how to program mars and headlight tcs wow steam?

[BradenD]

yes, it's a daylight.

[wjstix]

If you're not planning on using a reverse light on the tender, you can wire the blue and white wires to the main headlight, and the blue and yellow wires to the Mars light. (Blue is the common, white is normally for the front headlight and yellow for the rear headlight.) I have wired up some passenger E and F units that way and it works well.

Then each can be programmed separately to work the way you want using the appropriate CVs. You should check the instructions for your particular decoder, but normally for TCS decoders CV49 controls the front light (white wire) and CV50 the rear light (yellow wire). A value of 32 in CV49 would make the headlight a constant bright light and 34 in CV50 would make that light a Mars light regardless of engine direction. Both lights would come on when you press F0. You can also program it so say the Mars light only comes on when the engine is set to move forward, or the headlight is bright when going forward but dim when in reverse etc.

[doctorwayne]

MisterBeasley

Seriously, a Mars light on a steam engine?

 

Yep, the Mars lights that I got from Detail Associate mentioned on the package that they were appropriate for both diesels and steam locomotives.  I don't use working headlights on my locos, as I don't do night running on my layout, and in my chosen late-'30s era, many railroads didn't use headlights unless it was night-time or inclement weather.

 

Only three or four of my steam locos will have Mars lights (non-working, of course).

 

Wayne

[gmpullman]

MisterBeasley

Seriously, a Mars light on a steam engine?

Nickel Plate 765 by Edmund, on Flickr

CB&Q, Espee, Milwaukee Road and I'm sure others had them, too. Possibly Gyralights. I know Burlington's were Mars.

CB&Q 4960 and 5632 -- 6 Photos by Marty Bernard, on Flickr

#261 steams southbound at Minnesota City by Keith Schmidt, on Flickr

Cheers, Ed

[MisterBeasley]

Seriously, a Mars light on a steam engine?

[hornblower]

You want to connect the headlight to the white and blue wires and the mars light to the blue and either the brown or green wires which are additional lighting functions.  Check your decoder manual to determine the correct CV settings to get the Mars effect from either the brown or green lighting outputs.

[wrench567]

  You are asking for two functions from one function output. The white wire is usually headlight. You can set the white wire for mars light but it will always be Mars light.

    Pete.

[BradenD]

I wired both my headlight and mars light to the white output of the TCS decoder. How do I get one of the lights to be be a headlight and the other to be a mars light. I originally had this working on this model (someone else had done the programming) but I was forced to reset the model completely and that undid the light programming. I know it is possible I'm just not sure how because at the moment I can only get them both to be headlights or both to be mars lights not independent from each other.