Well, I finally met my match with a decoder. I have an Athearn Genesis 70 MAC and after wiring it to the 1.5v side of a TCS A6X decoder, the ditch lights didn't work. My first thought was that I burned them out but found that I mis-wired the lights, so I took it all apart and will try again.
The lights tested OK when I connected them individually to a 1.5 volt power source so it was a wiring problem. I'm taking a break right now after getting the lights into managable bundles, will begin the soldering process again in a few minutes.
While i was disassembling the mess I made, it occured to me that i really don't know how the ditch light feature is going to work. I'm going to use the decoder's 1.5 volt common pad for the ditch lights using the green and purple wires for each individual ditch light, and the 12v side for the F0 forward and reverse lighting with the appropriate resistors. but my question is: How will I set up the ditch lights using decoderpro to program them so that they will burn constantly in the forward direction, flash when coming up to a highway crossing, and then turn off the flash feature again and back to constant lights once they go thru the crossing? Your help will be appreciated ...chuck
Read the documentation that comes with the A6X decoder -- it explains which CVs to program for ditch lights, and which function key will make them flash. You can even adjust the time that they remain flashing before reverting to the constant on state.
Once you're sure you have the ditch lights wired properly with one lead to the appropriate solder pad, refer to paragraph 12 at the bottom of page 4, or paragraph 15 on the bottom of page 5 of the instructions, to program the ditch lights. The ditch lights will be activated with the function key that blows the horn or whistle on a sound decoder.
If the decoder definition is in DecoderPro, it should be rather straightforward to set up. If it's not detected by DecoderPro, check to see if someone has created a definition file for the A6X - it should be in there, especially with 1.7.5.
The key to flashing ditch lights is the concept of phase - some decoders refer to it as A and B, TCS just shows it in their table as "ditch light (left or right)" and " ditch light (other side)" TO flash alternately, one light has to be on, and the other off. Thus you need two functions, one for eachbulb. And one has to be congiured for one phase, and the other for the other phase. The CV values for ditch lights in forward only, for example, would be 10 and 11. One function has to be set to 10,t e other to 11, or they won't alternately blink.
And do a neater soldering job then Terry did in the latest MR I DO hope those protruding leads were trimmed off. And the white wire to the low voltage pad is NEARLY touching the adjacent trace - that could be very bad.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Chuck,
I put an A6X in a Genesis SD70 with ditch lights and programmed it with DecoderPro. Here's how I did it. Maybe this will be of some help:
I wired ALL the light commons to the 1.5v pad, although resistors are certainly an option. Doesn't affect the programming either way.
One ditch light was wired to the "pink" pad and the other to the "brown" pad.
Using the A6X decoder selection and Comprehensive programmer in PanelPro, I selected the "Lights" tab.
On that tab, I set the "brown wire effect" to Ditch Light A and the pink to Ditch Light B. Both were also set to "Function on running forward".
Also, Ditch Light Blink Holdover Time was left at 64 and Ditch Light Blink Rate was set to 2.
Then, on the Function Map tab, I set both the Brown and Pink to be turned on by F3, and the "Ditch" to F2. This causes F3 to turn them both on until you hit F2, which causes them to alternately flash for about five and a half seconds (governed by the holdover time) before returning to both on.
Hopefully this will get you started. Post back with any questions you may have.
Steve