Hi all, for christmas i got a new TCS WOW 121 Diesel SDecoder for Atlas RS1. can’t believe it worked!
The speaker. Install was the worst part. The enclosure I got did not fit in the shell. I had to sand down the sides and cut off the extensions to make something like the white enclosure below.
I had the wiring diagram but the length of wires is a learning curve.
I don’t have lights yet because I didn’t have the LED’s. TCS says the resistance is built into the board.
Is the tinkering with the speaker enclosure normal?
The usual DCC shops carry 3mm 12 v leds. Tonys’ Streamline Backshop and Litchfield Station, if you only need a couple. If you want a bunch, Ebay Some come with resistors, which are too small 470 ohms. Ebay has resistors too.
2003? That’s a late model one. The OLD ones go back way more than that, the Kato made ones have the plastic “circuit board” and one single light bulb sitting in the middle. No LEDs. Not even directional lighting.
I guess you missed the post where I mentioend I have like a half dozen of these in Undec awaiting painting and decoder installs - RS3’s for me rather than RS1s, but similar vintage. Because Reading had more RS3’s than any other model first gen loco, and RS3’s are my favorite diesel of all time. So my model railroad will have more of them than any other first gen power. That’s 6 of those, plus 2 Athearns and 2 MDCs. And as Bowser is now redoing various phases using the old Stewart tooling - I’ll likely get a few of those too. [:D]
ANY LED that says it’s a “12V LED” has a resistor - there is no such thing as a 12V LED. it’s just an LED with the correct resistor for 12V already installed.
I assume you also have the AK-MB1, since the WOW121 is a 21 pin decoder and thoose old locos have no board of any sort, let alone a modern 21 pin connector. If so - you just need plain LEDs. The instructions say the motherboard already has resistors.
I think Randy answered that in his first paragraph. Since the motherboard comes with resistors, all you need is a 1.5 3V LED without the added in-line resistor. If you don’t have one handy just carefully remove the heat shrink and unsolder the in-line resistor of one of the LEDs you purchased. Once the resistor is removed: Slide on some new heat shrink and resolder the 22ga wire back onto the LED pin.
According to this TCS webpage, the motherboard does come with built-in resistors. So you’ll need to remove the in-line resistor for your 12V LEDs to make them 1.5 3V.
You need just plain LEDs. Not ones that mention anything about voltage in the item description white LEDs are usualy about 3.5V, but the voltage isn;t want matters anyway, it’s the current. When the decoder or motherboard says that LED resistance is built in, you just hook plain ordinary LEDs to it.
Save those 12V LEDs you bought for structure lighting, because the resistor is more likely than not too small for use on DCC decoders (probably ok not to blow them up, but VERY bright). For hooking LEDs to decoders that do NOT have built in current limiting for them, you want nothing less than a 1K resistor, and in many cases an even higher value will be needed to get a decent light output that’s not like looking into the sun.
