Purchased new PS2 engine from 2005

Charge it.

Plug it into a proper MTH charger and leave it overnight.

Or replace battery with either a BCR or known good battery.

Good luck!

Thank you for the info, Lee. This is my first MTH loco, and I wondered if placing the loco on the powered track (but not running it) would charge the battery? I have both DCS and Legacy, but until now have only run legacy locomotives.

Thanks, Ray

Personally to be honest, I just charged my engines. MTH's charger has two different jacks to accommodate two different kinds of batteries voltage.

I fried a Proto one board out of ignorance about batteries on my first engine with track power. Fortunately I was able to gut it and it sits awaiting scrap parts.

I did not write that to scare you, the other consideration is a very strong ethic or habit to always monitor electrical stuff in the home as part of risk management.

Sure you can try to charge it with track power... I just rather not.

Personally sir Ray,

I don't take any chance, I always replace the battery. 

Thanks lots for the info! The new loco isn't here yet, just ordered it. I will look to buy a new battery...

Ray

You cannot scramble the chip on proto 2 even if the battery is dead. Just put it on the track and start it up. It should run. If not then either charge the battery or change it. The BCR IMO is a waste of money unless you are running proto 1 locos.

I think you'll be perfectly safe charging the battery on the track; just tape the center rail on either side 1.5 X the space between the rollers to avoid a runaway in case the power burps.  Use common sense; don't leave the house or go to bed w/ the engine on track charge.   PS2 electronics aren't subject to the same quirks as PS, and if the battery isn't properly charged, the engine will not come out of neutral (in conventional), but that's the only thing that will happen.

Thanks David and Mark, mmmm new to this DCS :-)

I have run the legacy with DCS, and everything went well, but also plan to have some 'mikes' on this layout.

Cheers, Ray

If this has the round plug style then it is the PS-2 5V system and the battery is an 8.4V NICD.  It is really past useful live, even if never charged.  I would remove it an replace it with a new 8.4V NIMH battery.

If it is a square charge port (2 pin connector), then it is a PS-2 3V system and uses the double AA style rechargeable 2.4V battery.  Most likely this is still good and you can charge it with MTH chargers.

I am not a fan of charging it on the track (effectively) leavig the engine run over night.  But that is just me. 

Lee, most likely you did not fry your PS-1 rather just scrambled the internal memory.  I bet that board can be reinitialized.  The low battery did not destroy PS-1 boards, it just interferred with the memory recording the last settings at shutdown, which could lead to some engines getting scrambled memory preventing running, or an ID fault.  You can contact me off line if you are interested in getting it fixed.  G

I have replaced 2 mother boards at 200.00+ from older stock MTH engines I picked up on ebay. I will not take a chance any more,either buy a BCR or buy a brand new battery.

David is correct. It's makes absolutely no difference on a PS2 unit if the battery is charged, dead or not or even there to add it to the remote and start it to run it. However the battery is needed and needed to be charged to save custom settings that you adjust in the unit and the units ID as well as keeping sounds going across those brief power interuptions on switches, dirty tracks etc...

Worse case scenerio if the battery is dead, you just have to keep going through the add MTH engine process everytime you wish to run. So being its from ebay, the first thing you might want to do is put it on the track and test its functions before even worrying about a battery and before opening the unit up. If you do that before testing and the unit is dead, the seller will only blame you and wipe their hands with the sale. Test it first IMHO.

Mike

Johnny,

I have replaced 2 mother boards at 200.00+ from older stock MTH engines I picked up on ebay.

That's very unfortunate, however, the state of the engine's battery had absolutely nothing to do with those problems.

This is not totally correct.  The 5V engines do not run in conventional with a dead battery, and despite many stating otherwise I have even seen some that won't function correctly with DCS, including at least one 3V system.  The battery was completely dead.  Additionally a dead battery can leach out gases that corrode the battery harness terminals.  I have seen this mostly in PS-1 with older batteries.  G

In my experience as an MTH repair person, many if not all of the Proto 2.0 5 volt boards that I have found unusable in locos people gave to me for repair, have weak or dead batteries, or else they have BCRs installed by the owners, and it appears that the board fried itself trying to charge a battery that won't take a charge. I have also found that 5 volt boards don't do well with BCR's, since it has to charge it from a discharged state every time you start the loco. I just received two Protosounds locos with BCR's in them, and both have scrambled sound chips, preventing the locos from operating. This apparently refutes the argument that BCRs prevent chip scrambling. I feel that MTH locos are designed to operate with fully charged batteries, and the circuit boards are designed to provide a "top off" Charge to either type of batteries, and not to charge a capacitor from a dead state every time the loco is started. If I do a PS-2 upgrade for someone, I strongly discourage them from using BCR's. In the past 4 years I have not had a 3 volt battery fail to hold a charge and cause a loco not to run.

Thank you everyone for the School Circle Battery. Maybe Admins can consider sticky for this thread to preserve the contributions.