I know paople have already explained a little to me about light installation for my decoder I installed in an athearn BB loco. Can someone tell me how to connect the front light bulb to what wires? I am having some trouble with this.
Thanks, Smitty
Headlights connect to the white and blue decoder wires. On an Athearn, this means that the bulb must be isolated from the mounting bracket to which it is attached. It would be easier to substitute a different bulb with wires or to use an LED.
I use 14 Volt bulbs with 10 inch wire leads that I purchased from All Electronics in Van Nuys, California, or Golden Glow LEDs purchased from Litchield Station in Glendale, Arizona. The bulbs can be used as direct replacements held in place with Goop. LEDs require a 1K Ohm resistor.
http://www.allelectronics.com/ catalog number LP-6 are the incandescent bulbs.
http://litchfieldstation.com/xcart/product.php?productid=290003&cat=22&page=2 is Litchfield Station for the LEDs.
I use the minitronics 1.5 volt bulbs with a 550 ohm resistor in series between the decoder and the bulb. The bulbs that come with the BB athearn locomotives are just too big and bulky for DCC use and they make the entire cab glow with an unnatural light. What i do is remove the clear plastic light insert from the front and rear headlamps, drill them out with a small bit that matches the size of the 1.5 bulbs, and glue in the 1.5 bulbs into the headlamp sockets using clear silicone caulk. Once they dry overnight, I’ll then take one of the two leads of the front headlight bulbs and one of the two leads from the rear headlight bulbs and solder them to the blue wire on the decoder. Then i’ll take the other remaining leads from the front headlight bulbs solder them to one end of the resistor and then solder the other end of the resistor to the white lead of the decoder and then do the same for remaining leads of the rear bulbs and solder them to the yellow decoder lead. The 1.5volt bulbs look fantastic and they don’t light up the cab as bright as day.
Here’s an example of them. The Geep 9 is a BB athearn locomotive.
chuck