Hello, I got into railroading about 16 years ago. I now cleaned off the table and checked out the localmotives. the batteries have died on my MTH localamotives. When I replaced the batteries the chips got scrambled and do not work. I took one engine to a dealer and he said he had to reset or jump the board to fix it. I have about 5 more engines that need reset. At $25 a pop it will be expensive for me. Is there anyway I can fix the issue or by a tool to fix them? My grand kids are itching to play with the layout. I’m new to this forum so let me know if I steped out of line on my question.
From the fact that you say the locomotives have a battery, I think you have O-scale and need to pose your question on the Classic Toy Trains forum instead of here.
Most people on this forum have HO or N scale. The Classic Toy Trains forum is frequented by the Lionel and other O-scale owners.
You can try the 50-1023 Original Proto-Sound Reset Kit. It has a chip labeled “MAKE PS”, a new battery and a tweezerlike chip puller. The package says “The Original Proto-Sound Reset Kit can be used to reset the Proto-Sound electronics in any locomotive that produces 3 clank sounds when power is first applied. The reset chip will reconfigure the board’s software for proper operation with a fully charged battery and its (sic) original Proto-Sound software chip.”
However. I used it on all 7 of my mid to late 90’s Proto-Sound 2 locomotives to no avail. In the end I removed all of the electronics including the smoke units and hotwired the motors directly to the pick-ups. I now run them on DC.
The reset chip that Becky referenced is for Proto-1 engines and has worked fine the several times that I have used it on some of my earlier PS-1 engines as well as those of a few friends. The only thing with using them with a transformer other than the Z-4000 is having to cycle the power on the transformer and listening for the right clinks & clanks,
Like Becky, I gave up on the MTH electronics. I replaced them with bridge rectifiers and electromechanical e-units. I put an air whistle into my Big Boy’s tender.
From the fact that you say the locomotives have a battery, I think you have O-scale and need to pose your question on the Classic Toy Trains forum instead of here.
Most people on this forum have HO or N scale. The Classic Toy Trains forum is frequented by the Lionel and other O-scale owners.
Thanks for the information. I have a PS-1 set of El Capitan St Fe F3 ABA that have developed this problem. They ran fine for a couple loops around my layout when I took them out of storage. I then let them sit on a side track for approx 12 hrs with 14 volts to recharge the battery. But, when try to run, they sit there with only one clink available. I did replace the battery with a new one, but still only one clink response. Temped to gut them and install Electric RR TMCC and RS. But, if this will solve the problem, would rather try it first as I have several PS-1 engines to once again run after storage. With the Aux 1 - 9 sequence on the Cab1, they run fine with little difficulty. Where, how, would be best way to obtain the MTH reset kit? Thanks for the info, much appreciated.