Two lights, one decoder

[ClintOHenry]

Can I hook 2 LED's to the "front" output light conductor of a decoder? Does it overload decoder?

 

[Red Oak & Western]

Probably. It depends on the LEDs and decoder. Typical LEDs draw 20 to 30 mA. The function outputs of an NCE D13SR (generic) decoder are 100mA per channel.

 

[Greg@mnrr]

Drop an e-mail with your question to the manufacture of the decoder to be positive your decision is correct.

Thanks.

Greg

 

[tootnkumin]

Wondering that myself. I have the situation where replacing a headlight bulb that provided light via a plastic "spreader" to H'light and number boards, with an LED does a poor job with any of them.

 

[crusader27529]

I have multiple LEDs connected to both the front & rear headlight circuits on most of my locos.....I have dual headlights and dual classification lights at the opposite ends of the loco, so there are 4 LEDs per circuit.

How do I do that?? Simple......wire the LEDs in SERIES, with 1 current limiting resistor!!

Go to this site to calculate the resistor: http://ledcalc.com/

This works because the total current in series is limited by the one resistor. The only down side is that it requires alot of wires going back and forth(in my configuration), but with just multiple LEDs at each end, the wiring is trivial.