software messing up PS2 engines?nope=dead battery!

Joe, I’m starting the see you answering your own question

Why go back to DCC when you have DCS

Engineer-Joe posted:

 I know I'll probably start the usual blasting that I'm wrong.

I just ran two different trains. Twice, in two different consists two different engines got scrambled. Both happen to be PS2. Both ran at first and then got scrambled or lost in space where they don't get found by the system.

 When I calm down I will trouble shoot for the godzillith time on just what happened. I have to post that I am getting sick and tired of this. The software is scrambling the engines. It maybe me in my lack of care or in a rush to run things, but it should not be happening. I am not that rich that I can afford to fix a train every single time I run. So I will ask MTH and the Techs here to look better at the software handling PS2 engines.

 The first engine was in a consist with a PS3 in the lead. So it getting scrambled is nothing new to me. The second engine was only with a second PS2 and it should have run fine.

 Our grandson has to put up with my poor patience and should not have to bear the brunt of these problems. It really takes the fun out of playing with these toys.

 I'll be back.

Joe, FWIW, I have found that engines IDs get scrambled if the power is cut before the supercap is fully charged or, if the battery is dead, before it has a chance to get a surface charge.

This happens if I power up the track, hit start, advance the throttle, and there is a wheel off the track that causes a quick breaker pop.  Grandchildren sometimes leave a derailed train in place.

You didn't ask for suggestions, but I will take the liberty of suggesting a possibility for aiding your grandson and mitigating the quirks you are experiencing.  Get a LionChief or LionChief Plus loco for him. They come with a remote that is simple but capable.  Also pretty much bulletproof.  Reasonably priced. They will operate independently in command mode on your DCS layout with no modification of the layout or the loco.  Just put it on the track.  No programming.  No troubles.

Thanks all. I am just venting for the umptieth time.

Our grandson has his own Lionchief Polar express. That has broke 2 or 3 times now so I won't go there now.

None of what happened is his fault. He just asks to run several different engines. Batteries are probably down as it's summertime and I run mostly outside.

The thing for me is this usually happens when power is cycled on a consist or after a few days of sitting. I thought it might just be a software bug. This particular time, the engines ran around the layout. The first engine, fired up in conventional while the train was slowing, and was dragged by the lead PS3 engine. So I will guess that it maybe a dead battery for now until I test it thoroughly. It was tested immediately after and ran fine in conventional mode, took a reset with the Z4000, switched direction no problem, and yet could not be found by the system. It starts up immediately like it does not see any DCS signal.

 The second engine had nearly the same outcome. It started up in the consist with another PS2 engine and ran the wrong direction until I cycled the direction button twice. It then ran around the layout one time or more while I was upstairs. Our grandson powered down everything and came up to get me again. We went back down and this second engine again did not respond to DCS either.

 I also had a problem trying to run a G scale engine and I narrowed it down to a transformer with no output. There was a fourth problem and I lost my cool and posted above.

If not done get your TIU and remote upgraded to 6.1. 

i had the same problems with muti unit lash ups until the 6.1 upgrade and now everything works as it should.

Dave

On the rare occasion that a DCC loco does not respond to its address I just place it on a program track and reset CV8. All is well after that.

If you placed a DCS loco on a program track and pressed "Factory Reset" I would think it would have the same effect. If not then maybe it's time to dump DCS in favor of DCC.

catnap posted

If you placed a DCS loco on a program track and pressed "Factory Reset" I would think it would have the same effect.

The "Factory Reset" will not take if the battery is dead or low.  That is why I like a BCR or capacitor to replace the battery. You realize 2010 was the last year for PS2 making the original battery that came with that engine at least 8 years old.

Joe Allen posted:

catnap posted

If you placed a DCS loco on a program track and pressed "Factory Reset" I would think it would have the same effect.

The "Factory Reset" will not take if the battery is dead or low.  That is why I like a BCR or capacitor to replace the battery. You realize 2010 was the last year for PS2 making the original battery that came with that engine at least 8 years old.

Thanks Joe, but you're a bit short on this one.

https://mthtrains.com/20-2578-1

2005!

I can't do a factory reset with this engine because it starts now as soon as power is applied. DCS does not see it anymore. It plays a short shut-down sequence. That's all the engine came with. I put a meter across the charging pins and it read out 2.71 volts. I have it on charge right now to see if anything gets better. Of course I believe I'll swap out that battery next. I also have a BCR ready in the wings for testing.

 It runs perfectly in conventional and changes direction smoothly. I want to assume that the battery is at least working partially?

I went back and tried the second engine and it behaved perfectly, now that it doesn't have to. I think there's a dead spot (or two) in the layout causing havoc. I didn't notice them until running in conventional with the first engine. It crosses a curve in the layout and the sound cuts down or out in one small spot? Maybe a wire is loose?

Once again I will get to the bottom of this and it happens every year for me ( at least the last 3?) when I come inside after running outside for the summer.

I just get very frustrated as I do charge and rotate my engine power regularly. I try my best to have good housekeeping. Today I was a mess and without consideration, started deleting and re-adding that only made complete chaos. With so much equipment, I have to be on my game. I was not.

 It just bugged me that they ran at first, and both failed afterwards.

It will be interesting to track down what Joe is seeing, I confess to having never seen an otherwise proper functioning PS/2 or PS/3 board lose it's firmware load, regardless of what state the battery is in.  I have seen them get their configuration scrambled and need a feature or factory reset, but that's a different thing.

I am curious as to how you recover those engines, what steps does it take to restore them to operation?

well?? I maybe getting further....

I charged the battery and now it's worse? the engine loses sound many places around the layout?

Joe,

I can't tell Barry. It powers up in neutral the second power is applied. It ignores any watchdog signal that's present.

I never hear it switch to clickity clack in conventional so far the best I can tell.

I'll pull it apart very soon and get a look inside.

Joe,

It powers up in neutral the second power is applied.

Can you put it in DCS mode by pressing Startup?

Barry may be on to something, for steam the clickity clack is on by default, and it's the first thing I turn off!

Hmmm? The system does not see it. I can't get the remote to find it. It starts up immediately in conventional. Pressing read comes back with no engines on track when it's the only engine getting power.

Maybe I'm not explaining that correctly?

I have to look inside as something must have shorted.

 I put a BCR inside and thought it didn't play enough shutdown? I put her on the track and pressed read and the system still did not find it?

EDIT: when I pressed "read", the system did not see the engine sitting on powered tracks right in front of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I scrolled thru the in-active engine list on the remote until I found the address. I depressed the thumbwheel and she went active. I pressed start-up and she sprang to life!

 She started fairly loud and then went semi-quiet for a few seconds. After that the sound volume went right back up. I did not run her yet and will see how the board gets along with the BCR. I have had certain boards prefer a battery. At least I learned that the board was not really scrambled this time. 

I wonder if unplugging the battery reset the board? The battery acts like it still has enough life in her to run in conventional.

Matt Makens posted:

Joe, I’m starting the see you answering your own question

Why go back to DCC when you have DCS

Engineer-Joe posted:

 I know I'll probably start the usual blasting that I'm wrong.

I just ran two different trains. Twice, in two different consists two different engines got scrambled. Both happen to be PS2. Both ran at first and then got scrambled or lost in space where they don't get found by the system.

 When I calm down I will trouble shoot for the godzillith time on just what happened. I have to post that I am getting sick and tired of this. The software is scrambling the engines. It maybe me in my lack of care or in a rush to run things, but it should not be happening. I am not that rich that I can afford to fix a train every single time I run. So I will ask MTH and the Techs here to look better at the software handling PS2 engines.

 The first engine was in a consist with a PS3 in the lead. So it getting scrambled is nothing new to me. The second engine was only with a second PS2 and it should have run fine.

 Our grandson has to put up with my poor patience and should not have to bear the brunt of these problems. It really takes the fun out of playing with these toys.

 I'll be back.

 

when I ran DCC, it seemed like it was still in the dark ages. Now guys are bragging that it's great when it appears to just be catching up. I don't wish to have a manual and cheat card just to set a couple of CVs in hope that the engine will get along with another. I don't want to buy programmers, boosters, etc. only to be set backwards from the features I already enjoy.

 I'd rather spend $10 on a new battery or BCR every ten years, then spend hundreds on whatever is the latest greatest DCC board set, only to later find out all it's problems and/or weaknesses. (can't handle the amps, burns way too hot, won't play with others, etc. etc. etc.)

 When you have near 100 engines, you have to expect a certain level of maintenance and expense. I think it's time for me to go back to 20 engines! Some sit for a year waiting for their turn to run. I can't help but wonder, if our grandson wants to run engines that he hasn't run lately, or see me work harder to entertain him!???? !!!!!!!!!!!

 Anybody looking for around 50 engines???  ….. 

Joe,

I put her on the track and pressed read and the system still did not find it?

Repeat after me:

"READ does not find engines. It only sorts engines in the remote into the Active and Inactive lists based on whether or not they're on powered tracks."

Thank You Barry. I still have trouble trying to remember that!

I'm glad to hear that it was just a battery/BCR issue and no board failure. I'm relatively new to 2-rail DCC but the MTH locos that I have run flawlessly under DCC. However, I prefer the features of LokSound over Proto-Sound 3.0 so I'm selling off my MTH PS3 locos, too.

Barry Broskowitz posted:

Joe,

I put her on the track and pressed read and the system still did not find it?

Repeat after me:

"READ does not find engines. It only sorts engines in the remote into the Active and Inacctive lists based on whether or not they're on powered tracks."

I know.

It did not come up in the active list.

Joe, near the top of this thread I made a post about what happens when there is a dead battery or uncharged post.  The solution to cleaning up the resulting confusion, that I apply, is to delete the loco from the remote, then with only that loco on a powered track, to use the Add Engine feature.

For years I leaned on one of the frequent contributors to this forum, who has many PS2 3-volt engines, that he ought to line them up and make up supercaps for them all.  He finally did, and then was surprised how easy the job was.  You ought to consider this also.

RJR posted:

Joe, near the top of this thread I made a post about what happens when there is a dead battery or uncharged post.  The solution to cleaning up the resulting confusion, that I apply, is to delete the loco from the remote, then with only that loco on a powered track, to use the Add Engine feature.

For years I leaned on one of the frequent contributors to this forum, who has many PS2 3-volt engines, that he ought to line them up and make up supercaps for them all.  He finally did, and then was surprised how easy the job was.  You ought to consider this also.

That would only add to the problem?

I am not a full fan of the BCR as some kind of cure all. Once you run into boards that don't get along with them, you may understand.

The funny thing to me here, once again, is that the battery is not dead nor acting dead. Something happened that caused symptoms of a confused board. If that happened to you several times with several different PS2 engines, you might lean towards looking at some other culprit.

Joe,

I agree with the BCR not being the cure all. I have two engines in my fleet that didn't like them and would work perfectly with a battery. However, I still do make and install my own super caps if the engine agrees with them as batteries go out.

Testing the battery can get  a bit tricky. I've had one PS2-3v that did something similar to what you described above and the battery appear to be good. I decided to test the battery voltage during the shutdown sequence. It went from 2.5 volts and quickly dropped to 1.75 by the time the sequence ended. Shutdown sounds still fully completed but the battery was still bad. The installation of a homemade super cap solved the problem. in this case.

have you tested the battery under load that is the only true test take it out of the engine charge it and then connect a load motor or light and put a vom on the battery leads and see how quick the voltage drops off that will definitely tell you if your battery is the culprit or not, then your know for sure ,are you charging threw the port or just letting it charge on the track?

Alan

Robert,

For years I leaned on one of the frequent contributors to this forum, who has many PS2 3-volt engines, that he ought to line them up and make up supercaps for them all.  He finally did, and then was surprised how easy the job was.  You ought to consider this also.

I represent that remark!  

I've now converted all of my 3 volt PS2 engines to home-made BCRs (Supercapacitors) at a cost of less than $6 each. My next task is to address my 31 PS2 5 volt engines (about 1/3 of my fleet). I've heard enough cautionary tales from several friends/forum members whose opinions I greatly respect that I'm somewhat leery of using BCRs with these 5 volt engines. However, there are still 4 paths that I can take:

• The first is to do nothing and just remember to keep the existing 8.4 volt NiMH batteries charged, and replace them when they reach end of life..
• The second is to replace the existing NiMH batteries with Lithium Ion rechargeable as the NiMHs reach the end of their useful life. I've had one or two 8.4 Lithium Ion rechargeable batteries installed for the better part of a year without any ill effects.
• The third is to replace key engines with 3 volt PS2 boards and home-made BCRs. I've does one such engine, a DC-3 Inspection car.
• The fourth is to replace some of the 5 volt PS2 engine's boards with PS32 boards. The only "catch" is that, since PS3 engines simply don't coast over temporary track power interruptions, I need to be sure that the ones that I convert have pickup rollers that effectively navigate one or two spots on then layout where back-to-back switch tracks can cause very short power interruptions.

I expect that I'll most likely resort to a combination of the last 4 options.

" If that happened to you several times with several different PS2 engines, you might lean towards looking at some other culprit."

You are correct, Joe.  After verifying via the correct method that Al Mancus describes above that the battery was indeed good and is charged, I'd conclude that something is wrong somewhere on my layout.  But, although I have some 2 dozen PS2 3-volt locos with supercaps (NOT with BCRs, which is the trade name of a commercial product and should not be used generically), I have never experienced any boards that were unhappy with them, other than the operator-fault/grandchild-fault issue I described in my first post in this thread.

Just to be clearer on a reply to a post above, have you ever deleted and tried to re-add an engine that might have battery issues? In my experience there's no telling what will happen. 

If you're asking me, I've always been able to find and solve a cause before re-adding. 

So how do you determine you have a dead battery when the engine fires right up in conventional, runs and switches out of neutral easily, etc.?

You must be very thorough or ........clairvoyant???

No, my first instance was a loco with a 10-year old battery, that hadn't been run in a few months, and jumped the track moving onto the turntable, popping the breaker. Realizing that at shutdown, loco attempts a rewrite that requires power, pointed me in right direction.

Second instance was a PS3 that moved an inch before the breaker popped. 

It takes a BCR longer than 1 minute to be fully charged. It might be why you have a problem with a BCR or capacitor.

I found out this early on using them in PS1 engines when changing features such as blowing the horn in neutral, which I set for every PS1 engine. One minute charge was not enough charge to complete the task. I always run the engine or leave it on a powered track for several minutes before attempting to do any resets or such.

One minute is fine just to get the engine going and it will continue to get fully charged up by the engine running, But I believe it needs more time of charging for other than just getting the engine to run.