RK-1113L Protosound 1 PS1 Dryfuss Hudson without battery?

THAT is either a loco sound or electronic whistle version tender NOT PROTO SOUND !

I can tell by the coupler style ! 

Sorry for the bad news

Actually the Protosound version of that locomotive didn't come with a Protocoupler either, I know because I have it.  MTH had a kit you could buy to add it later, but have long since quit offering it.  But yes, that is not a Protosound version of the locomotive.  Put it on the track and add power.  If you get sounds, then someone added Locosounds to it.  If you get no sounds, and only a whistle, then you have conventional version, which is why the price was so good.

Here are the two versions of the locomotive.  And here is the common manual for both.  Good news is it's a great little locomotive.  I love mine and have run it a lot.  I've also upgraded mine, and plan on converting it to TMCC this year once GRJ releases his optical trigger.

Thank you everyone.  Not having proto sounds explains a lot.  I don't mind, still love the Engine as I have other engines that Chuff and it gets too loud/chaotic if  every engine chuffs.  But it does explain why the whistle is not super high quality.  Thank you for confirming I don't need to replace a battery!  Looking at the box it says equipped with electronic whistle and "optional equipped with proto sound".    I am sure I knew a long time ago (ie when purchased) that all it had was an electronic whistle.  I had just forgotten that it did not have PS1. 

By the way, I just replaced the battery with a BCR on five  PS2 engines.  One had a tiny bit of green corrosion on the battery connection.  The corrosion came off with a bit of rubbing.  I am glad I replaced them now and not later!

PS-1 does not need a battery to run.

I removed most of them from mine, back when I messed with conventional. There is no sound when you change direction. 

I did this with 5 or 6 locos (only way I could get my 2 GP38's to reliably sync-up when double-heading); they all work fine.

Eliminates the "dead battery chip death", too.

True of all PS-1's? Dunno.

That was a cheapy.   It was and my guess is, it still is an excellent runner.

D500 posted:

PS-1 does not need a battery to run.

HUH?  Explain how you get it out of neutral?  You may be talking about pre-PS/1 QSI boards, but the MTH boards require a battery or you'll just have a static display with sound.

I just received my MTH Railing Dreyfus Hudson from a seller on Ebay.  I'm quite impressed with it.  I placed it on my test track and powered it up last night.  It's #RK-1113LP.   I have yet to go through the manual completely before I run it on my temporary layout.  But as I said, I am pleased with what I have seen so far.

As a side note, someone has a five car set of Williams New York Central heavyweights, for sale on Ebay.  I think they would look nice behind the Hudson.  I haven't seen the streamlined version yet, but I'll keep looking.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

D500 posted:

PS-1 does not need a battery to run.

HUH?  Explain how you get it out of neutral?  You may be talking about pre-PS/1 QSI boards, but the MTH boards require a battery or you'll just have a static display with sound.

Most PS-1 locomotives will run fine without a battery.  The battery is needed for programming and maintaining sounds, not to cycle the reverser.  MTH even released a document about running them batteryless at one point.

I put one on the bench, without the battery, it just resets and comes up in neutral.  If there's a way to run without a battery, I haven't heard about it.  Do you have any links to such a technique?

Here's a quote from George (GGG) who probably has as much knowledge of the QSI and PS/1 boards as anyone here.  I tend to believe him before blanket comments that I can demonstrate on my bench are not true. 

  GGG posted:

John, There were early QSI systems without batteries and then they added a battery but no automatic shut off circuit so they added a switch.  These can operate without battery.  Then they included the automatic battery shutdown circuit and by that time the programming got more complicated and the continuity of power was important.  So after 95 or so a charged battery was necessary for QSI and ProtoSound systems.

This is from the thread: https://ogrforum.com/t...y-scramble-issue-tip

Most  MTH  early proto-1s  will leave neutral without a battery. ( up to around  96).   After that the battery was required.

My challenger (94)  had a battery switch on the front of the tender (really hard to get at) . If you forgot to turn it off , the whistle would blow continuously after a  minute or so,  I usually didn't  make it all the way up the basement stairs. 

That's a far cry from "Most PS/1 locomotives".   See previous post.

All I know is that years ago when I was getting into O gauge and had found PS-1 locomotives cheap on eBay, I looked into them (This was after PS-1 was out.).  I did some research and found out about the low battery issue.  Now that I knew about it, I would just replace the batteries when I got the locomotives.  But in my research, I found a web page (I believe it was on the old Protosounds site MTH had.) that quoted a MTH spokesman saying that Protosound locomotives could be run without batteries, and he ran most of his battery free.  If I ever come across this web page again, I'll share it.

I have not actually run any of mine with no battery, but have run most of them with a dead battery (Before I realized how dead they were.) and as long as the voltage was about 7 volts, they would cycle to forward.

I'll admit I could be wrong, I am no expert, GGG is about the only one I would give that title too when it comes to PS-1, but I do make my statements based off of personal experience and what my brain foggily remembers.

Well, I tested it on the bench, and an older QSI board works without the battery, but none of the PS/1 boards I have do.  You may have simply had older boards by luck of the draw.

I'm just glad that I was prudent about keeping the batteries in my two MTH PS 1 engines consistently charged prior to switching them to BCRs a few years ago.  I actually had gone to the trouble before that of installing the optional charging  jack kits MTH sold in both engines (which was a unexpectedly involved process given the way the wire harness had to be connected) and religiously used the included wall wart to charge them both up before use on the annual holiday layout. 

And  I know I still have some of those 8.4 volt batteries sitting around somewhere.

That is a DCRU with a whistle board attached to it.  No battery required.