PS/2 engine @battle with TMCC engine

You need to install a 22uh RF choke in the wire between the TMCC engine's pickup rollers and its electronics. This and a whole lot more is all in The DCS O Gauge Companion 2nd Edition, available as either an eBook or a print book from MTH's web store.

Yes I know that point. I have every addition of the book. :-) What I can't figure out is why only 1 PS/2 engine out of nearly 100 with this problem. But yes I do plan to choke my atlas tmcc engines. Choking 20ish tmcc engines for a single PS/2 engine is a bit..... Annoying :-)

You could sell the problem engine.

No way! I begged Scott for a second one for months and he swore he didn't have another. Bit every other month it would reappear in the "boneyard" so I would call again and again! Finally Scott asked around the office on who kept re-adding it to the list. Finally some pointed and said that box there is not a N.W. Y-3 it is a ATSF! So Scott called me back and I bought it! It sat there for a year with me calling about it! Lol. It is mine now and never leaving my pike. :-)

Well, that kills that idea.

 

So you have a choke between your pickup and the CV board on your 3rd Rail that works fine with the TMCC engne?  Any lights on the offending that are track powered instead of powered by the PS-2 board?  G

Yes. The one with the cv board powered lights and a choke works fine with the tmcc engine on the rails. The engine with no cv board and all lights powered by the ps/2 board acts totally dead with a tmcc engine on the rails.

Last night I installed a choke in my atlas SW. Not an easy task. Zero room in there! Anyway it helped but only a little. The Y3 would sorta respond kinda. Blowing the whistle led to it blowing and not going off. You could ring the bell but good luck getting it to stop. The other I had not done yet in construction is wire up magic light bulbs. So I put one on the tiu channel powering my test track. Well.... Truly magic they are. The Y3 now responds as it should. I still cannot figure a reason why this Y3 is the only loco out of (I've lost count of my engines) that has such a profound problem. For another test I brought over a tmcc crane (no choke) to my now magic lightbulb test track with the y3. And... The Y3 stops responding completely again. So it seems that both choke and the lightbulb are a must for this one loco to work. Mind you this loco gets perfect 10s otherwise. Next trick is installing chokes in 2 tmcc cranes. :-/

 My experience with chokes from Atlas (used in their locomatic system) worked wonders for some of my TMCC engines that destroyed the dcs signal. However  putting then between the center rail rollers and  TMCC circuit board did nothing . What did work was putting the choke on the ground side  and it worked really well. Finding all the ground wires was a bit of a pain  to get the choke in series. I 'm also using a DC delux from digital dynamics (TMCC upgrade engine board) to run a turntable with the cab-1 and dcs remote. This time the choke from an proto-2  upgrade kit also had to go on the ground side to TMCC board that contained the R2LC to prevent interference on the shop tracks and track on the table deck.( Same tiu channel))

   I really don't know why the ground side worked for me, perhaps because the TMCC is on or floating around the outside rail. Beats me!

 Some people asked why I tried so hard to get perfect signal in every area of my layout. There were a few locos that seem more sensitive to signal problems. When the layout got perfected, all locos operate smoothly. There were two (out of 20 or so) that would start up when power was applied. They don't anymore. I didn't focus on the engine after struggling to make any difference. I looked at the layout as a whole. Now with adding many more engines, I have not had anymore issues like this.

 That said, my TMCC base is only connected for testing their locos. It still is my biggest offender. I'm running two rail and it does seem to make a bigger difference. The base must be placed at the furthest point of the layout from the TIU (and my engine yard) per Carl T's advice of finding the sweet spot. There, it makes the least impact for my layout. Maybe it would make a difference in three rail??