wiring ditchlights on an Athearn C44-9W...

[wongsing]

I am by no means an electrical expert, however, I do realize something is quite wrong here...On one of my Athearn dash 9's I have just installed some ditchlights. I do not remember the electrical information about them but they look very similar to the ones that come stock on Athearn RTR locos already. Just for temporary (until I get decoders for the two I have) I wired them into the headlight leads. When I did though, the loco took a considerable amount of throttle to light the headlights and ditchlights up...Of course, because they are sharing a power source. I know however, that there has to be a way to hook up some ditchlights to SOMETHING on the circuit board to not overload it...Right? At any rate, even after I get a decoder, how would I get the ditchlights to work and be bright as are the headlights? Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question...Building locomotives and rolling stock, thats my business...Making them light up....ermmmm....not so much! LOL!

-Rich

 

[diburning]

FYI, NONE of the Athearn RTR locos have ditch lights. Ditch lights only availible on Genesis

The headlight leads are your only choice as your bulbs are probably not track voltage and the resistors on the circuit board drop the track voltage to 1.5 volts for the bulbs

 

[UP2CSX]

The combination of the three bulbs will automatically raise your starting voltage in DC, so the bulbs aren't going to light until you overcome this increase in starting voltage. I don't think there's anything you can do about this in DC with a standard powerpack, since most don't supply more than about 1.5 amps, and the motor and lights are sucking up almost all that power.