I recently purchased a C44-9W in UP (RTR). I wanted to add ditch lights to the locomotive. However I am unsure about how to wire them properly with the quick connect dcc board. I am planning on using Details West housings and miniatronics bulbs. Could someone tell me how to properly install the lights in the loco. Thanks in advance.
bump.
I just wired an Athearn Genesis 70M but i used a TCS A6X decoder. the two motor leads went to the right side of the decoder, the truck pick-up leads go to the corresponding four corners of the decoder. the headlights were 1.5 volt so I had to solder a wire to the 1.5 volt pad as a common instead of the blue 12v common. the 1.5 volt pad is located on the front right of the decoder and all bulbs had one lead soldered to it. the other headlight leads went to: the front headlights, to the front left terminal next to the track pick-up lead, the rear lights went to the back right terminal next to the back truck pickup leads and one lead from one ditch light went to one lead on the right side of the decoder and the other ditchl ight lead went to the next terminal on the right side so that a function can be used to set the ditchlight effects.
If you use the ready to run cable then use the green wire for one ditch light lead and the violet wire to the other ditchlight lead. Connect the other two wires to the blue common wire. They are the function wires. most ready to run locos are 1.5 volts now but just to be sure put in a 400-600 ohm resistor in series to the blue wire then to the bulb and back to the green or violet wire and test it on the track by pressing the function key. If the lights come on, then it’s a 12v system so you’ll want to keep the resistors in place, if the lights barely come on or not at all, pull out the resistors… it’s a 1.5 volt system. If you have a multimeter, measuring the output is even better than the bulb test that can also be used to find out the voltage. Just connect one lead to the blue wire and the other lead to the green or violet wire, press the funtion key, and check the voltage output.
The only wires that are on this board are the ones that connect the decoder to the board itself so I can’t run those wires to the lights. I would have assumed that there would have been a terminal on the board for the ditch lights much like the boards in the Genesis SD70M’s. My question is where can I wire the ditch lights to the board?