PS3 Steam Kits Available

What kind of Shay?  PS-1?  PS-1 only have volume pot, not smoke pot.  PS-1 has on off switch, and upgrade kit for steam has a switch for smoke, not pot.   G

My apology. Its a shay PS1 20-3023-1 and the smoke pot is different. I think I fried the board when I tried to isolate for the upgrade. Will post a pic. Will try and get another pot. Already have another board. Does anyone know where to cut the smoke pot. I got 8 ohms originally on this and it worked for five minutes.

Ok, You mean smoke unit.  Looks isolated, did you check elements to ground via the screws to make sure open?

How did you power the smoke fan?

 

That engine is difficult, did you pinch any wires?  Did the smoke fan solder joints touch the chassis?  

 

If it worked for 5 min then failed the smoke unit may be ok, and something else happened.

 

What specifically is not working now?  G

This was a PS2 upgrade. After ten minutes of running fine the main PS2 shorted out. I found out after taking it apart that one of the wires off the smoke unit melted through the insulation and shorted out wrecking the main board and apparantely now the smoke unit. I no longer get 8 ohms on the smoke unit (now only 2) and you can see the burned area by the right solder. This was not there before. I'm going to install a new PS2 kit. I basically have two questions - 1)is there any where I can get another smoke unit like this. I don't have a parts list and MTH does not have the parts list online for this shay. 2) If I can get another smoke unit, did I cut the traces properly. I realize that I'll have to insulate the wires around the smoke unit better. Their is very little room for the wires in this engine. Worst comes to worst, It won't have a smoke unit. Many thanks

Paolo, I'll pass on some info for what it's worth.  I am not familiar with the Shay.  But back in the days when PS1 was out, I bought a R-K Challenger, about 1994 or so. It was not PS1, but whistle only. The smoke unit failed.  MTH replaced it under warranty (i.e., within 1 year) with a different-looking unit.  When I upgraded it to PS2 about 2005, I found that the unit did not match what was depicted in the PS2 manual.  I had to rewire the two heaters from series to parallel or parallel to series; I forget which.  Just wanted you to be aware that there were different units in that era, and parts manuals may or may not accurately reflect what you have.

Unless a lot more than I see in your picture happened, you can pretty easily repair any issues with that smoke unit.  The two points indicated below are where the resistor connects.  Make SURE no copper joins those two, and also that neither of these points connect to frame ground in any way.  Then you can put the 8 ohm resistor into the unit if that one is damaged, and you should be good to go. 

 

If there are two resistors in there, they're 16 ohm and should be wired in parallel for PS/2 upgrades.  Again, the other comments still apply, those resistor ends should not be connected to ANYTHING else.  With that angle, I'm guessing there is only one, but I haven't seen that particular smoke unit internally.  Can you take the top PCB off and give us a shot of the bottom of the PCB?

 

 

 

Great here are a few additional pics. This would be great if it could be salvaged. Appreciate everyone's kind assistance.

 

Well, there are two resistors, so they're the 16 ohm resistors.  I didn't think they'd do them on an angle, silly me.

 

I see nothing that precludes getting that smoke unit to work properly with the upgrade.  Do as I suggested previously, then measure the resistors to see if they are 8 ohms when wired in parallel.  Anything from around 7 to 9 ohms is fine, you have to take into account some measurement accuracy issues.

 

You can remove the lower board totally, it's not needed for a PS/2 upgrade and is just excess baggage.

 

Quillable whistle with the new proto 3 kits?(steam)

Will Do John! Thank you Gents

You need to make sure that the solder joints don't touch the shell frame.  That may have shorted the board.  As John says you can rebuild easy and as I said make sure no grounds of the smoke unit, also the fan motor, as it can get close to the chassis.

 

If you want to send me the boards, they may be repairable.

 

Hind sight now, but you did not need to cut that smoke unit.  Unplugging the bottom board, and just bridge the element leads.  You could then solder to the pins on the side.  That would make for a cleaner install, and less chance of shorting the smoke unit wires on the shell. 

 

The routing of wires in that shay are difficult.  Easy to pinch wires.  G

Good tip GGG. One of the two resistors is definitely bad. Does anyone know where I can buy replacements. These are coiled on the outside.

E-mail me, I have them.   e-mail in my profile.  G

As some have already noted MTH has sent notice that the PS3 kits will be available. Old prices to be in effect until the end of the year. Typing the part numbers now bring up both the steam and diesel kits. What I find interesting is they are listed as available November 15th despite the fact that at least one dealer has been selling them for about three weeks now. I received my steam kit last week. 

 

Pete

Well, now we are complaining when they ship early.  Steam is out, maybe Diesel not fully available.  When I got mine I assumed they were ready and shipping, but Dave said his was marked Beta.  I know they are adding lights mine was missing.  Plus they need to get a better set of instructions together to help the novice.  Diesel is much more complicated then PS-2 with the PS-3 single 40 pin harness.  G

Just received my first PS3 upgrade kit yesterday.  I installed it in a 1994 mth sante fe northern. 

The kit looked very similar to past ps2 upgrade kits. 

I do have an issue I have not resolved yet, where the new speaker looks to have a cone that extends beyond the frame of the speaker (no seperation spacer as the old speakers had.  I can hear distortion when blowing the whistle, which goes away once the speaker is removed from the frame.

Are others having this same issue?  If so, how are you resolving it?

Thanks,

Mike

Cut yourself a spacer from thick cardboard the size of the speaker and use that to space the speaker away from the frame.

John,

I do not think I could cut a perfect enough circle to support only the speaker frame and not touch the cone.  Have you been successful with the new PS3 speaker and cutting the cardboard insert?  If so, how did you cut it?

Mike

Mike, If you don't have a set of hole saws you could also use an O ring. A good hardware store, home store or auto parts place will have a selection that should have a size that would work.

 

Pete

I just draw a circle on the cardboard with a compass, cut outside it about 1/4" first, then use an X-acto knife to cut out the inner circle.  It's actually not that difficult to keep it from the cone.  It doesn't have to be "perfect".  You also don't have to support it all around if that's too much trouble, just some pieces to support it on all four sides.

Mike, the above two suggestions are better than mine but what I did in one difficult install was cut a piece of PVC pipe on my chop saw. I have been able to cut PVC in very small dimensions making thin circles. So if you have a piece of PVC pipe that is the same diameter as the speaker you can just slice off a small piece of whatever size you need to raise it up.

I actually like that solution, and with my big Radial Arm saw, that would probably be pretty easy.  I suspect the bandsaw would do it as well.

 

For the O-ring suggestion, Harbor Freight has a huge O-ring assortment, I have that and there is indeed an O-ring that fits the speaker perfectly.

 

Or you can buy an IB-0000029 Speaker gasket from MTH.  G

I recently reordered another PS 3 steam kit and got it in less then 2 weeks, she told me (MTH) the kits are all finally coming in, it's about time , so I'm stocked up for my repairs. thanks GGG for the part number for the speaker gasket IB-0000029 .

Alan