Question about PS1 sound chips

First off, PS/1 has no provision for smoke or ditch lights.  Smoke runs right from track power with PS/1.  I've never see operating ditch lights on a PS/1 locomotive, but if they had them, they had to be controlled by a separate board.

I believe the stobe output is pretty much always there, as well as the 1.5V directional lighting.

You need to be somewhat careful swapping PS/1 chips, some of the early chips/boards don't play well with stuff from later boards.  Don't ask me how I know this!    @GGG has a lot of experience with PS/1, and he's the guy I ask questions of.

Ah OK, I was confusing the reading I did on the two PS2 boards that I ripped out when talking about the smoke & ditch lights. 

I won't ask how you know that different PS1 chips don't play nice in the same boards, but any clues on which ones are OK to interchange?

I know some of the early boards and chips don't mix with newer stuff.  I'd ask GGG, he knows a lot more about PS/1 than I do.

OK John, we'll see if @GGG gets around to seeing this post anytime soon.  

Separately, if the smoke just runs off track power, does it just run constantly?  There's no interruption at all while the engine is running?  Seems like it could use up a lot of smoke real quick.

Yes, PS/1 smoke is continuous for steam or diesel.  There's a switch on the locomotive to turn it manually on or off, that's it.

The marker output on the PS-1 bottom board is constantly available.  The Beacon is controlled by the Chip since it is driven off the top board.  Diesel and steam also used CV boards for other lighting besides directional.  Non flashing ditch, interior, number boards etc....   Direction lights off the bottom board are 1.5V, CV are typically 6V and RK steam usually have 18V bulbs for headlight.

Early top boards were C-3 with processor chip, memory differences along with the specific operating software in the processor.  So some chips have a software conflict with the older top boards and will not work.  Vice versa in that some early chips do not play well or operate with the newer software in the later boards.

Chips also came in 1Meg and 2 Meg size, so the jumper on later boards was required to tell the processor what chip was installed.

You need to keep the chips with the top board in general.  The 93-95 stuff, iffy about 96, but by about 97 up things were consistent.  G

Thanks GGG.  The headlights on the steamers are direct power from track, right?  They don't come off the boards after the rectifier?  I've installed some 24V lights right from track connection for steam headlights, not really worried about using direction lights yet on those until I put ditch or markers on the tenders.  That's a project for later.

I figured out the 1.5V directional lights.  The 6V constant voltage is at position JP2 on the bottom board (yellow Molex connector) and the beacon is the two prong connector at position JP9 on the top board, right?  But the beacon won't actually output unless the chip for that specific model tells it to?  Also, is that also 6V? My fluke can grab it up to 5Volts, but might be a 6V output I'm just not seeing the peak of the flashes.

Most of my actual boards say "QS1C5 1994 QSI" printed on the top boards, but most of the chips have a 1996 mark on them. So better to not mix-n-match these with new steam chips?

So to summarize:

Bottom Jack LP1 - Lp2 (Blue and Green Molex) : 1.5V directional lighting outputs

Bottom Board JP2 (Yellow Molex) : 6V constant output regardless of chip (can use this for ditch lights if I want? Or cab lights? Or whatever)

Top Board JP9 (2 prong brown connector) : 5 or 6V Flashing beacon, only if specific chip has flashing loaded.

The marker connection is an LED current limited output.

John, that's the JP2 yellow molex? Then I should make sure not to use any incandescent bulbs on that jack or I will try to draw too much current and they won't light?

Correct, I doubt any incandescent bulb would light at all on that jack.  I'll be honest, I've never tried to put anything but the LEDs on that output.  I have never used the strobe output, so I'm not sure if it's an LED or incandescent.

Strobe is LED also, just like PS-2 Beacon.  Output around 3 volts or so, I think the Marker is down around 5V or so, but have not looked at that in detail for quite awhile.  If you want bulbs you need to use a CV.   G

Incidentally, I have a couple PS2 smoke units.  They seem to be different from PS1, in that there are separate fan and heat element wires that each have their own output on a PS2 board.  Question is, what is the voltage of each?  Is there any way to configure the PS2 smoke FAN to run from the "flasher" output on a PS1 board or is it jsut too much current? 

Then I could wire the element separately from track power (reduce voltage if needed) and then flasher on the PS1 board can "pulse" the PS2 fan and have pretend chug-chug?  I could even wire them through a switch to turn off when I don't want?

Just brainstroming...have some time to burn cooped up at home.  And I literally have PS1 baords to burn.

Jeff

PS/1 are different than PS/2 or PS/3 smoke units.  PS/1 smoke units have self-contained electronics and run from track power.  PS/2 & PS/3 smoke units are driven from the electronic package and have nothing but smoke resistors and a fan motor.

There is no way to drive a PS/2 or PS/3 smoke unit from the PS/1 board.

Sounds like a challenge! I can grab some other stuff for CV things that are sitting around and try to adapt them.  Only questions are what voltage are the PS2 fan motors and resistors expecting to see?

The fan motor will run on anything between around 2VDC to 5VDC.  The smoke resistors should not dissipate more than 6-7 watts or you'll be cooking things, so plan on 6-7 volts AC or DC on those.  The smoke resistors will require close to an amp of current, the fan motor around 30-50 milliamps.

GREAT!  Thanks for the wisdom, John!  The resistors will be my challenge, I figure I can find something to spit out 50 milliamps at 3V pretty easy for the fan with my box of junk.