Has anybody used the two peace ditch light housing that came with the first run SD70M,SD75I Athearn Genesis locomotives,can they work and if so how did you get them to work,post photos of them if possible,Thanks.
Don’t feel bad if you are having difficulty. Very difficult to install. I gave up. The problem for me was bending the wires and fitting them through the holes provided. Wish I could help you…
John Timm
I had someone more experinced install mine, but as you can see there more yellow than the white from the headlight. they don’t match and they look bad imho.
Probably around 7 years ago I got two SD75I’s from the first run and had someone else from my club install them. I was very new to the hobby and didn’t want to wreck them.
I have an old SD75M and had to install them myself. It’s easiest if you remove the walkway from the chassis, separate from the body. It takes some odd angling to get them in there, but it’s do-able. The best way is to run the wires through the top of the anticlimber, through the pilot holes, and then to pull them all the way through until the light bulbs reach the top of the antclimber. Then assemble the ditch light housings around them.
I would recommend replacing the bulbs with Miniatronics 1.5mm bulbs right away, because the stock Athearns have very thick wires and are prone to burning out quickly. With only a few hours run time at the most, 5 of the 6 original bulbs burned out, and it’s not fun replacing them.
I recently found a box with all those parts in it when reorganizing some older projects. Mine were the cast in black ones from around 1999ish. Although I had not built them yet, it looked straight forward. However, now it would be really easy to mount a micro led in there & then put the halves together & add a lens into the bucket. It does have room for either version, now with super micro LED’s.
Sounds good fellow Model Railroaders,will try and see what i can do,Thanks.
I consider myself fairly decent at soldering. But I have never soldered micro LEDS. Not sure I want to try.
When it comes to soldering those, I changed my technique, I used to be old school & want to do one joint at a time, well, no longer. I double stick tape the LED down & then tin it by adding just a little new solder to the iron & then just dipping the tip on the LED on one smooth motion. Then after the wires are scraped & tinned I orient them the distance of the LED pads, then I line it up & with just a little fresh solder (just like before) dip the tip on there again. Sometimes I get a one hitter, or one I want to fix, but it usually works for me. It also keeps from overheating the LED. With time I’m getting better at it, & don’t fear it anymore…