I would like to put working ditch lights on my GP-38 and 40 Atlas DCC units. Has anyone done it and what parts / instructions can you provide…
Thanks…JZ in CT
This one’s not too tough. The ditch light casting themselves are available from Details West, they have a half dozen or so different types. You’ll need some micro bulbs from Miniatronics.
There are no instructions as such, although there have been some how-to articles in the hobby press in the past. Details West shows where to mount them, but nothing on lighting them up. I can give you some general guidelines.
I happen to have a partially disassembled Atlas GP-38 on hand here and looking it over I can see there will definitely be some chassis grinding involved to make room for the wiring. The chassis will have to be fully disassembled to avoid getting metal in the drive components.
You’ll need a Dremel and some cut-off discs to grind a groove in the metal on both sides of the coupler mounting pad. (click on pic to make it really big)
The depth of the groove depends on where you mount the ditch light, but it does have to be deep and wide enough to pass the two wires thru. Warning! Wear eye protection! You might also want to wear a work glove to hold the frame as it will get pretty hot.
If you’re not following a prototype, I would recommend mounting the ditchlight towards the top of the front of the pilot. If you choose the walkway (top-mounted) then you’ll have to carefully remove the MU stand without damaging the little stud next to it which is used for attaching the front handrail. Either way you’ll have to line up the groove and the pass-thru hole. If you choose top-mounted, the pass-through hole will have to be directly behind the ditch light, so when cutting the groove make allowance for the 90 degree bend in the wires.
Run the wires back to circuit board on each side with truck wires. You can hook them up with the headlight, or if you have DCC hook them occording to their instructions.
That’s about it. If you have any questions, post back here or PM me.
Here’s a picture of a Norfolk Southern Dash8-40C that I just put ditch lights on a couple of weeks ago.
I used 2 - 1.5volt Miniatronics Incandecent Bulbs with 2 -370 ohm resistors one for each bulb, a ditch light lens cover from Detail Associates drilled out with a Kadee 2-56 screw drill bit in a pin vise and a few small rectangular pieces of .01 Evergreen Sheet Styrene cut to fit the sides and the top of the ditch light lens to hide the back of the bulbs.
I first drilled the wire holes at about a 30 degree angle thru the platform so the wires would be hidden under the locomotive body and then I took a rotory tool and cut two slots in the metal frame so the wires had an un-instructed path thru the locomotive shell and frameto the decoder without pinching the wires between the locomotive shell and the frame.
I then glued the bulbs into the lenses with clear bathroom silicone sealant and then soldered on the resistors and wired it to the decoder. Then I glued the lenses to the platform with CA glue and cut a piece of .01 styrene to fit to the sides and the tops of the lenses to hide the backs of the bulbs. I then painted it with Floquil Engine Black after the glue dried. It took about four hours to complete the project.