I had this power master that has been unused for a few years (sorry at work, can't provide the lionel number) that I hooked up last night to provide better control over a conventional trolley loop. After several tries the unit was finally addressed and I was able to use the CAB-1 to control power to this loop. What I have found is the whistle and bell buttons have no effect on the three trolleys that would be used on this loop. One is a WBB Peter Witt, the other two are MTH pcc cars, a proto 1 and proto 2. With the proto 2 pcc the station sounds play continuously, the bell sounds randomly but pressing the bell button or whistle button on the CAB-1 has no effect. Speed and direction however work fine with the CAB-1, in fact much better than with the walk around control. All whistle and horn functions work well if the power master is removed from the equation. Transformer is a MRC 270 watt with the walk around controls. My desire is to be able to use a CAB-1 for the entire layout and as far as I can see the only here is the insertion of the power master. Am I missing something obvious?
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I can't speak for the WBB, but the MTH locomotives do not work correctly with the TMCC PowerMasters. You're lucky to get them moving at all. The MTH PS1 locomotives I tried with a TMCC PM wouldn't even leave reset. gunrunnerjohn has said you can add a cap to the outputs , so can tell you what cap you need to add to the output of the PM to get the MTH locomotives to work.
Your PM-1 will work fine with most of your equipment, but you need a pure sine wave power source for it - the MRC is a very "dirty" AC power supply for use with modern electronics. Use any handy original postwar style transformer to test it(throttle set to 18 volts or highest setting, or fixed voltage - my favorite is the 20v D-U fixed voltage posts of the KW), then pick a spare/unused unit or a PH--1 brick for a permanent setup.
Obtain a 10uf 50V non-polarized capacitor and connect it right across the output of the PowerMaster. That will mitigate the issue, though you may still have one or two balky locomotives with issues even with the fix.
Thanks all, I have learned something. What I think I will do, since this will be just a single loop running only one trolley at a time is connect a MTH brick to the powermaster as a supply source until I can get to a Radio Shack for a capacitor. I have an unused brick from a Z-500, that should be more than enough power.
Well I won't get to a Radio Shack until the weekend but using a power brick sure did the trick. For whatever reason I figured AC power was AC power, apparently that was wrong. Thanks for the help.