LM3s Lighting and other stupid questions

[LanOsb133]

Hello all, back again with some more dumb questions.

So since my last post (Many thanks to everyone who answered) I have amassed quite a few new locomotives.  All of which are going to be a project.  So I have 2 main locomotives I need help with and a CabCar.  One main question I have is if I want flashing ditch lights do I HAVE to have 2 seperate inputs or is there a way to get flashing ditches on a single input?  Everything below this is assuming I have to have 2 inputs for flashing ditches

So to start off I bought myself a Kato F40ph.  Its Amtrak #396 and will be repainted into Metrolink #800 (Just like what happened to the real #396)  I have spent quite a bit of time digging around trying to figure out how to wire X Y and Z to the engines and am not quite understanding all of it.  Not to mention the board on the Kato confuses the ever loving crap out of me.  So to give you an understanding, these are the 6 light functions I want to be able to get out of this unit.  1) Headlight/numberboard 2/3) Flashing ditchlights 4) Red Markers on front of engine 5)Mars light 6)Cab/step lights.  This locomotive will be for a passenger train so I am not concerned about not having the lights on the rear of the engine functioning because I will never be running it without the Metrolink passenger cars behind it (Unless theres a way to split the output 1 to be directional output meaning if its in forward it will light up front and if its in reverse it will light the back ones).  My question is how would I go about wiring this and am I able to use Multiple LEDs for each light output? Like say 2 leds for the cab/step? Here is the picture of the board and the locomotives front end.  Would having all these lights on at once overload everything?

Second I want to make the cab car lighted and DCC ready.  The lighting functions would be as follows.  1)Headlights 2)red markers 3)interior lights 4/5/6) classification lights(Red yellow and green).  I also want to connect all the coaches (Up to 6 coaches plus cab car) to the Cabcar so I only have to press one button and it makes all the coaches class lights work in unison.  (I already know how I am going to connect each coach) I was going to make each coach have its own power pickup for all the lights.  Would this be doable?

Lastly I have an Athearn RTR Sw1500.  (Assuming Directional lighting is not possible and 2 inputs for flashing ditches) I want it to be 1)headlights/rear red markers/numberboards 2) rear headlights/front red markers/numberboards (Also I would want 1/2 when turned on to also turn on cab and step lights)  3/4) front ditchlights 5/6) Beacons.  Or if I decide not to go with the flashing ditches 3)Front ditch lights 4)Cab/steplights.  Is this possible?

My main question is do I need to buy certain Motherboards to make this lighting on these locomotives possible? Or do I just splice into the wires coming off the LM3s.  Im a noob to wiring Model trains (although I know my way around wiring a Guitar) 

Thanks for any input on this and for reading.  Hope this isnt asking too much.

[William Brillinger]

Re Photos: if you need help with posting the photos, please see this link: https://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php/topic,11.0.html

I'm looking forward to seeing this unfold!

[LanOsb133]

Re Photos: if you need help with posting the photos, please see this link: https://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php/topic,11.0.html

I'm looking forward to seeing this unfold!

Thanks, images were too big had to downsize them before i could post.

Here is the images of the Kato, mind you, the red marker light on the front will become a white mars, and the two white lights on the outside of the numberboard will become the red markers.

[G8B4Life]

This should all be doable. To answer each question...

For flashing ditchlights, realistically you need 2 outputs. Technically you can do it with 1 output by wiring the output to a circuit that would flash the lights (like a grade crossing flasher circuit), but I'd hate to try and have to fit that inside the loco as well. Best to just use 2 outputs.

So, for the F40PH your setup could go like this:

Output 1: Front headlight + Numberboards  (2 LED's)
Output 2: Left ditch light (1 LED)
Output 3: Right ditch light (1 LED)
Output 4: Marker lights (2 LED's)
Output 5: Mars light (1 LED)
Output 6: Cab + Step lights (2 LED's)

All of those LED's on at the same time should not be a problem (it's only 180mA across all the outputs on the basis of 20mA for each LED. You will actually need much less than this) if you plan everything out first.

For the cab car and coaches, this should also be doable. I'd definitely go the route you suggested with the coaches, with their own power pickups; you don't want to try and power all the cars from one LM. This is what I see.

Output 1: Headlight
Output 2: Marker lights
Output 3: Interior lights / link to coach lights?
Output 4: Class lights 1  / link to coach class lights 1
Output 5: Class lights 2  / link to coach class lights 2
Output 6: Class lights 3  / link to coach class lights 3

The best way to accomplish this (as stated you don't want to try and power all the lights in the coaches from one LM) is for each output going to each coach to turn on something like a relay (we can do better than a relay I'm sure) that supplies the coach interior lights / class lights from the onboard pickups. If I had time today I'd do a drawing of what I mean.

The SW, All of that is doable too. Most DC and DCC ready loco's (well here anyway) already feature this type of thing with front headlight/rear markers on/off , rear headlight/ front markers on/off. Usually some sort of diode steering is involved. I'd have to get one of the circuit boards I've got laying around to see.

All in all, as long as you don't run out of outputs and you don't hook too many LED's up to each output (we do have what each output is rated for here on RPUG somewhere) then anything should be possible.

- Tim