Proto 2000 Alco PA-PB with mars light

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I also have P2K PA1 with the same soldered in 8 wire board you refer to. It was sold as Standard DC (not DCC ready). I ended up having to hardwire the whole thing.

[river_eagle]

link it install notes from digitrax for mars light

http://www.digitrax.com/appnote_p2ke6e7.php

[Truck]

   Hello to everyone. On the PA unit the instructions do not jive with putting a decoder in it.  It says to take out small circut board then large circut board and discard it then plug decoder in small circut board. There is no small small circut board only an 8 pin jumper plug in large board. So if I remove the large board I would have to unsolder the wires from it and then there would be nothing to plug a decoder in to. I would like to know why I cant just plug a digitrax decoder into the 8 pin socket and still have the mars light function. The mars light is wired to blue and white wires, and the head light is using the yellow wire as it is with the DC jumper plug and they work fine.  I noticed the mars bulb has a double element in it that switches back and forth for the mars light effect. I emailed Walthers and there reply was as dumb as thier insrtuctions. thier tech guy said the mars effect would be lost with a decoder. And other modlers used flasher units to get it to work. Why would you need a flasher unit if decoders have FX functions to contol mars,beacon or ditch lights.