Question about ditching lights and Athearn RTR

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F

fcsflyboy

student pilot
I have 2 Athearn Amtrak P42DC's that came DCC ready for any 9 pin decoder. I have installed TMC decoders in them and I would like to super detailthem and was wondering about adding ditch lights as well as the red lights up front for when traveling in reverse. Is what I want to do even possible with the factory installed harness or do I need to rewire the whole thing? Also what type of lights would be suggested to use to add for ditching lights and what have you and if there are any videos or anything on how to properly wire the lights into place.

Thanks,
-Andrew
 
OK for what you want you will want a 6 function decoder. You will need to wire it up as follows.

Func 0f Front Headlight White wire
Function 0R Rear Headlight Yellow Wire
Function 2 Right Ditch Light Green Wire
Function 3 Left Ditch Light Purple Wire
Function 4 Front Red Markers
Function 5 Rear Red Markers

If you don’t do rear marker lights then you can go with a 5 function decoder and maybe still keep the plug even though I would recommend hardwiring the decoder anyways. Now you can use 1.5v bulbs and use the proper resistors depending on the bulbs you use or you can do the LED route which maintenance wise is a better solution even though the lights won’t look like real bulbs. I have chosen the LED route on my locos due to the fact that when 1 bulb burns out you will most likely break something trying to replace it. What you want is similar to my CR locos I do as they also have Red markers on both ends.

I still have to get a fleet of P40's and P42's eventually but I model mainly in the F40PH era so the P40's were new and they also had strobe lights adding 2 more functions! And if you think thats bad I am eventually going to work on a fleet of Several AEM-7 Electric locos and if I add Ditch lights to them then I am looking at a total of 12 functions per loco! LOL

I have done various installs and you can see them here

http://mgwsy.smugmug.com/ModelTrains-2

If you need some help let me know.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi Andrew,

If you want to know how to add the ditch lights and red reversing lights, go to youtube and watch the following videos, this guy has a great video on installing a qsi revolution decoder with ditch and reversing lights, this is what taught me how to go about it.
There are 6 parts A to F, My CSX/NS HO Railroad Part 26A "Installing a sound decoder in an Athearn AMD-103/P42" ,
This is the first part:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnF5aWuwZxU

Then just do a search for My CSX/NS HO Railroad Part 26B
then C D E F

Don't take notice of the sound side of things if you are not going to install a sound decoder. The setup is still the same for a non sound decoder. (without the speaker etc)
 


MGWSY said:
OK for what you want you will want a 6 function decoder. You will need to wire it up as follows.

Func 0f Front Headlight White wire
Function 0R Rear Headlight Yellow Wire
Function 2 Right Ditch Light Green Wire
Function 3 Left Ditch Light Purple Wire
Function 4 Front Red Markers
Function 5 Rear Red Markers

If you don’t do rear marker lights then you can go with a 5 function decoder and maybe still keep the plug even though I would recommend hardwiring the decoder anyways. Now you can use 1.5v bulbs and use the proper resistors depending on the bulbs you use or you can do the LED route which maintenance wise is a better solution even though the lights won’t look like real bulbs. I have chosen the LED route on my locos due to the fact that when 1 bulb burns out you will most likely break something trying to replace it. What you want is similar to my CR locos I do as they also have Red markers on both ends.

I still have to get a fleet of P40's and P42's eventually but I model mainly in the F40PH era so the P40's were new and they also had strobe lights adding 2 more functions! And if you think thats bad I am eventually going to work on a fleet of Several AEM-7 Electric locos and if I add Ditch lights to them then I am looking at a total of 12 functions per loco! LOL

I have done various installs and you can see them here

http://mgwsy.smugmug.com/ModelTrains-2

If you need some help let me know.
Click to expand...

dam mark!! I've been killing several hours looking thru every gallery..
 
Seriously nice work on some of that stuff and uber jelous of some of those overland models you got.
 
thanks for all the help! I will try and make a video for youtube once I get the project done!

thanks,
-Andrew
 
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