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Add Ditch lights to a BOWSER C630M DCC ready 8 Pin Plug Diesel

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Add Ditch lights to a BOWSER C630M DCC ready 8 Pin Plug Diesel
Posted by Hawks Rule on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 2:41 PM

Hello All,

I just purchased a BOWSER C630M DCC ready 8 Pin Plug Diesel.

I want to add ditch lights and my question is: Where do I attach the wires on the Motherboard?

Here are some pictures:

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  • Member since
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  • From: Ontario Canada
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Posted by Mark R. on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 4:13 PM

Are you keeping the engine as DC, or are you adding a decoder ? If you are keeping it as DC, just add the ditch lights to the front circuit board wired in parallel with the headlight. Be sure to add a resistor to each of the LEDs.

If you are concerned about being proto typical, that engine wouldn't have had ditch lights in the period it is modelled.

Mark.

¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ

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Posted by Hawks Rule on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 4:28 PM

Mark R.
Are you keeping the engine as DC, or are you adding a decoder ? If you are keeping it as DC, just add the ditch lights to the front circuit board wired in parallel with the headlight. Be sure to add a resistor to each of the LEDs.

If you are concerned about being proto typical, that engine wouldn't have had ditch lights in the period it is modelled.

Mark.

Hello Mark,

I am adding a sound decoder.

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Posted by wvgca on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 7:31 PM

if you are adding a sound decoder, you will need at least three [and up to possibly six] function leads ... depends on whether you want ditch lights on either end, and whether you want them to alternately flash ..  [two leads for regular lights, and up to four for ditch lights]

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Posted by cx500 on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 12:12 AM

A word of caution if you are picky about prototype accuracy.  I am pretty certain that all of the CP C-630Ms had been repainted in Action Red with the multimark before the program to retrofit ditch lights.  And 4506 itself was scrapped early, after major damage in a wreck May or June of 1974, so it got neither ditch lights nor new paint.

John

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Posted by NVSRR on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 6:51 AM

An 8 pin decoder does not have ditch lights. They can have sound since most of them don't go through the motherboard to the speakers.  Most just wire direct.  Depending on how you want the ditch lights to work, a 9 pin or 18 pin ois needed.  Some decoders bypass that by having ditch lights directly wired to the chip itself.  You will have to figured how you want the. To work, the. See who makes an 8 pin board that has direct wire ditch lights for the configuration you want

 

shane

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An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel

A realist sees a frieght train

An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space

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Posted by Hawks Rule on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 9:32 AM

NVSRR

An 8 pin decoder does not have ditch lights. They can have sound since most of them don't go through the motherboard to the speakers.  Most just wire direct.  Depending on how you want the ditch lights to work, a 9 pin or 18 pin ois needed.  Some decoders bypass that by having ditch lights directly wired to the chip itself.  You will have to figured how you want the. To work, the. See who makes an 8 pin board that has direct wire ditch lights for the configuration you want

 

shane

 

Hi Shane,

I have a 21 pin decoder that is attached to an 8 pin harness, that fits into the locomotive.

I have tested the locomotive. Everything works good from the sound, to the front and rear lights etc. On the 21 pin decoder there is a purple wire that is not attached, I was wondering if I could use that purple wire to directly hook up the ditch lights. Would that work?

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Posted by Hawks Rule on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 9:45 AM

Hi Shane,

Just to follow up, here is a picture of my 21 pin to 8 pin harness.

You will notice the purple (violet) wire not attached.

 

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Posted by NVSRR on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 9:46 AM

That is for ditch lights and other lights.  They will just go on or off.  Not alternate flash.   

shane

A pessimist sees a dark tunnel

An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel

A realist sees a frieght train

An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space

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  • From: Ontario Canada
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Posted by Mark R. on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 10:10 AM

NVSRR

That is for ditch lights and other lights.  They will just go on or off.  Not alternate flash.   

shane

 

You can program the function to do whatever you want it to do. In order to have flashing ditch lights, each light has to be wired to a separate function. In this case, the violet wire to one and the green to the other. The two functions are then programmed to be alternating ditch lights as per the decoder manual.

Mark.

¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ

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Posted by Hawks Rule on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 10:12 AM

Hi Shane  

The alternate flash, I can live without, adding on/off ditch lights would look nice.

So, I can then attach one ditch light wire to the purple wire and the other to the blue common?

If so, then in theory, if I have two ditch lights in the front of the loco, two wires from each light can be attached to the purple wire and the other two, the blue common.

Is that correct?

 

shane

 

[/quote]

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  • From: Ontario Canada
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Posted by Mark R. on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 4:05 PM

Hawks Rule

Hi Shane  

The alternate flash, I can live without, adding on/off ditch lights would look nice.

So, I can then attach one ditch light wire to the purple wire and the other to the blue common?

If so, then in theory, if I have two ditch lights in the front of the loco, two wires from each light can be attached to the purple wire and the other two, the blue common.

Is that correct?

 

shane

 

Yes that is correct. Just be sure to observe the polarity of your LEDs. Blue is positive and violet is negative.
 
Mark. 

 

¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ

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Posted by Hawks Rule on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 5:38 PM

Thanks to everyone for your input and help!

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