NCE D13SRJ and Stock Athearn Boards


NWCanuck

NWCanuck

Tip&Ring
I need some help here from someone who knows what they are doing.:confused: I am using an NCE D13SRJ 9 pin decoder on a stock Athearn SW1500 board. I have the track power soldered back onto the Athearn Board and the decoder is setup using JMRI to my road number address. I also setup the lighting out put to "LED and limiting resistor" so the signal should be correct. The locomotive is functioning correctly and everything is good. My issue is that I have converted to LED's and the two center posts on the left labeled "FOR_P and FOR_N" and the posts on the right side labeled "FOP_P and FOP_N" were used for the incandescent bulbs. Those bulbs still work on those posts but the LED's don't.

I can get the LED's to work if I touch them to "FOP_P and F1 (which is a circular hole on the same end of the board). NCE also calls for a 1k Ohm resistor but I am thinking this F1 terminal is voltage regulated because the only way I can get the LED to light is to touch the F1 and FOP_P terminals without a resistor. I guess I just need confirmation from someone who has a clue because the Athearn board pinout is confusing me???

The board in question:

View attachment 26560

The LED's I am using courtesy of Mark

View attachment 26561

Thanks guys.:D
 
I haven't wired LEDs to a stock Athearn board, but the first thing I check is to make sure you are wiring the cathode (positive) to the right lead. If reversed, it won't work.

However, what you may have instead is that your commons (your cathode leads) should go to the F1 pad. The voltage and current from the light pads on the Athearn board may not be enough to light the LED.
 
Thanks for the response Trey. I do get the LEDs to light when I run them between F1 and FOP_P and after scouring the web I did find a comment on Trainorders (but you have to pay to join and see the article:rolleyes:) that said the Athearn light board does offer built in resistors for drop in decoders. I guess my problem is that I don't know what any of the other acronyms on the light board mean? There doesn't seem to be any documentation from Athearn that I can find for the board.

I guess I could just scrap the light board and hardwire the decoder but the light board and decoder setup just fits nicely under the shell and the light board seems to offer built in resistors.
 
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One problem with the Athearn boards that I know of is that there are at least 3 different versions of them. It makes it hard for there to be any documentation, I know.
 
I recently converted some of my Athearn RTRs to LEDs. I found that I couldnt get directional lighting by hooking the LEDs with resistors through the stock lightboard.

The solution I came up with is to separate the white wire (headlight) and yellow wire (backup light) and the blue common wire from the back of the 9pin JST plug (cut the wires at the base of the lightboard) and then wire in your cathodes with 1000ohm 1/4v resistors to the white and yellow wires respectively and the anode to the blue common wire.

Worked for me.

Take care,

Brad
 
ICG/SOU said:
Is that 1k Ohm 1/4 watt?
Click to expand...

Yes, thats correct, sorry about the typo.

Also, you can cut hook up your operating ditch lights the same way. Just separate your purple and green wires from the light board (leave connected to the 9 pin harness) and wire your cathodes with 1/4 watt 1000 ohm resistors to those function leads and your anodes to the blue common. Then just program them to flash/not flash.
 
bigB said:
I recently converted some of my Athearn RTRs to LEDs. I found that I couldnt get directional lighting by hooking the LEDs with resistors through the stock lightboard.

The solution I came up with is to separate the white wire (headlight) and yellow wire (backup light) and the blue common wire from the back of the 9pin JST plug (cut the wires at the base of the lightboard) and then wire in your cathodes with 1000ohm 1/4v resistors to the white and yellow wires respectively and the anode to the blue common wire.
Click to expand...

Great idea Brad and thanks. Bypassing the Athearn board and and wiring the lights directly off of the harness will still keep the rest of the wires to the track pickups nice and neat which is what I was going for.
 
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