Locomotive bulb life

[Vampire]

I've had some trouble of late with locomotive light bulbs going out. I have 2 Athearn Genesis SD70M's with at least 2 bulbs out (including ditch lights on both! [:0]) and earlier this year I had to replace the bulbs in a Genesis F7. These are the tiny "grain-o-rice" 1.5V bulbs used frequently for constant lighting. I'm wondering if the "good folks" at Athearn are just using cheap bulbs or could there be some other culprit. The loco's are only a couple of years old max and are run infrequently so I would not expect to have so many bulb failures. (I'm running in DC mode here, not DCC)

The thought of having to open these engines up once a year to replace bulbs, especially those ditch lights, doesn't fill me with joy. [V] Is anyone else having this problem and what did you do to correct it? Any advice you can give this newbie is appreciated.

[Pennsy58]

I have had alot of trouble with the mini lamps in athearn engines this year. An SD-50 and an SD-70. Both Genesis line models. Headlamps and ditch lamps failed after a very short time. Athearn did send me replacement bulbs free of charge but they also quickly burned out. Yes, replacing the ditch lights is quite a chore. I finally gave up and installed miniatronics bulbs. No trouble since. For reference, I am in a DCC operation and had placed higher than normal resistors in series to the bulbs. But, the first failures did happen in DC testing before conversion to DCC. If I can locate the item number for the bulbs I will post.

[BRAKIE]

Vamp,This is getting to become a habit with some of the newer Athearn and some of the Atlas locomotives.I had bulbs to burn out in 3 of my Atlas GP40s.and 1 of my C&O RS1s. Then one of my Athearn CF7s bulbs blew..For me I don't know if I will replace the bulbs or not..I *might* just paint the headlight lenses white and let it go at that...[:0][}:)] If I change them then I will use a different brand of bulb.

[AntonioFP45]

Hey guys,

Sorry to sound redundant but it seems that L.E.Ds are the way to go. A friend of mine has installed them on several of his locomotives, including a BLI GG1 and a new Atlas SD-35. The intensity is incredible and for me (I'm simple) the lack of heat blows my mind away. When matched correctly to the locomotives, L.E.Ds from what I understand, can last for years trouble free! They are also cheap.

They're now available in a wider variety of colors. "Gold White" and "Warm White" look the most prototypical. The gold white has an orange look to it when it's off, so warm white is a good option. If you can't find them locally, order them from www.LitchfieldStaton.com

Cheers!

[Eriediamond]

Hey folks, I'm in agreement with Antonio with your light bulb problem. What causes a light bulb to "blow" is heat. Heat is what causes it to light up, too much heat causes it to "blow" or burn out. I'll bet those light bulbs are stuck in a tight place so that the light only shines through the lens, which is what we want, but in so doing this there is little or no space for air to dissapate the heat produced, so the bulb "burns out" in a short period of time. Just a theory here.