RailPro > RailPro Specific Help & Discussion
Speaker Wiring
Stephen K:
Agree on that Ken. I have not done that yet. I DID get everything taped and ready for the shell but put it on the track first. Now I am doubly frustrated. For starters I realized I misspoke earlier. This is NOT a loco that I've had for while. This is one I bought at the Train show in February. Used but "like new" and appears to be not very old. Never had it on a track til last night so no clue on it's history. I just did a quick battery test on the incandescent light cause I could get at those wires easily. Nothing. Did a little more disassembly to get to the wires for the LED light, battery test, nothing. Was not terribly confident in the battery test in situ so went ahead and rewired to the white and yellow on the 6 pin connector, nothing. Rewired to the green and violet on the 6 pin, changed the wire selections on the button settings, nothing. Disconnected and removed both lights. Battery test on the bench with 3 different batteries, nothing. My conclusion at this point is something bad with both lights from it's former life. Perhaps why it was being sold. Just bad lights. So unless none of this battery testing is really valid I guess I now have another project - find new lights.
Alan:
When you put a battery to a light bulb and it doesn't light up your bulb is junk. No two ways about it. Likewise with a LED w/resistor.
At least you now know the problem. Throw a couple new LEDs in there and be done.
Stephen K:
yup, that seems to be the case. Sure was an adventure getting there though. Again thank you everyone for all your assistance. Any suggestions where to look for appropriate LED's?
Alan:
My go-to shopping for components is eBay from China. Dirt cheap but you have to wait 30 days for it to get here.
Some popular US electronics suppliers:
http://www.alliedelec.com
https://www.arrow.com
http://www.digikey.com
http://www.mouser.com
http://www.newark.com
http://www.onlinecomponents.com
https://www.verical.com
G8B4Life:
--- Quote from: Alan on March 26, 2020, 01:14:46 PM ---However, it appears one of your fundamental assumptions is flawed. No component "draws current" even though that is the common lingo. There is no suction, vacuum, or otherwise negative pulling force. Rather, components "flow" what is available to them.
--- End quote ---
Yep, very flawed. After a good nights sleep and playing around with the simulator a bit I remembered what it is was about "death and destruction" correctly. Serious facepalm moment >:( .
And yes, good analogy .
If you were to use a single resistor for all the outputs you should not size the resistor based on all the LEDs consuming ~10mA each at the same time, vis about 200 ohm for the resistor. If you did that you'd need to turn all the outputs on simultaneously to be safe. If you only turned on a single output at a time you'd fry the LED and/or the resistor (if it was only 1/4 watt).
I know you don't need these Alan but for anyone else who is interested I drew these up in the simulator. You can hover your mouse over the LEDs and resistors to see the current being "flowed" with one output active, two outputs active etc.
Wrong way: One resistor sized for each LED to "flow" ~10mA when all outputs are on (open in Paul Falstad's circuit simulator)
Wrong way: One resistor sized for one LED to "flow" ~10mA when one output is on (open in Paul Falstad's circuit simulator)
Correct way: One resistor for each LED sized to "flow" ~10mA when each output is on (open in Paul Falstad's circuit simulator)
- Tim
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