Blinking headlight

Is it a blinking headlight or no headlight?

Did you try a Feature Reset, and if that doesn't work, try a Factory Reset.

Is this a model with the springs to connect the lights to the chassis?  Make sure the springs are making proper contact, sometimes you have to stretch them a bit.

OK I pulled the shell off, pulled and looked around for something wrong didn't find anything, of course i don't know what I'm looking for. Did a feature reset and a factory reset no luck there. The headlight is off all the time.

Clem

At this point I'm lazy, I'd pull the plug and test the board on my rather expensive PS/3 test set to see if all the light outputs are working. 

Did you trace the headlight wire back to the connector and see if you have continuity all the way to the PS/3 board?  For some reason, I seem to have every diagram except for the PS/3 diesel, so I'm not sure which pin that would be.

John

Was that blinking headlight problem I had a indicator of anything. this just came back

from MTH with a new PS3 board, was doing this blinking before they replaced board 

clem

Well, the blinking isn't right, but having no headlight isn't right either!  I don't know of an option of having the headlight blink, though if it's connected to the MARS or Strobe connection it might blink.

The suggestion of the resets was in hope that the blinking was perhaps some errant option setting or corrupted parameters.

Other than tracing the headlight wire, I'm not sure what to suggest here.  You've checked all the connections...

Well I give up, looked and poked around enough, now I broke the wire off the smoke unit. Looks like trip three to MTH. Ill fix the wire first, This is one of there better built locomotives heavy painted heat sink plate and a entire die cast frame, thick plastic shell, and all metal spur gears.

Thanks for your help

Clem

Some days you're the windshield, and some days you're the bug!

Clem, The first thing I would do is test the LED Headlight with a battery.  It would be the blue plug in the patch panel.  It is possible the LED burned out. G

Good morning George

Your right I just found that out, I tried with a marker light but that did not light when plugged into the headlight socket, when I tried with the rear headlight in the front it worked . Now the question is why did it burn out both lamps of the head light and did the blinking of the front headlight when running in reverse mean anything? 

Clem

Sounds like a possible short circuit if the front headlight was blinking in reverse.

Hi Clem,

When you say "blinking," do you mean the headlight would go dim in reverse or totally off?  If it went dim, that is normal.  This is a prototypical feature new to the PS3 engines called "Rule 17 lighting."

the front both bulbs of headlight would blink like a flash bulb, bright, only when going in reverse the rear headlight was on also like normal, the rule 17 feature also worked on front and rear normal

the front headlights don't work at all, under a magnifying glass I can see that they are burned out, MTH  just sent it back to me with a new board installed, much better signal now. I am going to send that 0-6-0 back, you guys where helping me with.  that was about the pickup rollers. Turns out they have a fix for wimpy smoke with the new small smoke units.

Clem

Yeah that fixes is to push the element under the brass cup.  It is you darned scale guys that keep causing these components to get smaller.  G

I agree G…. and my hands and eyes are getting older 

I agree G…. and my hands and eyes are getting older 

MTH said something about a second heat element and or a voltage increase? 

The steamer in question has only one smoke resistor instead of the standard dual element most MTH smoke units have.

For the 4-4-0 they pushed the element under the brass cup.  For other engines they can modify the flash program to increase the smoke voltage.   Not sure what they are doing for the 0-6-0 yet.  G

 Whoa, look at that board! Looks like it got bigger.

Looks like it could drive a G scale diesel!!

They must be getting closer with their release.

Well back to my RS11

 I have new headlights on the way from MTH, but they are on backorder It will be a while so where can I get new LED's from locally so I can but this thing back together? Do they come in different DIA.? as well as voltage? how about color? or intensity? Do hobby shops carry these? How about radio shack?

Thanks 

clem

 I get mine from China so maybe someone else can help here. You could ask under the electrical post. That's where I got help on them.

 Different sizes, colors, etc. I ordered 3 and 5mm warm white in bulk. They are for my G scale trains. I ordered from American suppliers and they showed up as tinted blueish.

Clem,  Can you post a picture?  Does your head light use 1 or 2? It should be a 3mm. Warm white is one color.  G

Good morning G

It is two bulbs into one socket and both bulbs fit into one lens. 

Are those connected in series or in parallel?  Can you shoot a picture of the connector end of the harness?

The red goes to one side and black go to the other side

Thanks, they're wired in parallel, that's what I wanted to know.

Clem, Do both black go to one side and both red to the other, or are one red and black connected together under heat shrink?  G

Sorry about the delay something wrong with my computer

Thanks Clem, looks parallel to me.

 I had to swap out a set of markers that were wired in series. I haven't opened up my newest PS3 diesels yet.

I'm going to swap out the guts on one to power up an older CSX SD70ACe that I got as a dummy. I'll also two rail it then. I'll have to pay attention to this wiring to get all the lights converted properly. Seems like there's always something else that comes up first.