I was told that I need to install resistors inline with light bulbs when installing a Digitrax DH163AO in a athearn genesis SD70I. I installed a 330ohm 1/2watt resistor 1 for the front lights, and 1 for the rear lights. The problem is the front lights work fine, but the rear lights work for about 10-15sec then they blow out! The front lights continue to work just fine. Any Ideas?
Use a resistor with a higher ohm rating. Try 560 or even 1000 ohms, and that should solve your problem.
Ya know, that matches a lot of people’s experiences with the bulbs Athearn supplies. I’ve had the same problem with the bulbs in Athearn’s Genesis F units, using Digitrax, NCE and TCS decoders.
The bulbs Athearn uses in these locomotives are, to me, the weakest part of the model- they’re wildly inconsistent in their electrical characteristics. For this reason, one of the first things I do with an Athearn locomotive when I install a decoder is replace its bulbs with Miniatronics bulbs with appropriate resistors or a golden white LED and resistor. Once I’ve done that, I haven’t had a light fail in a couple hundred hours of use.
Currently, my combinations of choice are the Miniatronics 1.5v, 15ma bulb with an 820 Ohm 1/4 watt resistor, and the Golden White LED that Richmond Controls sells, coupled to about 530 Ohms-worth of 1/4 watt resistors.
Athearn is using 12 volt bubs.
DCC uses 14 volts.
WHEN Athearn goes to DCC, they’ll learn
Actually the Genesis SD70/75 uses 1.5v bulbs. The Miniatronics 1.5v bulbs are about the same size and better quality. The Athearn bulbs seem to need more resistance than the Miniatronics ones. I have one SD70 and I think I used 1000 ohm resistors on it.
I had a similar experience with a P2K GP30. I removed the circuit board from it and connected the wires directly to the pickup feeds. The light bulbs blew the first time I put power to it. I put two 12 volt bulbs and have been cruisin’ with light ever since.