John Carmichael

I don't see the microphone (Proto-Dispatch) feature on any of the WIU app screens. While using my android cell phone with WIU app I tried to activate the Proto-Dispatch by pressing the WIU app Protocast "button" and talking into the phone. I was hoping that it would transmit my voice to the locomotive like the mic feature of the old hand-held MTH remote. The loco became silent and I couldn't hear my voice coming from it. Apparently the Protocast function does nothing on the WIU- or does it? Am I doing something wrong or is Proto-Dispatch a feature that MTH will add with a WIU software update? Will it use the phone's microphone or a separate microphone pluged into the TIU? Will the Protocast feature work with digital sound files saved on a cellphone or tablet? Have any of you used the Protocast feature or found the Proto-Dispatch feature? thanks in advance, John

I think Ray might be referring to "Just Plain Folk". I just checked and they have miners-construction workers which look like spelunkers (sp?). He has 4 figures with lights on helmet and boots (#1020, 1021, 1022,1023) see: http://www.justplainfolkfigures.com/signature/ss_book.htm (pgs. 4 & 5) I by a lot from this guy and the quality is excellent and figures are at a very reasonable price.

MTH 1 Gauge No.5405 J3a Hudson - 70-3019-1 for sale at Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/191922857605?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

The seller just wrote and said he also starts all of his prices at $.99 I don't want this loco, so I'm not going to bid. But it will be interesting to see how high the bids go.

This must be a mistake. For sale on Ebay is a new MTH Rail King 1 Gauge Dash 8-40BW Diesel Locomotive Amtrak # 519 w/ Protosound 2.0. Starting price was US $0.99, Current Bid is US $33.89 Why would the seller have such a low starting price? What if the bids go no higher? Would he have to sell it at such a low bid, or would Ebay let him remove it and refuse to sell it? I wrote the seller but he has not answered. http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTH-Rail-King-1-Gauge-Dash-8-40BW-Diesel-Locomotive-Amtrak-519-Proto-Sound-/371669702511?hash=item56893d976f:g:LUUAAOSwZ1BXdCbs

Here's something that you've probably never seen. For sale on Ebay is a Märklin 16075 Gauge One Rail Zeppelin! Supposedly it is new and unopened. But I'm a little suspicious of its condition because of the lack of good photographs. Go to Ebay and scroll down for description. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Virgin-Marklin-16075-Gauge-One-Rail-Zeppelin-Never-opened-VERY-RARE-G-Gauge-CooL-/301973370231?hash=item464f03f577:g:QHQAAOSw3xJVeKum

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jlcarmichael/10211408574/in/photostream/ Here's something a little different. These are propeller driven locomotives I designed using model airplane motors, push propellers, flatcars, and Gary Raymond dual ball bearing low friction wheels. These run on conventional dc track power and they are the fastest locomotives I own. The dual ball bearing wheels are important especially to get them moving from a dead stop. Once they start moving, I must be careful not to give them too much power or they can travel too fast and derail on tight curves. When going down a hill or when approaching a tight curve, I reverse the current and the propeller spins in reverse and acts like a break to slow the vehicle down. I modeled them loosely upon an old 1909 photograph of the prototype's proud inventor. When I run them, I disable the remote's momentum control so I have faster acceleration and deceleration response when needed. When going downhill, they actually act more like roller coasters. It is a completely different experience running these since they respond so differently from wheel driven engines. It takes a bit of practice, but it's easy once you get the hang of it. The small one only cost me about 30 dollars to make. 00004.MTS00004.MTS

Hi Mark: Ray discusses this problem and the remedies on his excellent website. See: http://www.rayman4449.com/MTH_Hudson_mods.htm#Hudson_slider_caught_in_switch_frog

Hi RG: Welcome to our group! If I were making a true-to-life 1:32 scale diorama, I would use code 250 stainless steel rails (or aluminum). See: http://www.silverstatetrains.com/Sunset-Valley-Code-250-6-feet-Mainline-Stainless-Steel-Track--16-TiesFt_p_966.html I would paint the sides of the rails with flat dark brown rust colored enamel and would hand lay the rails with miniature spikes on distressed real wood ties stained with dark walnut stain. Send us a photo when its done. John Carmichael

Hello All: I have an idea that I'd like your thoughts on... I just inspected the condition of the plastic on the rear slave A unit of my Santa Fe F-3 AA set (70-2013-1). I see no hairline fractures or cracks as I saw on the main front A unit. This seems like strong evidence that the plastic fatigue is a result of a bad batch of plastic used in the front A unit and is not age or environment related as both units are the same age and have been stored in the same places. I desperately want to have at least one fully functional F-3 to pull my train. That said, it occurs to me that I might be able to remove the good frame from the rear slave unit and use it on the front A unit. The frames seem to be the same design. Would this be possible? I'd also like to replace the front A unit's broken Protosound 2.0 board with a new 3.0. Is this a difficult upgrade or simply an easy matter of unplugging all the 2.0 board connections and plugging them into a new 3.0 board? What all would I need to buy from Ray? Would it be the Protosound 3.0 Upgrate Kit (Diesel) 50-1912? Thanks for any help with this. I've never done an upgrade before and I'd like to learn how. John p.s. If Ray is successful in getting a new frame from MTH, I can put it back in the rear slave unit. But lord only knows how long that will take and if they even have one!

I've always wondered why MTH has never produced a one gauge locomotive from the mid to late 1800's - like a wood burning 4-4-0 American or a 2-6-0. Could this be because the protosmoke generator wouldn't fit in the boiler of these smaller locos? They do make these locos in O gauge however so couldn't they make one in one gauge? As long as we are all dreaming of our favorite locos that we'd like to see made by MTH, I would love to see the Jupiter 4-4-0 with the blue paint job, or how about a very old historic loco from the early 1800's like the Stevenson Rocket, Adler or DeWitt Clinton. Nobody makes electric powered versions of these for large scale!

Hi Joe & Ray: Joe- I will gladly sell you the F-3 with the broken frame at a very reasonable price if Ray can't get a replacement frame from MTH. It might take a while, but I'll keep you in mind...

Thank all of you for answering. Here are my comments and answers. Blid: Seems that you and Ray are the only ones who have seen this. Enginear Joe, although he has many old MTH has never seen it. This seems to point to a bad batch of plastic or environmental factors. Although I'm not a chemist, I know that rubber will disintegrate and become hard and very brittle in dry climates like Arizona. Once I bought a box of rubber bands and after just a year they were all hard and unusable. Maybe plastic behaves like rubber in dry climates? Enginear Joe: Scratch building the remains into something useable has crossed my mind to salvage the workable parts. The motors and smoke generator work perfectly. It'd be a shame to throw them away. Jerry B44: Yea, I thought about repairing it with brass reinforcements, but it might be useless and short-lived as the plastic rot will surely continue rotting the rest of the frame. Oddly, all the plastic rot has been on the frame and not on the body shell. Different plastics maybe? Rayman4449: I bought it on Ebay and unfortunately can't remember where it came from. It's very good news that you haven't seem this on any of your steamers. I'd hate for this to happen to my beautiful Triplex someday. You hinted that F-3 replacement frames might be available. Is that true??? If so, please let me know. thanks again to you all. John

Three years ago I bought a used Santa Fe F-3 Diesel 70-2013-1 made in 2005 or 2007. Since I've owned it, many plastic parts have developed hairline fractures and then broken off. Most of them I could repair by gluing. At first, it was the small parts like stairs. Then those plastic pillars that screws screw into began falling off. Then the cowcatcher. It got to the point where I could only screw in half of the screws that hold the body shell to the frame. Today though was worse. I had to remove the body shell to get to a broken protosound unit that I was going to send to Ray for testing. As I gently removed the body shell, the frame cracked completely in two and the front truck fell off! This engine has never been mistreated while I owned it. I always keep it inside while not in use. It's almost as if the plastic has some sort of plastic cancer. Who knows what the previous owner did to it, if anything. Here's my question. Do you guys think this is from some sort of mistreatment (outside storage damage from sun or temperature), old age, or is this just the nature of the plastic used? If it is caused from old age, then I'd imagine that everybody who has an old MTH locomotive would see the same plastic rot on their old locomotives. Have any of you seen this on your old (circa 2005 or 2007) MTH locos? Thanks! John

Jerry- What type of speaker did you use? (size & make) thanks!

Hi Jerry: What kind of speaker is the new one (size & brand)? thanks!

I like this improvement because the size of everything seems a little bigger and easier to read, Well done!

Just gorgeous Jerry & Ray! There's a great country song called "Burlington Zypher" by - Rick Cunha and Marty Cooper that's in my collection of train songs. You can find it on a CD called Treasury of American Railroad Songs, Vol. 1. http://www.allmusic.com/song/burlington-zypher-mt0001453157 You can get this CD at Amazon. (Might be fun to try playing it on yours Jerry with Protocast) And here's a fantastic old video of the original BZ: And for some BZ history see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/streamliners-burlington/

Yesterday this appeared for sale on Ebay. MTH One-Gauge UP Challenger #3967 w/ PS3! Used!! http://www.ebay.com/itm/191822459460?euid=e1132fb8a56a4bdcb6c5ea725ffa1892&cp=1 Bidding starts at $900.00 Sounds like a real good buy with all the upgrades. Wish I could afford it myself! I don't know the seller or who did all the upgrades. But the type of upgrades done to it certainly seem like those done by Ray or somebody else on this forum.

One of the things I like about Ray Manley is his curiosity, analytical mind, and perseverance of the truth when it comes to solving problems. I must apologize if I jumped too quickly to the conclusion that PWM power caused my TIU capacitor to explode. As Ray pointed out, it could have been a defective capacitor or something else. We just don't have conclusive evidence. So I think we should follow his advice to follow MTH's advice (to not use PWM) but to not be fearful. But we still need to be cautious! Thank you Ray for your detailed and thoughtful analysis. As far as Kevin Strong's observation that Crest Train Engineer with PWC (same as PWM) caused erratic behavior from the loco's Protosound board, and his solution of using a PWC filter, I found out that Crest also sells as an accessory a PWC filter for 29 dollars. Obviously, Crest has seen problems from their PWC output and offers this accessory as a solution. Although Mr. Strong does not say, I bet this is the PWC filter he used: See: CRE57091 PWC-LINEAR BOARD MANUAL (PDF) But I'd be hesitant to use the Crest PWC filter with other brands of PWC controllers such as Railboss 4 since my electronic knowledge is limited in things like this. For the time being, I will continue using my DPDT switch solution which is working well. One more comment on the two solutions (mine and Mr. Strong's). With my solution of separating the TIU from the PWM controller using a DPDT switch, I can't run an MTH loco using DCS at the same time as a non-MTH loco since I'd have no throttle control over the non-MTH one. But using Strong's PWM filter solution will allow him to run two locos at the same time and still have throttle control over the non-MTH loco. Of course, he would not be able to run the non-MTH loco in reverse while running the MTH loco simultaneously because the reversed polarity of the Train Engineer would prevent the TIU from functioning.

p.s. Kevin Strong's solution was to "put a filter on the output of the controller to turn the PWM voltage to a flat, linear voltage." After he did that he said "normal DC operation was smooth and reliable"

Yes, of course, Bridgewerks works great since it is linear, filtered and regulated. But I think it is important to get the word out about the problems of using PWM power since there are huge numbers of railroaders who use these popular relatively inexpensive PWM controllers, and they may purchase an MTH engine for their traditional analog DC, unaware that their controllers are harmful. Since I too was unaware of this problem, my TIU blew up and I could have damaged my Triplex soundboard. To solve my problem I either had to buy an expensive new Bridgewerks controller and Bridgewerks remote, or try something else. The inexpensive solution I came up with was to separate my PWM controller from my TIU using a DPDT switch, powering both of them with the same linear regulated power source. This way I have a choice of controllers. For my non-MTH locos I use my Railboss4 (PWM) controller; but when I run my MTH locos, I flip the switch and use the TIU. problem solved...

The new Garden Railways Magazine (April 1016) features a favorable review by Kevin Strong of the recently available MTH F-7 AA unit with Protosound 3.0 and DCC compatibility. Article for subscribers at: http://grw.trains.com/news/product-reviews/2016/02/mth-f7-locomotive Unlike most of us on this forum, Mr. Strong does not use a MTH DCS controller. Instead, he tested it using a DCC controller (an MCR Prodiigy Advance2). And, of particular interest to me, he also tested it with traditional analog DC using an Aristocraft (Crest) Train Engineer controller with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), not Linear. He loved how it worked using his MCR DCC controller saying that he could activate many important functions that we can do on our MTH DCS controllers. But he said problems occured from the Train Engineer's Pulse Width Mopdulation (PWM) when he tried using analog DC. With PWM, his F-7 responded in erratic and strange ways. Like Mr. Strong, I also have observed this using Railboss 4 which also has PWM. Not only did my MTH locos act in strange ways, Ray and I believed that PWM current also caused a 50 v capacitor to blow up in my TIU unit a few weeks ago. There was a big explosion- like a firecracker! Thank goodness Ray was able to fix it. Reading Mr. Strong's similar experience, I now feel almost certain that PWM current negatively affects both the Protosound board in the locos and can actually damage the TIU. Moral of the story: Don't use an MTH engine or power a TIU unit with PWM power!