Atlas Classic GP7 lights

[ON28]

Hello--

I installed an LM-3S, my first, in my DCC-ready loco, which I ran for years on DC. Interestingly, the LM turned on the lights, which I long had assumed were burned out. Though I enabled it, I cannot get directional lighting to operate and have to switch the lights manually. I removed the two diodes on the Atlas light board in order to get the LM to lay flat under the shell, maybe that is the problem?

[nodcc4me]

I don’t think the diodes are the cause of the problem. Rather, there is probably something else in the light board circuitry preventing the lights from auto-switching. You would be better off removing the board and hard wiring the LM module for full functionality. It’s not that difficult once you become familiar with the color coding.

[ON28]

Yes, I just did the expedient thing to start operating.

[KPack]

Please refer to page 19 in the HC-2 Users Manual from Ring Engineering.  Under the "Directional Lighting" heading, you'll find that you MUST use the correct function buttons for front/rear lighting in order for automatic directional lighting to work.  The two buttons (headlight and rear light) are programmed to work with automatic directional lighting.  Any other button will not work as they are not programmed to do so.

Double check that your's are set correctly and you should be good to go.

-Kevin

[ON28]

I fixed the lights, I had the incorrect wire inputs so directional is now active. However, when I turn on the Mars effect on the headlight and then turn it off, the headlight also goes off and has to be manually turned back on. Hmm...

Interesting prototype note: Showed RP to my engineer buddy, he said he turned both the headlight and rear light on whenever he ran light (loco only). Anyway to program that as a button function?

[KPack]

Prototypes do not have directional lighting.  As far as I know, that's an invention of model railroading. 

What I do is have the normal front and rear light buttons, and I turn both on when running switching ops.  I prefer to have full control over my lighting functions and turn them on and off as needed.

You can have both front and back turn on with one button by using something like the ditch light button, then assign the two lights to the front and rear light colors.

[ON28]

I'll try that, thanks. 

[Coupe633]

I am having similar issues with my Proto 2000 SD9. I have plugged the LM-3S into the 8pin factory board. The RP User Manual indicates that I need to set the Motor Full Load Current  before doing anything else. That was successful. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to when the front and rear lights come on or go off. I am new to Rail Pro but hopefully once you fine RailPro fans help me with this I will be able to easily program the rest of my locomotives. I to would like to have the head light come on 100% when the direction is Forward while the rear light is dimmed, then when I select Reverse, the headlight dims and the rear light glows 100%. No ditch lights or anything else. How do I program this? In the Control Locomotive section there are the Front Light, Back Light, Front Dim and Back Dim buttons. In the Loco. Button Setup section I can assign the various buttons. I think this is where I need to be to program this. What seems to be confusing to me is the Output. Since I am using the 9pin connector I would use Output 1 (white) and Output 2 (Yellow) for the front and rear lights and NOT Output 5 (Green) and Output 6 (Purple) for the 6 pin since I an not using those wires on the 6 pin (just the brown wires for the speaker). There are 3 light effects that I downloaded 1) On Off 1 Sec Rev2   2) Dim Rev2  3) Ditch Rev2. Since I am not using Ditch lights which one of these would I select? I am not sure exactly what they do but it seems that Option 2) Dim Rev2 would be the light effect that I want.  In the User Manual (Rev. 2.03) page 20 it says that you must set up two buttons and enable this option for it to work but it doesn't go into any detail on how to actually do this.

[G8B4Life]

I am having similar issues with my Proto 2000 SD9.

It sounds like your after "Rule 17" dimming. There is no way to do this automatically in RailPro, you will have to do the dimming manually.

By default the front and rear headlights use output 1 and 2 (white and yellow wires on the 9 pin JST) and the lighting board in the SD9 will be set up for this (and you must use these outputs if you want to use directional lighting, ie, the headlights automatically change direction when the loco changes direction).

In the button setup you would make a button for the front headlight using the front headlight button and set it to control output 1. You'd then do the same for the rear headlight using the rear headlight button and setting it to use output 2. Both would use the On/Off 1 Sec Rev 2 effect.

Then, you can make Dim buttons for the front and rear headlights using the front and rear Dim buttons. These control the same outputs as the actual headlight buttons but use the Dim Rev 2 effect.

In the Locomotive setup pages there is an option to enable or disable directional lighting, you need to make sure this is enabled if you want to use directional lighting.

I must say don't understand why people want "auto" directional lighting, it's not prototypical (it was invented by the toy train market) and the ease of setting RP up to not use directional lighting is one of the reasons I went with RP.

- Tim

[ON28]

There's a lot we railroad modelers do that isn't prototypical, but that's another discussion!

My friend the engineer, when he started as a brakeman on a local, liked to ride on the nose of the switcher because the headlight kept him warm on cold days. 

[Coupe633]

G8B4Life Thank you so much for your insightful information. New to RailPro and still feeling my way around programing but getting the hang of it. Finding the Enabling Directional Lighting made the difference as well as selecting the On OFF1 Sec Rev2. Very much appreciate you guiding me in the right direction as I work through the process.

- David