Walthers lighting kit Dc convert to DCC?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I recently picked up a Walthers Passanger car lighting kit thinking it would work on DCC well I just found out its for dc all sales are finallyy I am curious is here a way to convert this kit to run on DCC?

2

Is it the Drop in kit for the Budd/Pullman cars?

James

3

I put my DC lights from Walthers lights in several of my passenger cars and they work fine on my DCC layout… Then I bought a set of DCC lights from Walthers. I can’t tell the difference. So put your in the cars and run them. They should work

4

James,
yes it is the drop in type for the budd pullmamn car. And 2Torge you dint blow out the lights? I bet the volt regulator has something to do with that.

5

If you want to run the lighting kit off DCC.

Cut the traces frim the left hand and right hand power pickups. Take an old DCC decoder. (IF you are keeping up wiht all the rage of Sound and stuff these days)

Solder the appropriet leads to the power pick up points. and solder the blue wire, and wone of the headlight leads to the light circut. And now you will have a DCC controllable Light board.

James

6

Sure did not blow the lights. They have been running for over 1 year.
2Torge

7

The DC lighting kit from Walthers has all the 5 volt lamps wired in parallel; a 5 volt regulator and a hold capacitor are wired in ahead of them. To make this kit the same as the DCC version, unsolder the wires, the regulator and the capacitor , and rewire the lamps in series (in a chain) the ends of the chain go to the decoder’s output. Leave the regulator and capacitor out of this method. This will not only match the light output of the DCC version (should you buy them in the future) but it reduces the total current of the assembly, allowing you to use accessory function decoders such as the Digitrax TL-1. The total output of the DC lighting kit exceeds the TL-1’ s rated output, as well as some other decoders. Also, if you have 8 or more cars the series method will reduce to total current draw of your train. This is helpful for those of you owning a Digitrax Zephyr, or a similar offering from NCE , MRC or Bachmann since the total current of starter sets is typically one to two amperes. If necessary I may be able to post a close-up photo of the DCC wiring layout on the kit’s PC board as a guide.