Dead (?) MTS2 central station, what to do?

[mikesilky]

My first post here, so please be gentle

I've always been interested in the idea of setting up a railway in the garden, and recently I've acquired some equipment from an old friend of mine to get started. Unfortunately this stuff has been kept in his shed for a long, long time, and some of it isn't in the best condition.

I have what appears to be a working LGB 5A power supply - the green LED lights up when it's connected to the mains with nothing connected to it.

There's a 55005 central station, which from reading up I think is a MTS 2 serial, unfortunately when the power supply is connected to the central station (no remotes or anything else connected) and power is applied to the mains, both LEDs light up on the central station momentarily and then go out, and the PSU trips. Pressing the reset on the PSU repeats this - the central station LEDs light up and then quickly go out, and the power supply trips out.

Can anyone suggest anything that I might do to troubleshoot this and potentially resurrect it?

I'm assuming the prognosis for this isn't good. What would be your suggestions if the unit is indeed beyond salvation?

I've not got masses of cash, so a cost effective way of getting this going would be good. However, I'm aware that what I have (a couple of chipped locos, the dead central station, a couple of remotes - one with buttons at the bottom and one with a dial, a points decoder and a reverse loop module) is relatively old technology and has been superceded by newer stuff. I don't want to throw good money after bad, if you see what I mean.

Any advice or suggestions which you could throw my way would be very very much appreciated.

Mike

 

[muns]

Hi Mike
Welcome.
Sounds to me that it needs to be sent "home" to Massoth Electronics in Germany to be fixed. Unfortionatly, they are an engineer down at the moment and have suspended repairs/upgrades on LGB equipment. I have a box that is filling up with MTS equipment that needs repairing and upgrading that will be shipped to them as soon I get the nod from them.

 

[whatlep]

Mike

It reads as if you have a dead short somewhere in the MTS unit. Bearing in mind that you have all the makings of a fine MTS system, my advice is to send it back to the manufacturers (Massoth) and ask them to repair it. That may cost you quite a few quid, but it'll be cheaper than getting a brand new unit. As a side-benefit of returning it, you'll certainly get the electronics upgraded to the latest parallel standard. Label both 55005 and its box with your own name and address!

Massoth are friendly people, can speak and write English fluently and will accept Paypal in payment, saving you any worries transferring cash overseas. Due to an employee absence, the repair department is unfortunately not operating normally at the moment, but once back in harness they can be expected to be swift and efficient.

The address to send kit to is:
Massoth Elektronik GmbH
Frankensteiner Str. 28
64342 Seeheim
Germany/ Deutschland

 

[Zerogee]

Welcome to the forum, Mike!

If you are OK with a like-for-like replacement (ie: happy to stay with an old serial-type MTS2 station), then Glendale Junction have a relatively cheap secondhand one at £80, here:

http://www.glendalejunction.co.uk/S...ey are fully up and running again. Jon.

 

[mikesilky]

Thank you very much for your advice!

Obviously it's going to be impossible to put a price on the repair cost, as there's no way of knowing quite how knackered the central station is, but does anyone have any experience of what sort of costs might be involved for shipping and repairs?

£80 for a serial MTS II central station sounds like a relatively cheap way of getting up and running.

However, having spent the morning so far at work researching things (sssh, don't tell the boss!) it sounds to me like the serial system has some fairly big limitations and I'd likely want to move to parallel at some point anyway, and that'd involve sending all the kit that needs upgrading off to Massoth anyway.

That being said, would it make sense to splash out the extra £70 on the second hand MTS II parallel central station that Glendale have available? Can that work in serial mode until the locos/remotes have been upgraded? (I've found an old price quoted of ?40 for a serial-parallel upgrade, with shipping on top)

Or should I consider MTS II to be old hat, stick with serial for now, and upgrade to MTS III or the rather neat looking Piko central station and navigator at some point in the future?

Again, the advice and help is much appreciated.

Mike

 

[Zerogee]

Hi again Mike,

The second-hand MTS2 S cental station is going to be the cheapest way to get you up and running now. Having said that, there is no doubt that moving up to something better than MTS2 serial would be a big improvement if funds allow - as you say, the old serial system has its limitations. MTS2 Parallel is still a very useable setup, lots of folks use them as a good first step into digital without breaking the bank. With an MTS2 P central station, as far as I'm aware you should be able to still use your other S components (remotes and decoders), though of course you'll only get serial functions.
If you could stretch to MTS3, then that would be better still, and would also allow you to add a Massoth Navigator at some point if you wished. - then you're halfway to going the full Massoth route when you can.....

The Piko system is very new, in fact I'm not sure if anyone on here has actually got one yet? It may prove to be very good, but I haven't read any reviews of it yet.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck with it, and hope you enjoy the hobby and the forum.

Jon

 

[Gizzy]

Hi Mike,

I have a quick question. Sorry if it seems a little daft, but I always start with the obvious first!

Can you confirm that you have connected the white and black terminals of the 5A Transformer to the white and black terminals of the MTS 2 Central Unit?

Secondly, if you have access to a multimeter, can you measure the resistance across the red and blue terminals, making sure that the power is off first?

I'm minded to think the MTS unit has gone short circuit due to being stored in damp conditions, and that you will have to either repair or upgrade it, but you never know, it could be something simple....

 

[Gizzy]

However, I'm aware that what I have (a couple of chipped locos, the dead central station, a couple of remotes - one with buttons at the bottom and one with a dial, a points decoder and a reverse loop module) is relatively old technology and has been superceded by newer stuff.

Mike

Pretty much the same as what I have then! I purchased most of this earlier this year, as it happens, from Zerogee, and it's all working fine for me. (I was using Train Engineer before.)

Might be old school, but it works well enough for me....

 

[whatlep]

does anyone have any experience of what sort of costs might be involved for shipping and repairs?

Upgrades from serial to parallel are typically £50 including return postage, BUT that is really a swap out of the main board, so your repair costs in total ought to be under £100.

£80 for a serial MTS II central station sounds like a relatively cheap way of getting up and running.
However, having spent the morning so far at work researching things (sssh, don't tell the boss!) it sounds to me like the serial system has some fairly big limitations

The price is a good one for a serial station. I disagree about serial having "fairly big" limitations. The main useful difference I've found in moving up to a parallel component is greater sensitivity (for example immunity from the radio signal getting blanked by thick walls/ earth banks) and/or range with a parallel receiver compared to the serial one. The funny thing is that that has nothing to do with parallel functionality. The radio components in the parallel receiver simply have greater sensitivity/ range than the serial version. That can be simply demonstrated by the fact that one of my controllers has a serial transmitter (too mean to upgrade it!), but still gets the benefit of increased range working in serial mode.

People will tell you that commands can get "lost" in serial, but that only applies to functions F2 and above (confirmed that with Massoth by the way - it's on their user forum now). So don't rush into parallel expecting miracles. Your basic direction, lights and F1 commands are communicated the same in both parallel and serial. Remember too that only locos with parallel fitted boards can use parallel transmission. My sound Mallet loco will never work in parallel mode simply because its main sound board is serial only. I can live with it!

That being said, would it make sense to splash out the extra £70 on the second hand MTS II parallel central station that Glendale have available?

To me, no. I've seen more than one go for £100-£120 on eBay recently. I'd expect your repair and upgrade via Massoth to come in under that price too.

Or should I consider MTS II to be old hat, stick with serial for now, and upgrade to MTS III or the rather neat looking Piko central station and navigator at some point in the future?

I suggest you stick with what you have and get some experience first. Then think through what your requirements really are now and what they may be in the future. Until the Piko kit is available and the manual has been closely pored over, nobody can be sure of its exact capabilities, so hang fire for a bit.

 

[mikesilky]

Definitely not daft questions. If I've made a stupid mistake here, it wouldn't be the first time!

On the transformer, the wires were connected to the middle two terminals. A black wire went from the black terminal to the black terminal on the central unit, and a white wire went between the two white terminals.

I've got a multimeter at home, I'll measure the resistance between the red and blue terminals tonight when I get home. I assume no resistance would indicate a short circuit?

I'll double check the wires between the two units tonight when I get home too.

 

[whatlep]

Purely FYI, here is an eBay Germany link for a 55005. The vendor will ship to the UK and take Paypal. I've used him before and he's reliable.

http://cgi.ebay.de/LGB-55005-MZS-Ze...dellbau_Modelleisenbahnen&hash=item45fab949c5

There's also an elderly type 1 unit for sale too. Effectively a throwaway item for you pending repairs or a later decision on upgrades. It's money that you won't recoup and you can only run 8 locos maximum, but it will work fine with all your kit and will probably sell for just a few Euros:

http://cgi.ebay.de/LGB-55000-MZS-Ze...dellbau_Modelleisenbahnen&hash=item415a11027d

 

[mikesilky]

Purely FYI, here is an eBay Germany link for a 55005. The vendor will ship to the UK and take Paypal. I've used him before and he's reliable.

http://cgi.ebay.de/LGB-55005-MZS-Ze...dellbau_Modelleisenbahnen&hash=item45fab949c5

There's also an elderly type 1 unit for sale too. Effectively a throwaway item for you pending repairs or a later decision on upgrades. It's money that you won't recoup and you can only run 8 locos maximum, but it will work fine with all your kit and will probably sell for just a few Euros:

http://cgi.ebay.de/LGB-55000-MZS-Ze...dellbau_Modelleisenbahnen&hash=item415a11027d

I'd not thought to look at eBay, thanks for the tip. If either of those finish at a reasonable price (what is a reasonable price for the old MTS 1 unit?) then that'd be a good way for me to get going.

In the meanwhile I have a Thomas the Tank Engine set on the way from Dragon G Scale so I can get something up and running on the patio for the kids this weekend! As I understand it, MTS chipped locos will run fine on analogue DC... I assume the DC power pack which comes with that will be sufficient to run one of the small LGB locos that I've got?

 

[Gizzy]

In the meanwhile I have a Thomas the Tank Engine set on the way from Dragon G Scale so I can get something up and running on the patio for the kids this weekend! As I understand it, MTS chipped locos will run fine on analogue DC... I assume the DC power pack which comes with that will be sufficient to run one of the small LGB locos that I've got?

A small LGB loco should run on a 0.5 A power unit, but bear in mind that the TtTE set Controller might output only 12V rather than the 18-22V of an LGB unit.
(Not sure as I've not seen one of these sets, but I read somewhere that they are 12V.)
So your LGB loco will possibly run slowly....

 

[whatlep]

(snip)
(what is a reasonable price for the old MTS 1 unit?) then that'd be a good way for me to get going.

I'd aim for no more than £30. Remember that the items I quoted will cost 17-19 Euros to post, so you've not got a lot of headroom for the actual item. On the other hand, demand should be low....

 

[muns]

On the 50110 transformer, make sure you are using a matching pair of terminals, there should be a decal above and below ther terminals indicating which ones are pairs. If I recall correctly (this is without looking at one) the left most black terminal is paired with the left most white one.

W w B b

pair WB
pair wb

BTW, I will be shipping a big box of LGB items to Massoth for repair as soon they let me, If your central station wants to ride with a couple of others then let me know.

 

[Zerogee]

On the 50110 transformer, make sure you are using a matching pair of terminals, there should be a decal above and below ther terminals indicating which ones are pairs. If I recall correctly (this is without looking at one) the left most black terminal is paired with the left most white one.

W w B b

pair WB
pair wb

Hmmm, from Mark's post above and then this line in Mike's post no.10 of the thread:

"On the transformer, the wires were connected to the middle two terminals*. A black wire went from the black terminal to the black terminal on the central unit, and a white wire went between the two white terminals."

(* my bold)

... that kind of suggests that it's NOT using a paired set of terminals, but one from each pair.....
Maybe, if you're very lucky, the answer is this simple and you don't need a new central station after all?

Jon.

 

[Gizzy]

Good point well made Mark, and what I meant to say in my own post but failed.

My 55005 Central Unit is connected to the B and W terminals of the 5A Transformer and I sometimes connect the programming insert to the b and w when I need to use it....

 

[mikesilky]

I tested different connections last night - using W and B, w and b, and the two central ones, and it didn't make any difference unfortunately - when power was applied to the central station, the two lights on the central station lit up then went out very quickly and the PSU tripped.

So unfortunately it doesn't look like the connections are the issue - I think the central station is the problem.

I took the multimeter to the blue and red connections on the central station as suggested. Only managed to get a reading when the meter was on the 200M Ohm setting, and the buzzer test for conductivity between the two didn't work.

The Thomas set has arrived, but I didn't have chance to look at it before I left for work. I'll report back later on whether or not it is indeed 12V DC.

 

[Zerogee]

I tested different connections last night - using W and B, w and b, and the two central ones, and it didn't make any difference unfortunately - when power was applied to the central station, the two lights on the central station lit up then went out very quickly and the PSU tripped.

So unfortunately it doesn't look like the connections are the issue - I think the central station is the problem.

I took the multimeter to the blue and red connections on the central station as suggested. Only managed to get a reading when the meter was on the 200M Ohm setting, and the buzzer test for conductivity between the two didn't work.

The Thomas set has arrived, but I didn't have chance to look at it before I left for work. I'll report back later on whether or not it is indeed 12V DC.

Sorry to hear the simple solution didn't work - guess it looks like a new central station after all. If it were me, I think I'd still plump for the £80 serial one at Glendale, it would get you going until you're in a position to look at a serious upgrade. Yes, you could try for one of the units on German eBay, but then you've got the wait till the auctions end and you might or might not get one at all.
Actually, unless they've got the same one listed twice in error, Glendale appear to have two of the units at the moment, both at £80 (one listed as reduced from £90). Given that there is not a LOT of demand for the old serial units, it might even be worth haggling a little......

Jon.

 

[Zerogee]

In the meanwhile I have a Thomas the Tank Engine set on the way from Dragon G Scale so I can get something up and running on the patio for the kids this weekend! As I understand it, MTS chipped locos will run fine on analogue DC... I assume the DC power pack which comes with that will be sufficient to run one of the small LGB locos that I've got?

Mike - when you buy anything from Jeremy at Dragon, always remember to mention that you're a GSC forum member - he gives us all 5% discount (he's very good like that!).

Jon.