I am in need of replacing the headlight (LED) in my Spectrum 4-6-0 loco. I removed the front smokebox and can see the end of the LED but don’t know the best way to get it out. I have the exploded view of all the parts but they aren’t the easiest to read. Has anyone done this and can explain how to get the LED out? I am afraid it may involve removing the motor and drive belt which I really don’t want to get into now!
-Bob
PS: This is the same loco that I just smoked a decoder during installation and then the LED’s? What a week!
Ripped out the PC board. I hardwired a Tsunami Micro a few years ago. Included a 750 ohm resistor for the light. Mine is the low driver version which has a small tender like the Spectrum 4-4-0.
The high driver one has a larger tender that a decoder can be plugged into.
Thanks for the info and photos. I didn’t think removing the boiler would be so easy, but it looks like it is. I also took the PC light board out but forgot to put in resistors; hence a blown LED headlight. I replaced the tender light with a 12 volt warm white 3mm LED and it works great (I use the 12v ones where ever I can. You are correct about the tender on the high driver one (mine is NYC) and there is plenty of room for a sound decoder and speaker which I had originally planned to do. I also have a low driver Southern 4-6-0 which has the low tender but mine came with DCC in it. Great locos though!
I replaced the LED with a 12v 3mm warm white (the original was also 3mm) but it still doesn’t work. It wasn’t too difficult to get to it since Rich showed me how. I am going to remap the lights using the green and violet wires since I believe the white and yellow ones are fried. I have been researching this on the Digitrax website and apparently this is very doable since I have 6 functions on the DH163. Hopefully these other functions are still operable. Will keep you all posted on my progress.
BTW: I am sending my first DH163 back under warranty. It is totally fried.
You are aware that polarity matters when it comes to LEDS?? If you haven’t already, flip the the polarity of the leads and see if it works. Next would be to put a meter on the leads and see if they are still good.
I did reverse the leads on the LED and still no light. I am pretty sure the function for the headlight is fried and will have to rewire it to the green or violet wire and then remap it to work with those functions. The rear light works but all the time, both directions, F0 on or off? Hope I can get all this to come together. I don’t have time right now to attack this (company coming and ?? ) and IIRC I cut those wires short when installing the decoder so I don’t have a lot of wire to solder to? I could use another 9 pin connector with full lenght wires if I have to. Thanks for the comments. Every little bit helps, sometimes just to jog my memory.
Just to update this issue; I rewired the yellow and white wires to the green and violet ones on the decoder and remapped the functions in Decoder Pro. Everything works great now. Thanks to all who gave support and info.
-Bob
PS: I did cut the green wire to about 1/8" from the 9-pin plug, but it was enought to solder it.
