I had some odd/weird behaviors with my NS 20-2559-1 5v PS2 engine after letting it sit for what feels like a few months. Wondering how many of these are inter-related, completely independent, coincidence, random, etc. It will be a long story.
On Friday night I wanted to run my NS 9759 Dash-9, which I assumed hadn't been run in maybe 6 months. Did a quick inspection and noted that one of the traction tires was off. After some fiddling, replaced it while contemplating maybe I should replace all 4...the others don't look much better....but didn't....Bad choice #1.
I should have inspected the battery and replaced it, but didn't. Bad choice #2. I put it on the track and noted that it was already in my DCS remote, so it must not have been too long since I ran it. Noticed that it had no sound. Moved it to the test track. Tried it again. No sound. I did a Feature Reset. That got the sound back. Tried moving forward. Died with what sounded/felt/etc. like a short. Powered everything down. Powered everything back up. No sound. Feature Reset. Sound returned. Tried moving forward. Died again. Tried this forward/reverse/etc. Same behaviors. Perplexed. Wondered if the battery was dead. Having read a bunch of stories here about dried grease, even though the flywheels moved freely, I decided to take off the motors/trucks and inspect. Very grimy/dirty, but lubrication seemed fine. Saturday I was going to a Greenberg show in Chantilly. Figured I'd see if anyone had a BCR or MTH green battery. Luck had it someone had BCR. I'm now worried that I'm on borrowed time, as I keep re-setting a 5v PS2 wondering if I have hit the proverbial MTH Blue Screen of Death and it would be time to dummyfi it or send it off to GGG or GRJ for diagnosis of the short or 5v PS2 fix/upgrade.
In pulling out the old 9v, the battery terminals practically fell apart. It was beyond time for a new battery.
Sunday AM I did some quick reading on the forum here and saw someone had posted a very similar issue....they got steered to the usual suspect I had already tried...but maybe GGG, said try using a standard/fresh/new 9v battery...and someone else said check your remote battery. I didn't check my remote battery... bad choice #3. I installed the NEW BCR and got the exact same symptoms. Had to keep doing Feature Reset to get the sound back...or so I thought....bad choice #4...but noted each time I tried to get the engine to move forward, it would power-off like a short. But this time my MTH remote kept dying during the process of getting sound back. I thought I read keep the smoke unit powered off and disconnect the speaker if it was garbled - the speaker seemed to work fine, and I had already used the switch to keep the smoke unit off. Still no change. I decided to replace the batteries in my remote, replace the BCR with a fresh plain 9V, and try again. This time I got the engine to move both forward and backward, albeit slightly jerky. Noted when I powered off, the sound wouldn't come on unless I did a Feature Reset. But this time, instead of doing the feature reset, I hit the sound button on the remote. I got sound back. Wondered if in the fictitious "short" process, it was not powering down properly, so the settings were not getting saved. I'm still perplexed why I need to "turn the sound on"....all of my other PS2 engines start with sound enabled....This one starts with it off....odd....But partially fixed. I never did a Factory Reset, as it was in my remote and I didn't want to risk deleting it and re-adding, under the odd thought that maybe a Factory Reset would never get it back...as it seemed to be behaving poorly across the board.
Now I wasn't sure what I did to fix the problem. Was it bad batteries in the remote? Something with the 9V battery? Or was it just sitting too long and maybe the grimy grease was nasty enough and that's why the engine was very jerky at speed setting of 2-4... So I took the motors off, cleaned out the old grease, replaced with fresh new red and tacky, and put back on the track. While all of this was happening, the 3 other old traction tires rolled off. Time to swap them, too. Much better low speed performance with new grease and tires. Also decided to go back to the BCR. Everything seems to be working fine now. Added fluid to the smoke unit, re-packed the batting. Smokes fine. Moves fine. Still doesn't start with sound, but sound turns on with the button without any feature resets. Again, not sure why this engine starts with no sound. Maybe I should try that Factory Reset now...but figured I know how to get the sound on, so its not a problem...just different than all my other engines...
No idea which of these "fixes" was required...or maybe its just a string of operator errors. Knock on wood - today I avoided what I thought was surely the 5v PS2 dead board problem....but am still confused which of the issues was creating what I was perceiving as the problem...bad engine battery...bad remote battery....bad tires...bad grease...all of the above...none of the above?
