Last night I thought i would install a tsunami (board replacement type) in one if my regal line f units. I pulled the shell, pulled the old board and went to do my standard test with jumpers before final install. It uses 4 bulbs in the nose, two for headlights and 2 for number boards. They LOOKED like 1.5 V lamps so I jumpered them accordingly. DIM. I then hooked them to the 12 V position on the tsunami. Still DIM. ?????? Any thoughts? Upon closer looking, all 4 bulbs are in parallel. To much draw? Thanks Guys!
Doug
Could be too much. If there are enough functions, wire the two headlights to seperate functions, that way you can have a steady light plus a Mars light, and then put the two number board lights on a third function for independent on/off control. Prior to installing the decoder, were the lights connected directly to the track pickups, or were they fed through a resistor? If directly to the track, they are 12V bulbs, if there was a resistor on the DC board they are probably 1.5V bulbs. If the parallel set of light bulbs was connected parallel to a couple of diodes, they are probably 1.5V bulbs.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
You should direct your question to Intermountain before you wind up blowing out all of the bulbs by inadvertently feeding them too much voltage or burning out a decoder's function output by too much current draw.
Intermountain is pretty good about answering e-mails.
Great! Thanks guys!