Ditch Lights

Yes, on a Marx E7 it was easy.  I just drilled holes in the appropriate places, cemented in HO scale engine headlights, and cut a new larger, reflector for the inside, so that the one bulb shines through all holes.

 

This photo doesn't show them shining, only because Marx do not have a neutral position to allow the loco to sit and shine.

Are you just trying to add the lights, or do you actually want them to oscillate when you honk the horn?

Well for now they will just be on. It would be cool if I could tie them in to the directional lighting

I have not done the engines you asked about, I did do a set of F-3's. Take alook at the video below.

 

http://www.mttponline.com/#!videos/cfvg

 

Bill

 

 

You can.

Are your engines TMCC command?  If so you can do as Bill stated.  Atlas and Lionel have used small PCB boards that use the fact that the headlight is bottom half sine wave to drive LEDS Markers that alternate depending on direction.  Front Headlight On means Rear Red LEDs lite and vice versa.  For Ditch lights it would be easy to add them, possibly controlled by Cab light if that is not important to you, or right off the headlight circuit.   G

Piece of cake to make them directional, you have to tap into the serial data to make them react to the horn.

 

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Note that the directional polarity is not available if you have a smoke unit as that output is driving the smoke unit.  In that case, you'd use the headlight output and just parallel the ditch lights to that output.

Now that we talked about the TMCC locomotives how would one tackle adding ditch lights to an MTH ps-2 diesel? Legacy diesel?

MTh is usually, much easier.  Most of the sound files have the ditch lights enabled, so one just has to wire them to the proper connector location.

 

The ditch light connections are pins 3 & 5 on the 8-pin connector.  The common for the ditch lights is PV, which is the purple lead that comes from pin 2 on the 12-pin connector.  They are nominally 6V incandescent bulbs.  If you'd like to use white LED's, a 150 ohm resistor in series with each LED will do the trick, the plus side of the LED goes to the PV lead.

 

Don't know about Legacy, haven't tried to add them to one that didn't have them.

Where would that be on the mth board?

There is only one 8 pin and one 12 pin connector on the MTH PS/2 board.

 

 

Thank you for the awesome diagram. How would one wire the lights to the board?

Since the ditch lights won't be oscillating I want to try to tap the marker lights in to the ditch light set up. Now I'm trying to find lenses for my ditch light housings. I got the CP ditch lights for miniatures by Eric. Any suggestions?

Does anyone know what the name is of the things that connect the wires to the board? I don't know where to get them.