Athearn Gp-15-1s HO Scale


L&N Castle

L&N Castle

Active Member
Evening all,and Happy Fourth of July to everyone. My question is this, I picked up on Saturday two brand new Athearn Genesis Frisco
GP -15-1's. what I need help with is how to power up the gyra light in the nose of the loco and the rotary beacon on top of the cab using the Digitrax DH 163 decoder and the 1.5 volt bulbs in the loco,without blowing said bulbs. Any and all suggestions are welcome, please help. William. A wiring diagram would be welcome also. William.
 
Bill are you using the 9 pin JST plug or the 8 pin plug, or replacing the factory lightboard? If you use the 9 pin JST plug it should just e a matter of programming your effects. The factory board will have the necessary resistors and diodes for the bulbs to work properly. If you don't, the bulbs are 1.5 volts and you should use a 1k ohm 1/4 watt resistor in each function lead.
 
Morning Alan. What I have is a pair of DCC ready engines, and the factory board has both a wire harness and a eight pin plug port. I would like to use a Digitrax DH -163 decoder,and power both strobe light and gyralight, do you think I could plug my decoder into the existing harness that comes on the board,and somehow tie both into the 163 decoder?
 
Hey Alan,I had planned to use the eight pin port on the factory installed board,also was thinking of using or at least trying one of the new Tsunami Mobile decoders to see if that might work. Aside from this minor hiccup,the locomotives are AWESOME. I'll try to post some pics soon. Thank you for your help,Alan, I need all the help I can get.:rolleyes::D. Talk to you later. William.
 
No sweat Bill. If you use the 8 pin plug, you'll have to run the green wire to the mars light and the brown (or is it purple?) to the beacon, with a 1000 ohm 1/4 watt resistor in each wire, and the other bulb leads to the blue wire. I'd recommend trying the 9 pin JST plug. It should enable the decoder to power the lamps through the Athearn light board, and all you have to do is program which function you want. If you use a Tsunami, get the Genesis version. The light outputs are already regulated to 1.5 volts, so no resistors are necessary. they'll connect straignt to the decoder and you program the functions you want. I did this with my FP-7. Took about an hour. Still in the Wrecking Crew? Plenty of wire nuts there who can help you if you need help.

Cheers!
 
Well, let's see...my information may be out of date but:

Broadway, Beaty, Winston Greaves, come to mind, then there's yourself, Heinz, Paul Dawkins...should I go on? Not sure about the newer guys. Anyways, Bill can handle this. It ain't rocket science. Oops...lunch is over...back to work!
 
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If your GP15 is like the ones we got today, then the nose light isn't a light, but a casting. You'd have to drill it out and add a bulb.

As for the existing board, where does the beacon light wires go to now? I didn't look at that today as I was working on something else.
 
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