That's not true or even close to accurate. I find that odd that any dealer would say that or give a PS2 charger as part of an engine purchase. Saying it would need to be reprogrammed would imply the board completely fails and need service which it would not. You can run it without a battery would just need to keep re-adding the engine to remote each time you powered up the engine to run it. Board doesn't lose anything else and the NiCd batteries hold their charge for a very long time.
Glad you set me straight then
Considering the age of the MTH locos with PS2.0, where should I be looking for them? Its not ebay.
Can't speak to who you have near you as dealers but I will be doing the upgrades soon.
Well then perhaps I should talk to you about prices
No, Protosound 2 engines do not lose their memory if not constantly plugged in. (plugged in I assume means plugged into a charger for the on-board battery) Do you recall where you heard that? PS2 engines do have an on-board Ni-cd battery but I have engines that haven't been run in years and they still hold enough of a charge to retain the engine ID. The only item that can get 'lost' is the engine ID which is assigned when it's added to a remote. Even if the ID was lost you only need to re-add the engine to the remote with just a few button presses and you're back up and running (total time like 15 seconds). Engines don't lose their sound loads or anything else due to no battery/no battery charge.
This was years ago I think about 5 or 6 years that the dealer who sold me one of the at the time new PS2 gave me a charger and said I had to keep it plugged in because the battery would run out and it would have to be reprogrammed. I know your knowledge is extensive so I have no trouble bowing to your widsom on this issue
There haven't been any MTH steamers released with factory PS3. All PS2 engines can be upgraded to PS3.
Who can do this? I'm in Dallas which only has a single MTH authorized dealer in the middle of nowhere out of town and they can hardly fill orders much less repairs.
On the Kadees, I use small bolts and nuts to bolt them to the frames, I don't use adhesives.
Gotcha. So you drill your own holes as well I would imagine?
Aristo C-16 is a weak engine. Aristo is pretty pricey, now that they went out of business. and parts are hard to find. A Hartland locomotive looks like and old steamer but is a lot stronger. Kadees are the way to go. You can get ones that mount on the tab from the trucks, they have an online page that tells you the ones to get.
Thanks very much
I will probably end up selling the Aristo engine. Its only got about 10 hours on it anyway.
Looking at the slope between the left and right sides (left being lower) it does look like a fairly steep grade. The problem you have is a combination of the relatively light weight of the engine, relatively steep grade and the fact the Aristocraft does not use traction tires on their engine. MTH is the only one I know of that uses traction tires on their steam locomotives. The smallest steam engine MTH made was the Hudson and it is more of a larger mainline steam engine and not sure it would fit the look you are going for and is probably getting up there in price relative to what you are using now. One thing you could consider doing is buying a second Aristocraft engine like you have and double-head them. That would probably give you the extra pulling power you need. I would also add lead weight to the boiler. You could add it a number of ways and one easy last resort method could be to buy round lead fishing weights, wrap them really goo with electrical tape and drop them in the front of the nose of the engine till you got the weight up some. That's obviously not a very professional way to do it but if you didn't want to take the engine apart that might be the way to accomplish what you need. Would have to make sure there is enough open airspace for them to fit in to actually make it further back in the body of the engine and at the same time be sure you're not impacting any of the engines drivetrain components.(I'm not familiar with that engine so I can't say).
On the couplers I go with Kadee on everything. I body mount all my couplers but if that is too much work you could just replace the truck mounted versions you have and replace with the right Kadee version to get the height you need. I bought a kadee coupler height gauge to ensure I had a standard to match to.
Are you looking to pull more cars than what you show in the video?
Yes I am. I recently bought some larger MTH cars. In total I'd like to be able to pull at least 5 large cars with a caboose with whatever engine I end up with. MTH is what I have the most of anyway in o guage. Don't really want the dual engines so probably going back to MTH is a good idea but I wanted to avoid the protosouind 2.0 engines because if memory serves, they can loose their memory if not constantly plugged in correct? MTH just doesn't have many steam locos that are 3.0 and under 1000 that I could find.
I'm willing to go about 500 on the engine but no more consider how sparingly it will be used.
How do you body mount your Kadee couplers directly to the cars? Jbweld?
I'm an O guage fan but every year for Halloween we put out a G guage train for the kids and every year they love it more and more. The problem is the engine I have is an Aristo Kraft engine which looks great but it can't handle ANY and I mean any inclines or declines in the track. Its so weak I can only hitch on 2 or 3 cars at max or it can't make some of the turns. Now I really try to even out the track but the ground is very unforgiving. In the past if I put it on the ground the kids would get into the yard and knock it over so I bought some adjustable stands to raise it off the ground and away from tiny hands.
My first question is should I be looking at another engine or are these things able to fit in larger more powerful engines to get better traction and if not, what kind of engine should I be looking at? I really want to keep with steam locos.
My other issue is the cars. I've got a mix of new MTH cars and Aristo cars The problem is they do not play well together. The couplers are not the same height so I've thought about going with some Kadee magnetic couplers but how do you handle the issue with the height being off?
Sorry for all the questions but I dont want to spend another hour trying to level off the track and not be able to use all the cars as I did again this Halloween.
Here is a short video of the track and the layout. Its about 18x8.
That's the date MTH has currently posted, but I still say expect to see the engine in about 2 years from catalog announcement date. That said, those getting the pre-orders in now is the right thing, this ensures you have one reserved in the production run and also gives MTH an idea of the overall demand to help make sure the right quantity is made.
I agree with this timeline. It was almost 2 years from my pre order of an HO big boy from MTH a few years ago
It's hard to tell from the video what the issue is. Are the wheels simply slipping or is there little to no slippage and the engine just slows down? If youre not sure you will want to reconfirm. I think you either have wheel slippage or voltage drop due to poor electrical connections at the rail joints. The slider joiners are not generally no that great and dont make tight connections at the rail joints which when multiplied times many joints results in engines slowing down especially at the furthest point from the power supply connection to the layout. I would reconfirm if not sure but you probably need to 1) make sure you have all the slider screws in place and tight at all joints 2) maybe remove the joiners completely and crimp tighter with pliers or 3) consider removing all slider joiners and replacing with direct to rail railclamps. I prefer splitjaw brand. I have a link that explains the different types on my website.
If the engine is slipping, maybe you can find a way to add some lead weight to the engine to help it pull a little better. In any case that engine should be able to pull that load on that layout just need to help correct the power or lack of weight.
Sorry I wasn't clear. When the engine has to fight a small elevation the wheels slip.
I have an Aristo Craft CLASSIC C-16 WOOD RIO GRANDE PACIFIC SLOPE engine that I use at halloween to pull a small amount of cars with some halloween items. The kids love it but this engine struggles to get around the track so I've been looking for a locomotive with a stronger engine to get it around the track and wondered what I should be looking at. Definitely another steam loco. I've heard LGB is a good brand but how can you tell with all the different models what would be stronger than the engine I currently have?
Here is a video to help demonstrate what I'm talking about.
Not looking to break the bank either. 300-400 is really about as high as I want to go.
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MTH WiFi Control App & WIU (WiFi Interface Unit)
in Digital Control
Posted
Thanks for the update Ray! I'm really interested in this add on to my TIU so can't wait to see some reviews!