WSOR 3801 I feel it got wired wrong from the factory. I have a CP 1433 from the first run, and it was wired properly. I also have a Soo 1562 bandit, and it was wired wrong. I had to do the same thing as Driline.
I feel it got wired wrong from the factory. I have a CP 1433 from the first run, and it was wired properly. I also have a Soo 1562 bandit, and it was wired wrong. I had to do the same thing as Driline.
What happened to 'good ole' Chinese communist quality control???
Mike WSOR engineer | HO scale since 1988 | Visit our club www.WCGandyDancers.com
Only in reverse is kind of wierd - but yeah, if they had the extra lights wired somewhere else then they wouldn't work under DC with no decoder. The Genesis locos with ditch lights usually have both ditch lights wired together - US practice is normally to have the ditch lights alternate so to hook it up to a DCC decoder you need to rewire it a bit so each ditch light goes to its own function output. In some P2K locos they have seperately lighted number board lights which are wired across the motor, fine for DC but not so good when you try to put a decoder in. Moral of the story - look at how things are wired if the loco has additional lighting besides the basic headlights. Chances are, to make it work in some reasonable manner under DCC you'll have to rewire things a bit.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I recently purchased an Athearn Genesis MP15-AC non-sound unit from my LHS. These loco's do not come with decoders, so I purchased my favorite brand, an NCE D13SRJ with all kinds of neat light effects. The athearn loco comes with an operating strobe, so I was excited to see how it would operate. I installed the decoder, (a simple 9 pin plug) and was off and running. To my dismay however, the strobe ONLY operated when the loco was in reverse. It seems athearn wired the strobe in parallel with the reverse lamp. Hmmmm...easy enough fix. Check out the diagram below. I traced the strobe lights to the athearn pc board, and removed them from the reverse lamp tabs, and then soldered them in place on the athearn pc board's only pair of tabs left which in fact were the (F1) or output 3 on the decoder's lamp output. Don't worry about polarity as Athearn uses bulbs, not diodes for illumination. Success!
I'm not sure why athearn did not have the strobe already pre-wired for (F1), but my guess is it has something to do with operating the unit via DC. Maybe Davidmbedard can enlighten me on this as he is the DCC guru.
Finished model....