My friend just bought a new MTH 30-2817-1 NYC RS11. When it was placed on the track for the first time, the engine sounds were loud for about 4 seconds then became quite muted. The engine would not go in to forward or reverse. The cab chatter is muted but intelligible. The bell and whistle are soft. When the transformer is turned off, the sounds stop immediately. When turned back on, the sounds are again loud for about 4 seconds , then soft. After factory reset and the two toots, nothing changed. the volume button is turned up fully. He does not have DCS, but I do if that would be helpful in diagnosing the problem. We're hopeful that this is just a battery charging issue and not a defective battery or sound board. I've never had this happen with a brand new, recent vintage engine. I told him that someone on the forum would figure it out as that seems to always be the case. Any help is appreciated and will be passed on.
Ed Kazarian
Massachusetts

Ed,

The sound stopping immediately when turning power off is a definite sign of an extremely weak battery. That's probably the problem, but there's nothing else that can be done until the battery is charged, so that's the first task. If you don't have a seperate charger you're going to have to leave it on the track with at least 12v. Make sure the sound (and smoke if it has it) is turned to minimum. It could take several hours until it charged enough to make further tests, longer for a full charge. The separate charger is a good investment.

As Gary mentioned charge the battery and you should be fine. Here's my last experience with a brand new S-2... The 2/3 rail selection switch was set to 3 rail but the engine wouldn't move in command mode, Tried both feature and factory resets, still a no go. However sliding the 2/3 rail slide switch back & forth a few time cured the problem, Maybe the slide switch was not all the way over or the contacts were dirty . Don't know for sure but it's running fine now , neat engine.

Thank you Gary and Gregg. Things are not going well. The engine was charged overnight with no change in performnce. My deductive reasoning leads me to think that either the battery is dead on arrival and not chargeable or the charging unit of the engine does not work. My friend is going to give MTH a call today. Sunday we'll try to charge the battery with an MTH charger that I have. If that doesn't work then I imagine the battery is bad. If it does work, then probably the charging unit is bad.Either way it looks like a disappointing warranty job.
Ed

Forgot to mention that my friend did not see a 2 rail/3 rail switch on his engine so no adjustment of that could be made.
Ed

Looking at the manual this engine does not appear to be 3-2 rail compatible but regardless being DOA I would take it back to the dealer for replacement.

This is probably a 3volt board so you can't substitute an alkaline 9V battery like you could with the old 5V boards using the nicd batteries.

Ed,

My first thought would be that since this is a new engine just return it to the dealer for a refund or an exchange for another engine.

However, if you want to try to correct the problem yourself the first thing to do is to remove the shell and see if the connector on the battery is connected. If it's not, the battery simply cannot do its job or be charged. Then follow the battery wires back to both the charging jack and the PS2 board to ensure that nothing else has become disconnected.

Regardless, I've never known a low battery to cause the effect on the sounds that you're experiencing, i.e., starting out loud and then going low. However, there's a first time for everything.

I have an update for everyone to once again put their thinking hats on. The RS 11 was brought to my house and put on the DCS. We got the engine into DCS. When started up, the sounds came on softly( without the 4 seconds of louder sounds preceding the softer sounds). The engine would move forward and back, something that it would not do in conventional operation. The bell, whistle and couplers all worked. When shut down in DCS, the sounds would continue for about 5 seconds. When the track power was turned off, the engine sounds ceased immediately. We took the battery out and put the battery on my charger for about 1 1/2 hours. No improvement in function after charging the battery this way. We did factory and feature resets with no change. When checking the engine info, the battery still read low after 10 hours of charging on the track and 1 1/2 hours of charging the battery on the charger. We gave up and felt defeated! Our last hope is a visit to Marty Fitzhenry's train hospital on Thursday. As the old cheer goes, ".... if he can't do it, no one can". It's so discouraging when the excitement of putting a new engine on the track turns to disappointment.One good thing is that it gives an opportunity to "meet" more fellow train nuts on these forums. Thanks to all of you for your advice.
Ed Kazarian

Ed,

As I said before...

quote:

However, if you want to try to correct the problem yourself the first thing to do is to remove the shell and see if the connector on the battery is connected. If it's not, the battery simply cannot do its job or be charged. Then follow the battery wires back to both the charging jack and the PS2 board to ensure that nothing else has become disconnected.

It now moves. I got a look at it today. As the guys on this post stated, it was a defective battery. The battery was NG and would not hold any charge. It uses the newer small sized green 2.4 V battery. I substituted the larger blue battery for a confirmation test and all was good in RS-11 land.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Marty Fitzhenry,

Great post!
Lots of good information.
When I first put it on the tracks, the sounds were extremely loud, even with the volume pot at 3/4 setting.
I've been lucky so far. The RS-11 is way more than I expected with DCS.
Great cab chatter as well.

Even runs well in the snow ! LOL...

I spotted and bought the RS-11 and it was when I went to unbox the engine at home I realized it was a RailKing. It looked so good on the shelf at Pioneer Hobbys. MTH did a nice job for sure. One other point I would make. The RS-11 came with full DCS control.

Sadly my RS-3 from Lionel/K-Line had an old sound system old TMCC and no cruise control for a lot more money. Hu-Raa MTH for giving us a lot of value for the money. I am at five MTH to 1 or none? Who knows when the next Lionel will come to Billville with the new buying ratio. My answer to Jerry's Vision is, I Pass...