I just bought one today and I just want to illuminate it into the "go" position (vertical) and worry about protoypical operations later. How would I do this, the instructions are extremely complicated. There are simply two sets of wires coming out and thats it. There is one single black wire and then a a grouping of a dozen or so gray wires clustered together.
I also don't want to fry the bulbs, it says it operates on 12-14V.
Are they actually incandescent bulbs, or LEDs? If they're incandescent bulbs, then they are rated to operate on the 12-14 Volt range as indicated.
I don't have any of these signals but by your description I would say that the black wire is the negative for all of the bulbs and the gray wires are for each individual bulb.
Take a regular DC power pack and turn the throttle up to about 3/4 speed, which should give you around 12 Volta output. Touch or fasten the black wire to one of the DC output screws and touch one of the gray wires to the other terminal. Keep doing this until you figure out which three gray wires light the three bulbs you want to have lit up, and then connect those three wires together.
cacole Are they actually incandescent bulbs, or LEDs? If they're incandescent bulbs, then they are rated to operate on the 12-14 Volt range as indicated. I don't have any of these signals but by your description I would say that the black wire is the negative for all of the bulbs and the gray wires are for each individual bulb. Take a regular DC power pack and turn the throttle up to about 3/4 speed, which should give you around 12 Volta output. Touch or fasten the black wire to one of the DC output screws and touch one of the gray wires to the other terminal. Keep doing this until you figure out which three gray wires light the three bulbs you want to have lit up, and then connect those three wires together.
Thanks. Yes, they are incandescent bulbs.
On my past layouts with NJ signals and regular light bulbs, I fed the lights with around 6-10 volts, more realistic looking and not as toy like when lighted at full power. Just hook each bulb up one and a time till you can seperate out the ones for the "clear" indication, then just hook them up to the power feed. I plan to use signals from South Bend Signal for my PRR part of my layout, he doesnt show them on his website, but he can make them to order for around 25 per signal, and they will be all LED, which will work better with my DCC system. He also has signal driver circuits to control them properly. Cheers Mike
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Thanks Mike for that bit of info about SB signal co doing custom orders for the PRR position light signals. I was looking for someone who could make these at a reasonable cost and was going to settle on their 3 bulb color light signals. I question if he can make them in brass for that price.
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