replacing ps2-5volt with ps2-3volt board

Frank,

It's quiet do-able, however, you'll need to replace the following as well as the board:

• The battery with a 2.4 volt one
• The speaker with a 4 amp one
• The battery charging port with one for a 2.4 volt battery
• Nearly the entire wiring harness, since the pinouts are different for the 3 volt board vs. the 5 volt board.

Not completely accurate. The pin out is not different, just a different style of connector.  If you carefully remove the black connectors from the 5V board and install them in place of the white ones on the 3V board you will be able to use your original harness, except the 2 pin battery harness.

effectively this makes your ps-2 3V board the equivalent to the version with 5V connectors.  The speaker needs to be the 4 ohm version.

if you do this pry the ones off the 3V board very carefully as you don't want to bend or break a pin.  G

GGG, are you suggesting unsoldering the connectors from the new board and swapping them???

John, no unsoldering required.  The black plastic connector that covers the various pin sets can be removed and installed on the new ps-2 3V board.  That way the 5 volt harnesses will fit in place on the new board.  That is all the difference is between a 3v and a 3v with 5v connectors board is.  G

Oh, that makes sense since the pins are spaced the same, what a great solution.  That's actually pretty easy to do as well!

The bulbs are all the same, so the other than the other stuff Barry mentioned, that should do it.

This is good to keep in mind, I have a number of 5V locomotives, if they ever die, this is probably the easiest fix.

Yep.  Mth sells the board already done, but if your not a tech this is a way to convert a upgrade kit without having to change harnesses.  Mth also sells the hardware kit that includes the battery, speaker, battery harness and heat sink to complete the install.  Includes hardware necessary.  Now if the harnesses are old and brittle, it may be best to replace it all via the kit.  G

Good tip, and easy to do.

Been pulling sockets for some time now.

Dave

I've done this for other types of connectors, never thought about it for this issue.  I've also not faced the issue of having to replace a 5V board with a 3V board, so far I've had the correct board set to just drop in.

Or you can go the other way, and that is swap out the wiring harness plugs with the 3v type..plugs can be bought at Digi-Key. That way if the boards ever go bad again it'll be a simple board swap.

Boy, if you're planning on the boards going bad again, maybe it's time to get rid of the locomotive! 

Hi Guys, I got called out of town right after I asked the question, Thanks for all the good info, I will start the change over soon and will update all as to the out come. Thanks All.. Frank..

I would like to add a new PS2 engine and would like to avoid the 5volt board.

When did MTH start producing the 3volt version?

Alan

Pretty early on for Premier.  You can search an engine you may be interested in on the MTH web site and look at the soundfile to help identify.  Also if the engine has the rectangular charge port it is the 3V version.  5V use the round port.   G