Protosound was vulnerable to scrambled boards?

The short answer is "yes".

That is what I thought, thanks Barry.

Not "Would", but rather "Could".  G

The good news is that an MTH tech can usually unscramble them.

Those boards are as strong today as they were when made.  Just keep a good battery or BCR.  Anyone operating PS1 with a white battery should throw the battery away and replace with a new battery of your choice or BCR.  Many a board has been discarded when it could be repaired with one of the repair chips.  I have done many PS2 upgrades and before I remove any PS1 boards I try to bring them back to life before removing them.  I have a friend who has me put PS1 boards into Williams engines.  PS1 was and is still a good system.

I have three white battery equipped ones on my bench right now.  Actually, the batteries are in the trash now.  There are still a lot of them around with the old battery.  Only one had to be unscrambled.

I know that MTH had an unscramble kit for the PS1 problem, but is(was) it true that MTH techs and authorized stations have several other chips that can be used to bring "very dead" PS1 boards to life (assuming all components are OK?)  If so why not available to consumers?  Or is (was) this extra chips just an urban ledgend?

Just asking (please don't shoot the questioner).

Sam, upon passing the school, we were given 4 chips.  No legend.  They were a bit more involved than the Make PS chip to clear the 3 clanks.   These were from the PS1 days.  I use my chips often with great results. 

Since I've gotten back from the MTH ASC school, I've used the chips a number of times already.  Of course, Marty got shortchanged, we got five chips!   The extra is just a known good sound chip for testing a board, and I'm sure Marty has it too.

Oh darn, and here I was going to submit the MTH extra chips to Snopes.com as an urban myth, then submit Marty F. and GRJ proof to dispute the urban ledgend.

Thanks,

I'll hide mine if that will help you.

In addition to the MTH chips there are QSI reset chips too. The QSI chips can be used to over ride a ID conflict Top Board.  G

Gee, I got shortchanged!  I don't have any QSI reset chips, unless you're talking about the FORCE 10 and FORCE 11 chips.

John, I have many known good chips.  Doing PS2 upgrades from day one has built up a decent number to have on hand.  I also built a chip tester with a set of boards.  Many people are not aware that locomotive chips ( not tech chips) can still be ordered from MTH. 

They don't come from MTH, they were for the QSI sponsored authorized repair Techs.   G

I just ordered a PS/1 chip for one I'm repairing.   The top board and the chip were bad, I had a board, but not a matching chip.  Still waiting, I wish parts was a bit faster...

I have all the parts in a box to build a simple PS/1 board tester, it's not a difficult project as you don't have to worry about smoke units, etc. as they run off track power.  I figured I'd make it look like a simple version of the PS/2 test set.

On that topic, what is the voltage of the headlight/taillight and marker outputs on the PS/1 board?

 That ship has sailed.

1.5V/1.5V and 3-5V.  G

I keep my test board set unmounted.  I have a small box with battery harness, speaker, volume pot and coupler and power harness options.  Makes it easier for me to swap parts in and out especially when it is the bottom board.  G

Thanks for the voltages, I thought those were 1.5V.  I didn't know about the marker outputs, are those for LED's or incandescent?  Are they current limited?  I don't recall ever opening one up and finding this in use.

As far as the test set, I'm going to make it like the PS/2 one, the board will be just something that I put in the box with it, as you say, unmounted.

I do believe it is current limited, there are a number of resistors near the Yellow connector.  It can run marker lights LED  in tenders.  The PS-1 were Parallel LED vice the series of the PS-2 equivalents.

Then the 2 pin plug on the top of the C4 board is for beacon output for diesels, but the sound chip has to have that capability according to QSI documentation.  G

Do you have to pay to go to that school or own A MTH authorized store?

I wondered about that bare 2 pin connector, none of the MTH documentation mentions it at all.

You don't pay, but you have to pay for your own transportation and lodging.  You do have to be sponsored by a dealer to attend the school.

John, early markers were lights then they went to the LED markers.  If you are doing a conversion and the locomotive (PS1) has LED markers, use them they are the same as what is in PS2.

Thanks Marty, so just connecting them to the PS/2 marker output works without any issue?

Yes, but....  Some are parallel wire and some are Series wired.  Since PS-2 comes series wired, I mod the parallel ones to series just to make sure no issues.  G

I'll keep that in mind George.

George, the ones that are series will have a resistor in the bundle with the heat shrink.

That makes perfect sense, as the 6V outputs would cook them without some current limiting.  I use 330 ohm resistors for my LED headlight replacements for PS/2 locomotives. 

Marty, If you open the ones in the Upgrade kits there are no resistors.  The current limiting resistor is on the PS-2 3V board.  Same for the newer engines.

I have seen older series LED with resistors though.  If you replace them with series with no resistor they work fine.  There certainly have been variations to the markers, but the standard for the PS-2 3V is series without resistor.  G

George, I was going back to  PS1.  You are correct on PS2.

I took two sets of markers out, one was wired in parallel, the other in series.  Since they're in my parts box, I'm not sure if they were for PS/1 or PS/2.  I'm pretty sure the red ones in series are from the PS/2 upgrade kit.

Neither of them had any resistors.

I suppose I could check the upgrade kits on the shelf to see what they have...

I love PS-1 engines.  And like stated above, it's not known that the chips are still available, and it seems by even MTH dealers.  I had a Dreyfuss Hudson that went into deselect, and my MTH dealer/repair shop told me that there were no parts for it.  But after finding this forum and learning otherwise, a chip was ordered, and now my Hudson works as well as it ever does.

I've also come to enjoy the modular system of PS-1, and have fixed a couple of mine with board swapping.  I do have a couple GP38-2s that need work.  Once just lights up, but makes no sound or moves (swapped the top board and still nothing) so I'm guessing it's a bottom board, and another that I haven't even tried to power  after I saw that a mosfet was broken off of the bottom board.  The debate is wither I want to repair both engines, thus giving me 3 completely working units (I have one already that works in addition to the dead 2) to MU for long trains, or if I want to bash these broken two into a permanent 2 unit MU, butting a tether between them for working directional lights, couplers and sound with just the lead unit with motors.

Also, where could I find a listing of all the connectors and what they do?  There are some unused connectors in my steamers I'm guessing are for directional lighting, which I wouldn't mind using for adding backup lights to the tenders.  Like turning on red lights for forward and a white light for reverse.  I also noticed on steamers that the array of 4 connectors are 2 pin, but only one is used in each to the tether.

Would this help?

John

Thank you for the diagram.

chips are 44 dollars..had one made. it didnt work wright..told Midge at parts about it..and she took care of it..she away took care of me when i order parts..now thats great customer service!!....GGG and marty..have you two worked on QSI boards?....QSI is the same to me accept they have a extra board and its a power/battery board..MTH is a 2 stack board system..just picked up a 3rd rail PRR Q2 with QSI system in it..oh can you still buy the tool to pull out those chips??

You are missing the 2 pin beacon connection.  G

MSRP on the PS/1 chips is $30.  Of course if you order only the chip, you still have the shipping charge.

Well, I did say "will this help".  As you mentioned, that output has to be supported in order for it to work, and many of the chips didn't support it, right?

Yes I have worked on the QSI boards.  Just repaired a bad Power Supply board on a QS3000.  You can get the chip puller from Radio Shack.  G

Diesels with Beacons uses it.  G