn.  These locos are almost 20 yrs old and are well broken in.  But given the tall gear ratio and self-locking gears, that small flywheel just isn't turning fast enough to maintain momentum.  These PS1 locos are not kid-friendly.  My club runs its mainlines with a TMCC powermaster and Cab-1.  When I hand off the remote I'm always terrified one of the kids is going to push the 'dir' or 'halt' button and cause an abrupt stop.

 

I actually looked into having the flywheels bored and slugged with tungsten fly fishing weights to augment the stored momentum.  I purchased a few extra flywheels from the MTH parts department and took them to a local machine shop.  The shop didn't want the job, they had concerns about boring holes for the tungsten while keeping the flywheels dynamically balanced.

 

Since then I've acquired two other Premier Berks equipped with PS2.  Same flywheel.  Same gearing.  With these locos in conventional mode, coasting still isn't comparable to a postwar 2025.  BUT--with deceleration set to '1,' at least you don't get the rod-graunching stops of the earlier models.  There's enough stored energy to carry the loco across back-to-back 90-degree crossings that stopped my PS1 locos cold.  So MTH must have done something tricky with the electronics to increase coasting when power is lost, relative to the mechanical energy alone.

 

To clarify, I'm not talking about a double-tap of the direction button (which would indeed throw the train into reverse.)  Only one press-and-release while the train is running at normal speed.  Another example might be running the train headfirst into a track block where the power is turned off.  I invite our readers to do their own experiments.

 

Coasting ability is important in a sometimes unpredictable multi-operator environment.  It also prevents the loco from damaging itself.  Creep, coast, and pull: it's not that hard...

Again, the engine is at my LHS for a non-related warranty repair (wrong sound file) so I don't have it and likely won't for another week or two. 

 

When I put it on the DCS track at home, it responded fine. I screwed with the Acceleration/Deceleration rate but saw no change in conventional. Responded properly to changes in DCS. Factory/feature resets with DCS did nothing. 

 

If Barry's engine does the same thing, I don't suspect it is just my engine that is screwy. I hope MTH responds and Barry keeps us informed. 

Those caps condition the output of the rectifier to give around 22-24VDC as an input to Positive Voltage.

 

The relay has only 2 positions Normally closed to make Yellow wire + and Wht wire - (de-energized) Fwd direction; and Reverse which is relay energized and the polarity swaps.  Neutral is just the FET not conducting. 

 

Using DCS the effect is delayed as the programming allows the engine to coast to a stop before the relay swaps.  That is why if you apply throttle again, the engine continues in the last ordered direction preventing the direction change.   G

George,

That is why if you apply throttle again, the engine continues in the last ordered direction preventing the direction change

That's the case only with PS2 engines. PS3 engines under DCS control will coast to a stop and then go in the reverse direction.

Don't know for sure on PS-3, but a direction change via DCS doesn't automatically result in opposite direction movement after coast to stop.  That is only when using DC transformer and changing polarity via switch in conventional.  G

George,

but a direction change via DCS doesn't automatically result in opposite direction movement after coast to stop.

It works like this:

 

PS2, engine moving:

• Press DIR, wait for full stop, engine will then respond to speed command in the opposite direction
• Press DIR, do not wait for full stop, issue speed command, engine will then respond to speed command in the current direction.

PS3, engine moving:

• Press DIR, wait for full stop, engine will then respond to speed command in the opposite direction
• Press DIR, do not wait for full stop, issue speed command, engine will then coast to a stop, reverse direction, and respond to speed command.

Good to know, will test on the next one I get.  G

Barry - Any update from your contact attempt with MTH?

Any update from your contact attempt with MTH? 

No, I reported it but haven't heard anything. 

 

Thanks Barry. I plan to approach Mike Wolf about this at York. Worse case scenario, I'll discuss with my LHS replacing the motor with one that actually coasts. 

Worse case scenario, I'll discuss with my LHS replacing the motor with one that actually coasts. 

I don't think that the motor is the problem. I'm leaning more towards software as being the culprit.

 

FWIW, I sent an E-mail to MTH this evening asking if there's any new information on this issue..

Been following this to see where it leads.

Are you going to send it into MTH for repair or take it to a dealer for warranty work?

I mean crew talk is bad enough, but when it is the wrong railroad also?

 

Interesting thread, did not know about the P2 and P3 differences in the direction button Barry posted. Keep us posted on the cause and solution.

Barry - thank you. I sincerely appreciate your willingness to dig deeper on this. Thank you. 

I just received a reply from MTH, quoted below:

 

There is later DSP software up on the website.   Engine shipped with 3244 and 3343 is the current release that is up on the website.   Please download and load the FLASH dsp only into the engine and let me know if that corrects the issue.

 

I've downloaded the new flash file (it is, indeed, #3343) from the engine's web page and will upload the file to the engine this weekend.

 

Barry,

 

Thanks for posting. Granted, I'm not an expert on this stuff (only pretend to be ). With that, I have my LHS handle anything like this. So I know what to explain to them next weekend (I will also print this thread out), the software on the engine's website needs to be reloaded in the engine? From what I understand in your post, you will try it this weekend in your engine to see if it is successful?

 

Pardon the ignorance but I'm not really up on the technical terms here! Appreciate your determination to get this resolved.

When you download the software on the engine's web page, it's a Zip archive that unzips to two files. One is another zip file that has the series of files that are loaded as the engine's firmware. The other file is the sound file.

 

Only the second zip file is to be loaded. The sound file hasn't changed. The Loader Program will properly unzip the second zip file and process all of its parts. Hopefully, your LHS has a tech who is very familiar with the process.

Thank you Barry. Please update on hopefully successful results after you complete yours!