Having a problem with LEDs on my Stewart VO-660

[rrinker]

You have DCC in it? I have a DS4-4-1000 which I'm pretty sure has the exact same circuit board. I didn't just plug in my decoder - I traced the wiring and found it was some sort of half-wave power to the LEDs via the diode bridge. So I stripped off the bridge rectifier and the stock resistors and put in 1K resistors. I also pulled the 8 pin socket and soldered the decoder wires in those hole (I used a TCS T-1 so there's stillt he 9-pin JST plug to unplug the decoder of needed), the only difference being the blue decoder wire went to the terminal makred with a + int he lower right of the board, previously occupied by one leg of the bridge rectifier. I have a picture but I haven't posted it anywhere.

--Randy

[tstage]

I bought a Stewart Baldwin VO-660 switcher a few months ago and have been VERY happy with it...EXCEPT for one thing: The LED headlights keep burning out prematurely.

The front LED headlight burned out last month and now the back one gave up the ghost last night. The (Internet) dealer was nice enough to send me a replacement -no charge. (Even pre-bent it so that it would fit right into the LED clip. [:)]) The resistors are built right into the circuit board.

I'm guessing that this is perhaps just a bad lot of LEDs the dealer had. I'll be letting him know of the problem. Could something else be causing these LED to die prematurely? BTW, I am running these on DCC.

Anyhow, thanks for your input.

Tom