Need help as this is my first install of ditch lights. I hooked the green and violet wires up to each side of the LEDs and the other two wires are hooked to the resistor. When i hook it to the common blue(i think that is the one the arrow is pointing at) only one LED comes on. Ive went in an re did the CV’s to match the lights coming on when F1/F2 and F0 are on, but nothing happens can someone help or even give a diagram of where the wires go. Thanks
I’m still a DCC newbie so I will hold on the my guesses. LED’s have an orientation. If the one that doesn’t light is wired wrong, it will not light.
I think Henry might be right. Try reversing the leads to the LED that won’t come on.
Another possibility is that the LED is a dud. That is actually pretty rare, but I always test my LEDs before installing them. I also use a red Sharpie paint pen to mark the ‘+’ lead on the LED if it isn’t already coloured. That prevents crossed wires during hook-up.
Dave
Possibly some help here?
http://www.digitrax.com/tsd/KB907/ditch-lights-with-fx-decoders/
Hard to tell from your photo if that is actually the common (blue+) output.
It looks to me like the Blue + wire is coming out of the smaller harness on the left side of the decoder.
http://www.digitrax.com/static/apps/products/sound-decoders/sdxh166d/documents/SDXH166D.pdf
Scroll down to the diagram.
Hope the Digitrax diagram in the KB helps. On further study, It does look like the existing light board has the lighting + output where your arrow shows. The blue wire I saw is probably going to the capacitor.
I found a closer photo of the Athearn light board and that confirms the lighting + output you show as correct.
http://dieseldetailer.proboards.com/thread/14444/athearn-rtr-dcc-board
So, as Henry and Dave have pointed out, check your polarity, be sure you used the correct resistor and try again… It helps to have an LED checker, even a 9 volt battery with a 1k resistor so you can be sure which LED lead is the anode + or cathode —.
Good Luck, Ed
I’ve found I usually have to fiddle around with lighting effect settings to get ditch lights to work properly, as they usually don’t work right the first time. There may be an issue with how your green or purple wires are mapped to which function buttons, and what lighting effect is turned on for each. Try this - reconfigure the green and purple functions for simple on/off when using F0 - in other words, to mimic the headlight function. That way, you can at least confirm they’re working properly. If you can get both to light, it’s then a matter of playing around with the settings to get them to do what you want. If you’re using Decoder Pro, it’s a little bit easier to do this.
If one doesn’t light, pull it out and test the LED and check for proper polarity as others described above.
I see you’re using a Digitrax decoder. The one time I tried programming ditch lights on a Digitrax decoder (I usually use NCE) turned out to be a bit of a challenge because the way the functions are labeled/described in Decoder Pro is not exactly intuitive (to me, at least), and it took me a while to figure out how to select the right combination of settings to make them work correctly.
As others have suggested, at this point, I would test the LED to be sure that it is still lighting up. With a resistor on one wire, touch the ends of the two LED wires to the the two terminals of a small 9 volt battery. The LED should light. If not, try the two wires again by reversing the battery terminals. Take note of the + and - orientation. If the LED still does not light, you need a new LED.
Rich
As for programming, the Digitrax Decoder Manual (sometime also the sheet included with the decoders, but often not - that is just the basic install instructions) has the exact CV settings needed for ditch lights when one is connected to the green and the other to the violet wire.
–Randy
From what I’m seeing in your photo, you have the ditch lights connected to the wrong green and violet. They should be connected to the green and violet on the end that attaches to the mother board. See my post in the link that was provided earlier …
http://dieseldetailer.proboards.com/thread/14444/athearn-rtr-dcc-board
Mark.