Mars light for Proto 2000 PA

[Anonymous]

This is just a little information for those interested in a very realistic Mars light in a DCC controlled Proto 2000 PA.

I was quite disappointed in the stock so-called "Mars" light that Life Like supplies with their locomotives. It's basically just a dual filament blinking lamp and looks far from realistic. I installed a Digitrax DH163D decoder, scrapping the circuit board that comes with the loco in the process. I used a piece of .030" styrene to mount in the same location that the circuit board used to occupy, which allowed me something to mount the decoder to. I replaced the standard headlight bulb with a 12 volt bulb and wired it into F0. Then for the Mars light, I was able to use the bulb supplied with the loco wired to F1. There are 3 leads on the bulb red, white, and blue. Connect the blue lead to the common fucntion lead on the decoder (which is blue also). I then connected the white and red wire together and onto the F1 wire of the decoder. Using both of the filaments allows the bulb to be quite bright. Just make sure the bulb is mounted so that the filaments are on a horizontal plane for the best realistic effects.

I did this mainly as an experiment. I am quite pleased at the effects now and am going to keep it as is (instead of my original plan to replace the stock Mars light with a single filament one). I used the CV value that Digitrax recommended in the manual (CV51 controls F1 and I used a value of 34 decimal).

The effects must be seen to be believed. I hope this helps anyone interested in modeling a realistic Mars light in their locomotives.

Joe Maxey