What are you doing with 5 volt, PS2 engines that have a board failure?

I found a guy who can repare absolutely everything kind of electronical stuff. You should find one! 

BTW I found him after I post a message on an electronic forum.

The 5 volt boaqrd and three volt board are the same price.  The speaker and battery are the additional cost

We need to "impress" upon the manufacturers that we desire a plug-in unit.  Every engine ought to come with plugs on the wiring for lights, smoke units, motors, and anything else that might be installed on that engine.  Make the electronics module so that it is universal enough to allow for all these things to plug into the board.  If a particular engine doesn't have a certain feature (say a smoke unit) then the modules "port" for it would remain empty.

If the board fails, just buy the next generation board.

I would think (this is a guess) that practically all smoke units require much the same voltage, same for LEDs (depending on the size), and same for 12VDC motors.

Bottom line is this...if we want all these fancy electronics then the train makers need to join hands and cooperate in making these things generic enough so that any module could be plugged in to an engine.

The time to start is NOW.

I believe that they are plug in boards already, at least they were when I was doing PS-2 upgrades, Generic boards with uniuqe software downloads for each engine. only difference was steam or desiel board. 

MTH has 3volt boards that have the 5volt connectors and they just plug right in. The only thhing you need to change is the speaker and battery.  

As for making the 5volt board obsolete, it wasn't a bad business move. The 5volt boards could not be taken apart and if something went wrong you had to replace the whole thing. With 3volt boards the top and bottom seperate and you might onlty have to replace one or the other. So now your only paying for part of the board and the whole thing. But sometimes they both go.

There is no difference between a PS2 steam or diesel board just the wiring harness. With PS3 the boards will be different. 

I agree with Ralph, the boards with the HiRose connectors (MTH designation) are indeed plug and play, with the only difficulty being that the plastic board holder is larger than the 5 volt boards, you need a space for the heat sink to be attached to the frame, and requires some drilling to install. Some diesels do not have enough room for the board holder, battery pack and the speaker sometimes protrudes into the frame area. I had this problem with a RailKing subway car install, but it worked out in the end. If anyone has a diesel they want to install the 3 volt board into, either a BCR or a battery pack with 2 triple A rechargeables in it makes the job a lot easier.

Very sore subject.  My PS-2 scale GG-1 board went and I needed an entire  conversion to the tune of $325.00 and over a year to get parts and get it done by a repair station.  This stinks.  Next time she goes, or any of mine, they become TMCC or dummies.  I almost could have bought a new engine.  Very very bad ballet on the part of MTH.

JDA,  Your options are the Replacement 3V board with 5V connectors, buy and upgrade kit (less expensive) and upgrade the whole engine, convert to conventional with just about any DC reverse unit, convert to TMCC with ERR stuff, but that will be about the same expense.

The 5V board had issues in my opinion.  The move to the 3V board was pretty quick and it is repairable.

Either way Command systems are expensive, so it is not an issue of leaving behind, or plug and play.  Just the cost of the features.  G

I removed the PS-2 guts and proto-couplers and converted it to conventional with manual couplers.

$325.00 seems a little high for the conversion. I felt bad charging $250.00 to do it unless it was steam. The 3 volt boards can be a pain to mount in boiler if that is where the original was. 

Since I run conventional and a lot of my layout is forward only,I install a bridge rectifier in a steam engine and 2 , 6 amp diodes in diesel locos,the latter gives the same effect as series wiring without the drawbacks. . I convert bulbs to LED lighting or install a CV circuit to existing LEDs.. Cost is about $5-10 per conversion. For sound I usually install RS4 boards in the tender or dummy unit. Sound from this is usually better than original.

Dale H

I just upgrade them to ERR, or EOB when the boards go bad. BF

Ditto, that's what I did to a subway I have. After removing all the guts I installed a bridge rectifier to convert AC current to DC for the motors and then put them in series to slow things down. Now everything works fine for me.

Like Dale said the cost of conversion is under $10. This works for me!

If it's big steam or sentimental diesel I pay $175 for PS2 Upgrade kit and "do it myself".  OR for a 4 motor ABA I found a deal on an ABA set and used the innards for the upgrade.  Otherwise I part it out and buy a new replacement.

Guys, you can do it some of the ways mentioned above.  As Ralph pointed out, steam and diesel boards are the same.  I have several engines with the conversion boards.  What do you gain you ask.  You gain a modern board with 2X memory.  You can upload all the larger sound files.  As Ben pointed out, it is only a small price for the speaker, bracket and battery.  Give it a break.  It is what it is.  These posts are getting old.  If you have a premier locomotive with a bad 5V board, put it on the Forum and sell it.  Your option is fix it.

John, it does not take that long to get boards.  Someone is giving you bad info and pricing. 

I do not believe in shelf queens that do not run.  Get them fixed and back in servive.  If you have premier MTH steam or Lionel and do not want them to run again, sell them to one of us on this forum.