I'm about to fit DCC to a Mainline 56. Basic wiring seems ok but where I'm puzzled is the lights. There are 2 wires (a red and a green) from each bulb, the red going directly to a motor terminal but the green wires have a weird 'round metal ball' in the circuit. What I'd like to know is do I wire the white and yellow wires from the module to the 'weird' things or to the red wires? Any help appreciated - soldering iron at the ready! :-)
Dave
Hello dave, I tink you'll find that your wierd metal ball is a diode to steer to current for the directional lighting. I assume that are grain of wheat bulbs in the mainline 56, so they won't be polarity sensitive like an LED will be.
Just take off the wiring to expose the bulbs electrically speaking, and then I assume that you can connect the bulbs to the accessory output of the decoder.
I assum on the decoder there is a ground pin (which in reality will be rectified traction current).
Hope this helps. Don't blame me if you manage to blow it up.
Regards,
Rob.
Dave Potter wrote:
Thanks for your reply Robert - it just goes to show....
Until I posted my query (well, received the answer really) I was under the assumption that the 'weird' things would have to stay in circuit - quite forgetting I was fitting a decoder that handled just that. Doh!!!
Anyway, first I wired the loco up without the lights and made sure it moved. It did, so noting which way was forward, I wired up the lights, completely removing the weird bits and hey presto! Everything worked fine. (Only problem with this version of the 56 is that the tail lights light up at the front as well as the headlamps but I can live with that.
So once again Robert, Many thanks.
Dave.
Hi, Thanks for the praise. Nice to get some pos response from a poster.
Rob.
Dave Potter wrote:
Since you have removed all the weird things connect alkl the red wires to the blue wire from your decoder, connect the green wires from the headlight at one end and tail light at the other to the yellow wire, all the other green wires to the white wire. Your lights should then be directional, swap white and yellow if they are the wrong way round. Keith
Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.
What decoder did you use, Dave? If it is a 4-function decoder, you can wire the taillights through F1 and F2 for each end, and have a lot of fun playing "get the lights right". This assumes there are separate lights at each end for the head and tail lights, of course. I am not familiar with the model concerned.
Regards
Steve Magee Newcastle NSW Aust
Hi Steve
There is only 1 bulb at each end with clear plastic feeding the light output to the 'lights' on the front - so it's all or nothing!
So far I have only used the Lenz 1024/1025 decoders - I suppose it's a bit of a waste with locos that have no lights but I look at it as future proofing :-) just in case I ever win the lottery and can fit lights to all my models.
Dave
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