RailPro > Finished RailPro Installation Examples

Adding Lights to Genesis Board

(1/3) > >>

drisdon:
I have an Athearn Genesis GP38-2 that I attempted to add rear ditchlights using the Athearn board, just added the pair of bulbs (recycled from another Athearn loco) in the same manner as the front ditchlights it came stock with to the next available function connection. But, when I turned it on for the first time with Railpro I cannot get them to light, what am I doing wrong?

I also added a keep alive and it really makes that loco run smooth! Wow!

Dan risdon

PerezBill:
The 1st thing I would question would be do the connections on the board function where the lights are connected? 2nd thing would be to try to see if RP is connected to that connection where the lights are. I would make the assumption that you already know the bulbs are good. That's where I would start.

Bill

drisdon:
I tested the bulbs before and after installing into the ditchlights, so that's good.  How would I test the other function on the board to know it's active?


The tweezers show where I added the extra lights, I also soldered all the wires to the board as function one had a short, once soldered short resolved.  The clips are probably faster, but do not provide a good connection.

Thanks,
Dan

PerezBill:
The only answer I can provide would be to remove the board from the locomotive and look at the traces on the back side of it. Make sure they go somewhere and are not disconnected/cut. With that said did you check to make sure that you wired the +  and - correctly. I don't remember if bulbs care about that though. There is also the possibility that there is a resister on built into the board that is so high the bulbs won't light with the available power supplied to them. You may want to consider wiring them directly to the decoder and bypass the board. That way you know what you have and can eliminate a possible issue if the board has a bad circuit which can sometimes be hard to diagnose.

drisdon:
KPack solved the mystery, the 9 pin harness only supports four functions, front headlight, rear headlight, and 2 front ditch lights.  So I have to hard wire the rear ditchlights.  Will 1K resistors work with the Athearn bulbs?  I usually use LED's so not as familiar. 

Dan

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page