YES then DOH

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blvdbuzzard

Member
I picked up a garage sale special. It is an athearn F59phi with (6) cars. All have the original boxes and looked like they had never been run. The engine did not work. I paid $10.00 for the engine and $5.00 for each car. I also picked up a box with parts and assorted junk for $15.00

Well I get it home and I tear into it. When I take the shell off, I see (3) wire's sticking up. One is the frame ground, second is the under side motor lead, the third is soldered onto the top of the motor. In the shell laying loose was the DCC ready board. It looked like it was in bad shape.

I checked it out and it looks like it had not been run. No dirt, grime, gunk or junk. So I stopped by the LHS and ordered a replacement DCC ready board. It came in today. I was out working on it. I replaced the board and hooked it up and got the wires in the right place. Had to make new leads from the trucks to the board.

I plugged it into DC and she rolls back and forth. So I now know she works. In the box of junk and yes most of it is junk and all ready in the recycling or trash. There were (3) MRC AD370 sound decoders with speakers. They came with the 8 pin plug.

I plug one in. I have an older Prodigy advance. It has not been out of the box for what, 8 or more years? When it was new I opened it and looked at it then put it back in the box. So I get it all hooked up. Reading the directions I setup a program track.

When I was trying to figure out how to program it, I could hear sort of beeping sounds from the speaker, so something was working. I can read the chip or write to the chip, yet nothing moves. No sounds no nothing. After more reading and nothing to show for it. I just moved the power leads to the main track in the Prodigy base.

Turned it on and the locomotive came to life. She would growl, then start to move forward or backward. She was alive and I was running my first train in 10 years and my first DCC train with sound :)

Well I was doing so well I figured I would hook up the lights. This is where the DOH comes in. You know those little bulbs glow very bright for 1/2 a second!!!

So, now I need new bulbs. They blew real fast. I am wondering if they would have been on the DCC ready board, if they would not have blown?

So, do I get replacement bulbs or get LEDS? How do I wire them to the DCC ready board?

I did find the bell, short horn and long horn. It may not be the best sounding decoder out there, but she sounds real good to me. :)


Buzz.
 
Hi blvdbuzzard,

I don't know why the lights would blow if they were connected correctly, as the dcc board has resistors on it so that will not happen.
The front lights go to the two inside connectors on the front of the board, the outside connectors one goes to the chassis and the other to the truck. On the back of the board the two inside connectors go to the rear lights and the outer one goes to the truck with the other one not used as the front one is connected to the chassis.
You can get the bulbs from miniatronics, from memory they are 1.2mm bulbs, or you can use leds with a 470ohm resistor installed. Check out this sight:

http://www.tcsdcc.com/public_html/C...59PHI_DCC_Ready/Athearn_F59PHI_DCC_Ready.html
 
Well, now you know why the decoder was not hooked up. The guy that had it before had probably read that the bulbs in the engine are 1.5 volt, and would need resistors added so they wouldn't blow. That's the reason I never connect a decoder to the 8 pin connector on an Athearn board, it bypasses the board and goes direct to everything, including the lights--at 12 volts. If you connect to the 9 pin plug, that is supposed to use the board's outputs, which would be 1.5 volts on the bulbs.
Now that it's hooked up, and the bulbs are blown, you can get 12 volt bulbs to replace the 1.5 volt bulbs. I have not seen 12 volt LEDs.
 


In all I had read about this, it never said the 8 pin plug would do that. Of course I did not break out the meter first. Looks like i will be getting new lights to finish this up. Live, learn, let the magic smoke out, they will make more.

I watched a few yt videos on the blue box decoder installs. So I jumped in and put one of the AD370's in my old, old blue box. Once I fixed the frame ground, it works. Now just need to get a smaller or oval speaker or just run it without sound.


Buzz.
 
blvdbuzzard said:
In all I had read about this, it never said the 8 pin plug would do that. Of course I did not break out the meter first. Looks like i will be getting new lights to finish this up. Live, learn, let the magic smoke out, they will make more.

I watched a few yt videos on the blue box decoder installs. So I jumped in and put one of the AD370's in my old, old blue box. Once I fixed the frame ground, it works. Now just need to get a smaller or oval speaker or just run it without sound.


Buzz.
Click to expand...
I usually put the speaker inside the cab roof. It's a larger area, and a larger speaker, at least in theory, means more and better sound. I put a plug n play Tsunami in an Athearn C44-9W (removed the 8 pin pigtail, and hooked up to the 9 pin connector on the board), and mounted the speaker on the inner cab roof.
 
Well I have this old MRC sound decoder all installed and shell is in place. I am guessing that the newer ones are a little smaller then this one. This decoder's plug where it should plug into the 8 pin JST connector has 9 pins so it sits to one side by a single pin? That is why I went with the 8 pins on the circuit board.

To get everything to fit, I ended up cutting the rear truck pick up down and soldering a wire to it. That gave me enough room to mount the speaker right over the open fan grill.

In all of my trying to get it to fit, I broke 4 wires and had to solder them back on, blew the (5) light bulbs, broke a piece of detail off one truck, broke the plastic chain on the rear steps, burned my finger, said all sorts of nice words, had a lot of fun, really enjoyed it when it rolled down the track making noise!!!!

I will pick up the new light bulbs and work on them this week. I need to dig out my multi meter to see what voltage is where. I would like to get the two to flash while the other two are on solid.



Buzz.
 
After I read what I typed, it did not sound right. SO I went out and checked. The old MRC decoders have a 10 wire JST plug not 9. So, do they work with the 9 pin or am I stuck with the 8 pin?

Buzz.
 
I have restored it to the way it was when I bought it. The (4) lights up front come on when it goes forward and the single light comes on when I back up. it has the decoder and speaker all installed and runs very well. Now I just need to pick up the resistors to hook up the ditch lights.

I did, for a short time, install a NCE decoder. It does run better with the NCE in then the old MRC. Motor is quieter, smoother at low speeds. I took it out because it does not have sound. So, it looks like I have a nice decoder plus (2) more older MRC decoders.

I was going to put them in my old blue box GP38's but I have yet to figure out how to mount a speaker in them without a whole lot of work so I will pick up some 2 function decoders for them and use the sound and better decoders in something else. Give me a reason to pick up more motive power :)

Buzz.
 
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