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]

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.

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

[faithie999]

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?

I am using SMD LED's so I have a couple of spare "normal" LED's that I had bought and won't be using.  send me an email with your address and I'll drop a couple in the mail today.
faithie999     at     hotmail

I think Alan might have linked you to an ebay seller to pick up some 1K ohm resistors.   there are US sellers of resistors so you won't have to wait for the china shipping delay.  I have bought lots of 5 for just a couple of dollars/free shipping.

ken

[Alan]

Paul Falstad's circuit simulator is a really cool site. Thanks for the link.

RailPro users, want to see what is going on inside all those wires inside your loco, check out the site.

[Stephen K]

I don't know what to think.  While waiting for new LED's to arrive for loco #1 I decided to work on loco #2.  Got it all connected and put it on the test track.  Motor, horn, and bell work fine.  Lights flashed on and instantly burned out.  Front and rear are on separate buttons and each burned out on it's own.  Now I'm second guessing the problem on Loco #1.  I'm thinking now the lights were fine until I touched the button and poof, dead.  I've rechecked all my wiring against the wiring diagram and can not see anything wrong.  But seems apparent SOMETHING is wrong.  Is it not appropriate to collect all commons into one connection on the blue lead?     

Lights on loco #2 are standard rice grain lights, not LED.  2 up front and 2 at rear.  Athearn notes on their exploded diagram that when adapting to DCC resistors should not be necessary.  Are they just wrong?  Is something different the RailPro that requires resistors on every light?  Is there some trick to connecting the blue common?  It just doesn't seem like it should be this difficult...

[Alan]

Resistors are not required if the bulbs are 12-15v bulbs. There are 6v and 1.5v versions of the same bulbs. Is it possible someone installed lower voltage bulbs? Did the bulbs have resistors when you took it apart?

[Stephen K]

revelation...  With that tip I looked closer.  This loco was previously set up with Soundtraxx Econami DCC and sugar cube speakers.  Fortunately the Soundtraxx packaging card with wiring diagram was in the box with the Loco.  Upon closer inspection I see now that the lights were wired to a terminal that was designated for 1.5 volt lights.  So that seems to answer that question for Loco #2.  Time for more new lights. 

[Stephen K]

The headlights on this loco are a simple hole in the plastic shell that the 1.5 volt grain of rice light bulb fits into.  If I were to replace these with proper 12 volt grain of rice bulbs (instead of LED option) would they be too hot for the plastic?  Melting situation?

[Alan]

The headlights on this loco are a simple hole in the plastic shell that the 1.5 volt grain of rice light bulb fits into.  If I were to replace these with proper 12 volt grain of rice bulbs (instead of LED option) would they be too hot for the plastic?  Melting situation?

No, assuming the bulb is the same brightness. Voltage does not matter. The brightness of an incandescent bulb is indicative of its heat. Same brightness = same heat.

[faithie999]

The headlights on this loco are a simple hole in the plastic shell that the 1.5 volt grain of rice light bulb fits into.  If I were to replace these with proper 12 volt grain of rice bulbs (instead of LED option) would they be too hot for the plastic?  Melting situation?

the LED's I sent you have a fairly small diameter, perhaps too small for the hole in the shells you have.  however, there are LED's which are about the same dimension as grain of rice incandescents that you can find on ebay.

[Stephen K]

Just wanted to let you all know that I now have both of my first Rail Pro locomotives up and operating!  Thank you all for your generous assistance.  The new sugar cubes I installed sound great while the ones that were existing in one loco do not.  I will be replacing them before long.  At least now I know what I'm up against.  THANKS TONS, IT'S VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!  Now I need to start construction on my layout.  Finally got the room pretty well cleared out so I can bring home some lumber pretty soon.