Hi, I think this might have come up before but I could find any threads when I searched so here goes....
Just this week picked up one of the new P2K E-7 A units, DC version (GN 512). It has four LED's, one upper headlight, one lower headlight, and two for the two numberboards. In doing a break-in / test run on DC, the lighting worked as follows:
Forward - lower headlight on, upper headlight flashing, both numberboard lights on.
Reverse - both headlights off, numberboard lights on.
The engine ran great. Eventually I plan on adding a sound decoder, but for now I put in a Digitrax DH123 I had on hand and test ran it on DCC. On DCC it ran great, but now the lower headlight is the only one that works. I was able to work out that the lower headlight is controlled by CV 49, but the instructions give no information regarding the wiring of the other three LED's so I don't know what they're connected to. I tried changing the setting for CV 50 to see if that affected anything, but no luck. It appears all four have one blue and one white wire going to them, so that doesn't help.
I guess I can go in and rewire the other LED's so they all work if necessary, but if there's a way to get them to work without that, I'd obviously prefer that. Am I maybe missing something obvious ??
Thanks !!
I wondered if a more advanced decoder might help, if maybe say the numberboard lights are controlled by one of the "extra" outputs of a decoder (i.e. not CV 49 or 50).
At present CV 49 is set at 104, so the headlight is on bright when going forward, and dims when going in reverse.
As far as what came with the loco, it just said that you could plug in a decoder and didn't need to make any adjustments because of the LEDs. Remove two screws, remove the small greenboard, plug the decoder into it's place. That's it.
As far as the decoder manual, just the usual that CV49 controls the front and CV50 the rear. It appears the lower headlight is the "front" one, but that's about all I could work out. Apparently between the decoder and the lights there is something set up to create the Mars-type flash and to power the numberboard lights.
digitax has the mars light P2K notes here
http://www.digitrax.com/appnote_p2ke6e7.php
Thanks, only the new ones have a nine-pin connection not an eight pin, much like the F7:
http://www.digitrax.com/appnote_WalthersF7install.php
Unfortunately the example uses an engine with just the one headlight.
Last night I pulled a TCS 141 decoder out of another engine and tried that, and it seems to work OK now. Apparently the problem was using a two-function decoder. It now works out to have F0 = lower headlight, F1 = numberboard lights, and F2 = upper headlight with Mars light setting. It would be nice for LL/Proto to explain in the literature that comes with their DC engines how the lights are set up - which ones are controlled by which "wire" - and that you need to use a multi-function decoder because 3 of the 4 LEDs are hooked up to auxilliarly lighting connections rather the normal front-rear headlight ones.
Thanks for all the responses!!
Dunno what the new ones are like, butin the past I removed the circuit board completely and put in a new single filament bulb to be the Mars light, since the effects in most decent decoders are better than that alternating two filament 'blink' used with the stock pc board. The effect generated by a good decoder like TCS is uncanny, considering is's a single, non-moving bulb - real Mars lights move the bulb to create the pattern.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy, I did that with my old Rock Island E-8 from about 10 years back, it originally had the flip-flop two light "Mars" light. In this case with the 4 LED's in place - and working very nicely on DC - I wanted to try using them if possible. The insides of the new engine are quite a bit different from the old ones, now it has two openings for 1" speakers for example, and a lot more room inside. Plus of course the 9 pin receptacle.