PS3 upgrade information.

on a serious note here.

i wouldnt really like losing all the extra light controls with the upgrade kit.

i know we all leave the lights on, but there fun to turn off now and then.

all the bells and whistles make it funner.

wonder why you lose the light controls when up grading?

must not have the extra board or options?

gunrunner has said this before guys, if he thinks its not worth the upgrade, then it isnt.

AE-0000010 and AE-0000011 are the boards used in PS2 3 volt locomotives and PS2 upgrade kits.  These are the power (11) and processor (10) boards.  There is nothing complicated about any of this.  

If you do not like any of this you do not have to buy any of it.

I often wonder when people make a lot of noise, have they ever done a PS2 upgrade.

I sometimes find that a lot of people who  always have negative comments,  have not done any of this work.

John, I have never seen any feature the kit will not address.

Also, if you have a premier locomotive that has additional lighting options, you lose all those with an upgrade kit, you only get headlight control.

GRJ:  Why do you limit your statement to Premier?  I have R-K's that have marker, interior, firebox lights.

Marty, I hope your comment isn't directed to me.  I was a tad confused when the leading 5 zeroes were deleted from these numbers.  I don't have a master parts list. 

While I have a dozen or so upgrades, I have not done an upgrade to a 5-volt in-steam-loco board; when one failed, I replaced it with another 5-volt board taken from a diesel.  If I were to go to a tender-mounted board, how would I not lose the ability to turn marker lights and firebox lights on & off.  There is no lead from tender to loco for such functions.  It's been well over a year or two since I had one of those locos open, so I may be mistaken, but I don't recall any other boards.

Robert not at all.  I am just saying I know of no feature lost that John mentioned.  If the tender has marker lights, they will work if the sound file has them.  The sound file may or may not allow them to be turned on/off.  We have all run into something that would not cooperate.  Just find another sound file.  Ditch lights are a common one.  Firebox is usually a function of the MUx board.   

Let me know when you get the email I just sent you.

Marty

RJR, Those numbers have been thrown around plenty on post.  They are the parts #.  Sorry I left off the zero's

I have yet to meet a MTH PS-2 5V engine that would not take a PS-2 3V board in the engine.

I just point out there are alternatives if you can' fit it in an engine.

At this point, having tried to put a PS-32 in a FF Electric and just completed one in a RTR 4-6-0 starter tender, there will be fit issues because the board is taller, doesn't mount upside down (yet) and therefor position is more critical.

Big engine, tall shells, won't be an issue.  Others just might take more planning.  Good news is no battery or charge port.   G

The 4-6-0 tender had the speaker in the front.  SO the board had to be mounted in the back.  The tender slopes down at the back, and the mounting bracket raised it too high. So I had to exclude the mount and go direct to the chassis.  Basically had a smaller foot print on where I could put the board.

Really.  G

Marty, my point is the upgrade kits don't include the mux boards, so you don't have the extra lighting controls.  If you move the board from the locomotive to the tender, any extra lighting controls that you had get lost.  What you lose is the individual control of the features.  On many locomotives, you have separate control of the cab lights, marker lights, and headlight.  If you rip the old 5V board from the locomotive and install the standard upgrade kit in the tender, you have one lighting control, the headlight.

One of the benefits of PS/2 electronics was additional controls, but they tend to get lost with the upgrade kits.

dont pay attention to me guys, i dont know half of what you guys do.

im just watching and listening and learning.

gunrunner has said this before guys, if he thinks its not worth the upgrade, then it isnt.

Wrong.  It is up to the owner to decide if an upgrade is worth it.  I also don't recall GRJ ever making such a blanket statement.  I have upgraded locos over 60 years old.  Economically not justified, but because they were given to me by my parents, because I don't like to see them unused, and because I want to run them under command control along with my modern MTH stuff, to me they were worth the upgrade.

GGG:  I should have studied the thread and realized that the leading zeros were being omitted.  Mea culpa! There was a statement in the above thread that the PS3/2 upgrade boards might not fit in some locos, and you have pointed out specific instances.  This is what renewed this issue for me. 

GRJ:  I have to study the pinouts, but I suspect that adding a submini plug & socket set between tender and loco would enable these functions without a mux board.  I have used these in converting a tiny steamer which had no room for the 10-pin socket.  Personally, being able to turn on/off firebox glow or marker lights is not necessary; what I want is loco control.  In fact, one of the 1991 Weaver diesels that I upgraded has a beacon atop the cab, which I left hard-wired.  It flashes whenever track is powered, and I have found it a good feature.  ((FYI, RF&P switchers in Potomac Yards used toll have these so tower could see where they were.)

All valid popints Marty, I have a steam loco with PS3 and the LED headlight bugs me because it looks wrong with its white/blue light and yes the charging ports are a PITA. I was trying to be more to the fundamental operation of the PS3 kits and its more PS2 than it is PS3. I dont use BCR's and I find the batteries to be a PITA as well and not having to deal with them would be nice

You can certainly add tether pins (an extra tether) and add functions, they're available on the PS/2 or PS/3 board, assuming the sound file supports them.

I was just pointing out that the standard upgrade kit doesn't support the extra functionality out of the box.

Matt, you can swap that headlight out for a warm white if you don't like the color, or even a yellow one.

Marty F, GGG & Guns

   Will you guys please send me your e-mail addresses again, I had a major computer crash this week and need to re-enter them.  My e-mail address is Pine-Creek@live.com

PCRR/Dave

Dave,

Just get the E-mail addresses out of their respective forum profiles.

I didn't see where you said the PS3 steam and or diesel kits will be available for non- teks to buy?

Dan

The upgrade kits I mean.

Upgrade kits were always sold to consumer.  This has been posted before.  The PS-2 3V upgrade kit at $180 MSRP and $150 Club was the best thing going.  If you sent an engine to MTH for repair, excluding labor, the replacement cost of the parts was $200 boards and $34 for the steam hardware kit.  So $234 in parts alone.

The PS-3 will be more expensive based on the note (estimate $20 to $25, but the official price has not been posted yet.   G 

I've bought PS2 kits already and I bought a membership just for the discount. I was just wondering when I can start buying the PS3 kits.

Dan

Ok, I have installed a PS-32 in an S-2 Bantam Turbine to replace a engine mounted PS-2 5V.  Tight fit but it fit with relay facing forward.

I also installed one in the tender of a RTR 4-6-0 set with the 5V board in the tender.  In this case the speaker is forward were the tender shell is tallest, so the board had to go towards the back were the shell slopes down.  Had to mount the board directly to the chassis without the metal bracket provided.

Later I will be installing one in a Premier NYC Dreyfus engine, and the Unshrouded N&W J.  I will try to remember to take pictures.

The current flash program in this board has headlight output with diesel characteristics.  I have the new file that fixes this and have successfully installed it.

So hopefully it will be posted soon.  For those that have purchased kits or are using them in upgrades, you will need the new hardware table to get the headlight correct on steam.   G

I just did my first PS-32 upgrade last week.  I installed it in a F7 ABA set and used the original slave board for the trailing A.  It was a pretty smooth installation.  I did lower the board mounts but that was pretty easy due to the fact that there is no battery.

I think this design is pretty cool and will open up some other possibilities for those of us who like to tinker.  I do wish we could use the PS3 sound files.  Some of them are better than the upgrade files.

I also feel that these kits will be well worth it if the cost increase is not significant.

Dave

How can it be that you techs are installing PS32 boards but don'know the price?

MSRP for the required pieces.

PS3 Stacker Board      $205.00
PS3/2 Board (w/ black 5volt PS2 connectors)    $25.00
Protosound 3/2 Heat Sink Bracket Kit    $8.00

Ouch!

I'll hang onto my PS2 stock.

MSRP for the PS/2 board is $200, so it's about 10% more for the PS/3 replacement.

That's less painful.  I was thinking in terms of a comparison with the MTHRRC price for the straight upgrade kit.

Dave,  you can.  Please try it.  BUT just load the sound file not the PS-3 flash.  You may have missed my earlier post, but by procedure the engineers are still leaving the hardware table/speed ratios in the PS-3 sound file when they make it.  So the PS-32 should be able to find it.  The one caveat may be that the light configuration may be different. PS-3 has more variations.  You can always go back to the PS-2 sound file.  G

Dave, if you see this, I have tried more times than you know to see your shop in person. Once again, this week, I planned to stop by on our drive home. I forgot that you're closed on Mondays. I'm going to make it there as part of my bucket list I swear!!!

George,

I will give it a try.  Thank you!

Dave

George,

Works!  The Light functions seem to be working properly.

Thank you for the tip!  

Dave

I mentioned I would post some pictures of the PS-32 installs as replacements for PS-2 5V boards in the engine.  Here are a few.  So far I have installed this in a bantam Turbine engine, 4-6-0 RTR Tender, and now a Dreyfus and Unshrouded J in the engine.  The fits are tighter and you need to be creative with board mounting. For the J the heat sink could mount directly to a chassis screw, so I reversed the metal mount board and used it for support of the front of the board only.

You really need to do a lot of fitting an locating to ensure the shell can go back on and that wires, which sit much higher up then the PS-2 boards have clearance and nothing that can pierce or pinch.   G

with the current cost increases on locomotives, I am looking to upgrade many of my Williams and Third Rail brass steamers as well as some die cast MTH ps1 locos such as:

PRR t1

PRR Centipede 5 stripe set

Are these worth the upgrade?

GGG, just curious but does the board have to located in the boiler or was it just an option and that's where you decided to put it? Thanks for the info and pictures. 

The easiest way to put in the replacement board is if you can put it in the same place as the original.  If not, you have to do quite a bit of rewiring.

The board can be located anywhere.  George stated that he was replacing a 5vPS2 board which was probably originally located in the boiler.

Dave

Curve, I felt all my old locos were worth upgrading, but I did work myself.  You have to do your own cost/value analysis.  Some of my best running locos are the old upgraded ones.  They're broken in.

"Probably" Well was it in the boiler or not?

I'm sorry I didn't recall what George stated. There hasn't been any postings on this thread in almost 3 weeks. I didn't have time to re-read the entire thread.

So are most 5vPS2 boards located in the boiler? I haven't done an upgrade in along time and I've only done 4. None of the locomotives I did had the boards in the boiler.

Many of the older locomotives had the boards in the boiler, even smaller engines they managed to cram them in there.  Makes it interesting to replace them with the retrofit board.

Thanks John. To be clear I wasn't saying that the boards were never in the boiler just that I never worked on a locomotive that had them there. Obviously, you guys have worked on many, many more locomotives than I have. I guess I got lucky on the few upgrades that I did. It doesn't sound like fun to fit the board in the boiler.

What about upgrading a Lionel or like 'Curve asked about a Williams locomotive? Where do you guys put the boards then since there is no original board?

GGG's photos seem to show a loco with a lot of space in the boiler.  I have 2 5-volt board locos left.  I should be so lucky. 

For most upgrades, I put the boards in the tender as that's what the upgrade kit is wired for.  I put one in a boiler and hand-wired it, but the rest have gone in the tender.