Flasher for a MTH 7 Light Pennsy Block Signal MTH Part # 30-11013

You could try a 12 volt automotive directional signal flasher.  Cheap and easy to find locally.  I believe they sell silent types that won't constantly click and drive you crazy.

Bruce

For $1.63 on eBay (free shipping from Asia) here's a cycling timer module which can flash the lower light.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/351048...e=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

So the idea is that when the horizontal light (red wire) is powered, it also powers this module which generates a pulsing/flashing signal on its output.  This signal would then drive the lower light (blue wire).

The "problem" is these timer modules require DC voltage.  Do you have any DC voltage sources on your layout (like 12V DC)?  If not you can derive 12VDC from your 14V-16VAC Accessory voltage (if you have that?) using a voltage regulator module from eBay (about $3-4). 

Or you might have (or buy for about $2 on eBay) a recycled 12VDC "wall-wart" adapter.  There are adapters (shown in inset) to convert the coaxial/barrel plug into screw-terminals (about 50 cents on eBay) so you don't have to cut/strip the power supply cable.

No embarrassment intended, but a comment on how comfortable/willing/able you are with soldering small components and using a multimeter would help make relevant suggestions.

Good evening Stan and Bruce, thanks for the replies.

I think I am going to try the simple approach and use an automotive style flasher.

Yes Stan this is exactly what I am thinking, when the signal goes horizontal position (stop) I can signal the flasher from the red wire going to the signal to have the lower light flash on and off.

I was talking to one of my mechanics today that brought up the subject of what I got done on my layout with a few days off.

He had the same suggestion of using an automotive style flasher and he mentioned that the older GM products (70's) had a flasher that flashed slowly.

He also suggested that I may need to add a resistor to the flasher to build some resistance due to the fact the lower light on the signals is only an LED style bulb.

I want to wire two of the lights in at one time on two different signals (one each end of the siding) but I doubt two of these LED lights will be enough to create very much resistance.

Using AC power instead of DC power may also change how the flasher reacts.

Again thanks for your suggestions.

I will let you both know how I make out with this little project. 

As your mechanic says there can be issues with replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs in cars with traditional thermal flasher units:

http://www.carid.com/articles/...lbs-into-my-car.html

Resistors are nothing more than devices that “fool” the vehicle into thinking it still has the original bulbs. They do this by simulating their load. Many places including CARID.com sell resistors adequate for the application of your LED bulbs. Generally the ones you will want are 6 Ohm 50 Watt Resistors for Turn signals, and you will need one per side.

I hope you don't need a 50 Watt resistor to make it work!

Hello Stan, I was just on Miller Engineering web site.

There signs flash on and off so I went there to see if they offered a flasher.

Sure enough they list a flasher module Miller Engineering Part #4701.

They don't give much of a description other the on and off times.

The price is right, the freight will most likely be more than the module.

I sent them a Email asking for some more information and a brief description of what I wanted to use the flasher module for.

I will see what they come back with.

Thanks again, a 50 watt resistor would defintly make things interesting !!!!!

I will let you know what I find out from Miller.

Call me a party-pooper but the 4701 requires 3V DC.  It may be that it can operate at higher voltages thereby suitable for driving the higher voltage needed by the blue-wire on the MTH signal...so it would be interesting what Miller has to say.  It also might "struggle" with an AC input.

3 volts seems to be the standard at Miller.  Kind of convenient if you're combining Lemax with Miller.  Here's the Lemax flasher unit from their level crossing signal.  Couldn't resist finding out what made them tick....errrr...flash.

Bruce

Good evening Stan, yes you are correct.

I got a reply back Christopher at Miller Engineering and he informed their flasher wouldn't work.

It was worth a shot.

I purchased an automotive flasher today.

Using some jumper wires powered the flasher up with 10.5 volts.

The light will illuminate but will not flash.

Checked the voltage on the post where the power is going in and had 10.5 volts had 10.2 on the remaining post of the flasher.

brwebster showed a Lemax crossing signal that has a flasher in it.

Thanks Bruce !!!!!

Although it is battery operated most of the battery packs have a port where they can be plugged it an outlet. I have some of these power cords here that i use to use to light up lights on the trees in the village.

I think I have a couple sets of the Lemax crossing signals.

I will have to go and do some looking thru my older layout stuff.

My next thought would be some sort of timer.

With a timer you could set the on and off times for the light to get the flash timing that looked correct.

Either way thanks for all of your knowledge Stan and Bruce.

Hello Stan, I got back to this project last week.

I found out that an ordinary flasher from an automobile will not work on AC power.

I knew it was to simple to to work!!!!

I looked thru my old Lemax stuff but nothing that had a flasher in it.

In your original reply you mentioned Wall Wart, is this a electronic supply house or what?

I think I have a way of getting DC power and the having the capability of using the flasher unit you showed above.

I found a Lemax Inverter (CAT. NO: AY-3D-0.5- ER) that is 120AC in and 3VDC out. 

Would this 3V DC be enough to run the flasher board you showed earlier in this topic or do I need 12 volt DC ?

Thanks in advance.

Interesting.  I guess Wall Wart does kind of sound like Walmart!  By Wall Wart I mean those power adapters that plug into the wall used in consumer electronics battery chargers. They tend to accumulate in drawers and boxes.  Here's one stash of wall-warts I have:

That eBay listing says the module runs on a DC voltage of between 5 to 12V.  You might have a wall wart that would work, but as mentioned earlier a suitable 12V DC adapter runs about $2 shipped on eBay.  Or, you can roll-your-own 12V adapter by starting with a higher voltage adapter (15V, 18V, if you have one of those) and using a $1 eBay voltage regulator module.

The other consideration is the Pennsy signal is typically driven with accessory voltage, say, 14VAC.  I'm pretty sure (someone else might comment) you can drive that blue wire with 12V DC (or pulsing 12 V DC to flash it) and you won't be able to tell the difference in brightness.  That's why I suggest using 12V DC whether it be with the eBay timer module or whatever.  That is, if you only have a 3V DC pulsing module from Lemax or wherever, I don't think it will be enough voltage to drive the lower light of the MTH Pennsy signal.

I see from above you want to drive 2 signal heads at once or "in parallel", but have you settled on how you are going to activate the signal?  I recall from another thread you were fiddling with an AIU output to manually switch signal states.  Or will you be using an 153IR/ITAD, isolated-rail, etc.? 

How you activate the signals may dictate how best to get DC power to drive the flashing module.

Good morning Stan, now I know what you are talking about we have a drawer that is similar to yours.

I also have a Hallmark Ornament adapter that is 5 volt DC, forgot I had that one.

I am activating these particular Pennsy 7 light signals with and MTH AIU and it works great thanks to your suggestion.

I will go looking thru this "Wall Wart" drawer and see what I can find.

I don't have a MTH Pennsy signal to confirm but here's how I'd do it:

I'd target a DC supply of 12V (or so).  As mentioned you can buy one for about $2 shipped on eBay, you can derive 12V DC from the train transformer AC output voltage using an AC-to-DC convert module from eBay (about $3-4), or derive 12V DC from a surplus 15V-18V wall wart using an eBay voltage regulator module from eBay (about $1).

Soldering, wire-stripping, etc. may be involved and those 3-male pins on the timer module can be a hassle to work with if you don't have the mating female socket-to-wire converter. 

Good evening Stan, thank you for the diagram for this Pennsy Signal.

Today I did find a 12 Volt DC adapter (Garrity Industries Model HK41U-12-500) I think it was for a Black and Decker cordless ratchet that broke a few years back.

If I am following you correctly the adapter would be plugged into AC current.

Coming out of the adapter there are 2 wires, 1 wire is black and the remaining wire is black with a white tracer.

One wire (12V DC Power) would go to the AIU IN Post.

The remaining wire from the adapter would go to ground as shown.

When the AIU is triggered to show a STOP signal from the  DCS Remote, the red wire will then have power sending power to the signal and also the flasher module.

The power will come in the flasher module on post VDC in.

The Post marked out on the flasher module will have the Blue wire form the signal attached to it.

The middle post on the flasher module will also go to ground.

Being that the AIU is just basically a bank of relays, the relays in a way don't really care what signal they see AC or DC, it just has to be enough to hold the relay in position.

I have some very small female spade clips that may just fit the posts on the flasher module which may save some soldering.

We use these in some other applications that have posts that look very similar to what the picture shows.

I think it is worth a try.

This would be very easy to wire up due to the fact i used a terminal strip to make all the connections. I just need to remove existing power wire.

I will get a couple of these flasher modules on order ASAP and see how things work out.

Thanks again for your time and creativity on this project.

Hi Mark, yes, I think we have harmonic convergence.  Just to clarify, you are correct that the relays don't care what they are switching...but additionally they don't need to be switching anything at all to work.  The power to hold the AIU accessory relays in position is supplied by the AIU itself (via power from cable to the TIU).  So, for example, you can hook nothing to the AIU accessory ports and still switch the accessory ports on/off via the remote and still hear the relays "click" on and off.

Perhaps obvious, but as you patiently wait for the flasher module you can hook up everything else to confirm the 12V DC adapter is working properly.  So the Pennsy signal(s) should work under AIU control....except the lower light isn't hooked up yet so no joy there.  I suggest you also confirm with a voltmeter that the voltage on the adapter output is indeed 12V with the polarity assumed.  The flasher module will emit magic smoke if applied 12V DC voltage is backwards.

As for the connectors, if you have the suitable female connector, then great.  Otherwise you can get what should be a lifetime supply for $1.20 shipped on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/40PCS-...;hash=item339a2b63be

40 pairs of 8" long female-to-female wires with crimped-on contacts.  You can peel of individual wires from the ribbon so that, for example, you can use a red, black, and blue to exactly match the color scheme for this project.

For more options on wiring using these contacts, search ebay for "Arduino female jumper cable" and you'll be overwhelmed with choices.

If you plan to do any more "electronic" related project, these male pins are used on many modules and gadgets useful to model railroading...timers, relays, and Arduino controllers themselves. 

Good morning Stan, for a $1.20 I placed an order for the connectors along with (4) of the flash modules.

I will check out the 12V  DC adapter voltage and also the polarity of the wires.

I don't like when I see the magic electronic smoke plume coming from a component either.

The delivery time is either February 4th thru March 15th 2015 so I have time to get things wired up and checked out.

I am not sure where you live, but I would like to send you something for your time and helping me with this project.

You sure did make this project simple plus I learned a few things along the way.

WALL WART, I would have never made the connection !!!!!

Thanks again for the help!!!

That is most kind but truly unnecessary!  Just post back when the parts come in and let us know your signals work like you want.

Now that you have 12V DC available, all kinds of possibilities open up with these insanely priced electronic modules on eBay.  For example, with a $1.20 12V DC relay module, you could pair it with your $1.63 flasher module to create an alternating crossing flasher with 10 Amp relay contacts.  I have no idea why anyone would want to switch 10 Amps back and forth but for $3 it's a solution that deserves a problem!

Or, with one of these $1.20 relay modules, add a $1 or so of components and you can roll your own 153IR/ITAD signal trigger.

Good evening Stan,

The other evening I had some spare time so I went down to my work area and I began working on the 12v DC adapter.

I cut off the plug and separated the two wires which are molded together.

I am planning on putting a piece of RED heat shrink on the positive wire of the adapter and a piece of Green heat shrink on the ground also from the adapter.

This way the wires are easy to identify when it comes time to hook them up under the layout.

While checking the wires to see which one was the ground I noticed that my volt meter had an output of 18.7 to 19.1 volts coming from the adapter.

Also with the adapter unplugged from the wall outlet it took several minutes for the voltage reading to drop off according to my voltmeter (which is brand new, Santa Claus brought me a new one)

The adapter is clearly marked 12v DC out I am not sure why I have such a high voltage reading.

Is it because I have very little resistance and the voltage is higher than if the wires were attached to load ?

I had a MTH 7 Light Signal handy so I connected the ground to the 12v DC ground and then touched the red wire from the signal on the 12cv DC positive wire.

The signal lit up showing a stop pattern and the lights were no brighter or dimmer than normal.

I had all of this put together with alligator clips along with the leads from my voltmeter.

Doing this dropped the voltage on the voltmeter down to 16.5 to 17.1 volts.

If I unplugged the adapter from the wall the voltage dropped to 0 volts almost immediately. 

I wanted to make sure I asked before I go ahead and hook this up using this DC adapter.

I really don't want to have a plume of electronic smoke like we talked about before from my AIU or my flash modules that are coming in the next few weeks.

As always thanks for your advice !!!!!

Hi Mark,

No worries.  Your 12V adapter is apparently of the "unregulated" variety.  I looked up that wall wart part number and it is rated at 500 mA or 1/2 Amp.  This means that if you load it with 500 mA it should drop down to about 12V.  If you put no load on it - such as just measuring the output with a voltmeter - then it will read about 1.5x the nameplate voltage or 18V.  Load it with something in between and it will be between the no-load and the specified load voltage.

A single Pennsy signal represents a negliglible load - maybe 25 mA or so...that is a very small relative to the 500 mA rating on the wall-wart so that's why it only dropped 1-2 Volts. 

When you measure the un-loaded voltage and pull the plug, the reason it takes a long time to drop in voltage is there's a capacitor in the wall-wart that's stores energy and it slowly discharges (since the load is negigible from a voltmeter).  But with the Pennsy hooked up, the voltage will drop relatively quickly as the signal lights represent a material load.

I realize the timer module is specified for 5-12V DC operation so you should rightly ponder about the dreaded magic smoke display (or even worse would be smoke accompanied by fireworks).  But to their credit, they published the actual schematic of the timer circuit and I guarantee it will work at 18V or whatever your "12V" wall-wart puts out.  So bottom line is you're good to go.

In the mean time, if messing with this stuff is of interest to you...or you just want to put your new voltmeter to work...here are some ideas.  You can go back to your stash of wall-warts and find another 12V DC adapter with a lower nameplate current rating...say 200mA or 300mA or whatever.  It too will measure about 18V DC unloaded (with just the voltmeter attached) but will drop maybe another Volt with the Pennsy load.  Or you can find, say, a 9V adapter which will start at maybe 13 or 14V unloaded and maybe 12V with the Pennsy load.

Downstream I predict you will probably end up using some kind of circuit module on your layout that genuinely requires 12V DC.  In such a case you can get a regulated 12V DC wall-wart such as the one shown earlier (about $2 on eBay shipped); regulated means it will put out 12V DC at the output irrespective of load up to the nameplate current rating.  Or, you can buy a regulator module (about $1 on eBay) that will take the variable output voltage of an unregulated DC wall-wart and regulate it.

BTW, I routinely put colored heat-shrink tubing on paired wires to indicate polarity.

Good evening Stan, thanks for the information.

I will go and see what I kind I can find for an adapter with a lower voltage output.

I was thinking that I did not have enough load to make the current adapter to work correctly.

I will let you know how I make out when the parts come in.

Again thank you for all your help!!!!

Hello Stan, just wanted to let you know the flash modules showed up yesterday in the mail that I ordered for the Pennsy 7 Signal Light.

Wow are they tiny !!!!!

I am glad I took your advice and ordered the wires with the connectors for the post on the modules.

I have some small connectors but nothing that small.

I will give you an update when the wires get here and I hook a signal up to the DC converter that we talked about earlier.

Good evening Stan, today the wire connectors showed up in the mail.

Wow these connectors make life easy, thanks for the suggestion !!!!

Luckily I got home from work early this afternoon soaking wet but early, so I hooked everything up on my work bench.

Backing up one step, I did find an AC to DC converter that was only rated for 9 volts.

So I am using this converter for the initial hookup.

Connected the flasher module as you showed in your excellent diagram you posted earlier.

With the blue wire connected to the flasher module sure enough I have a single flashing light on my Pennsy signal.

Unfortunately the flash is so fast it looks more like "girl, girls, girls" than a railroad signal.

Messed around with the board a bit adding some resistors to the wiring but nothing seemed to slow the flash sequence down.

Had to take a work related phone call and then went back down and looked things over again.

In each timer board there are 4 red connectors.

Upon inspecting these connectors they fit over the 4 pins on the one side of the board.

There are no instructions with any of the flasher modules.

Thought I got nothing to loose and installed one of red connector over two posts, the flash went from the fast pulsing flash to a flash that was a bit slower so I added another connector.

With three connectors installed I have a flash that to me looks prototypical.

The only thing I noticed was the light never goes out during the flash mode it just gets brighter.

I checked my DC voltage going into the flash board and I am at 13.6 volts. 

I am going to go ahead and get the two signals hooked up on the layout and see how things work.

If they look good I will take a video of them and post it later.

Thanks again for all you help.

Hi Mark,

You're almost there!  Per the eBay listing copied below in blue italics, adding the red connectors slows down the flash rate:

Frequency adjustment methods:

1. The board has four the shorting cap can select the frequency.
2. Inserted 0 short-circuit cap, the longest cycle upwards to 0.3 s.
3. Inserted one short-circuit cap, the longest cycle can be adjusted to about 4s.
4. Inserted two short-circuit cap, the longest cycle can be adjusted to about 7s.
5. Inserted three short-circuit cap, the longest cycle can be adjusted to about 10s.
6. Inserted four short-circuit cap, the longest cycle can be adjusted to about 15s.
7. Duty cycle adjustment range: 0% to 100% (High / cycle).

So with 3 connectors installed, you are in the zone indicated above which means up to one flash every 10 seconds.  You adjust the rate of the flash with the frequency adjustment screw (requires a tiny screwdriver) as shown in the diagram.

The other adjustment screw is the so-called duty-cycle.  As the instructions say, this allows 0 to 100% adjustment of how long the light is on every time it flashes.  So if the rate of flashing is once per second, the "duty-cycle" adjustment means you can have each flash be very short (near 0%) or very long (up to 1 sec or 100% duty-cycle). 

I'd experiment with the 2 control screws and I think you'll get what you want.

Edit: the eBay photo shows there's an LED on the board.  This on-board LED should flash at the same rate and "duty-cycle" as the Pennsy blue-wire LED.

Good evening Stan, 

Is there any way you can tell which adjustment pot is which ?

I tried adjusting these screws originally (before adding the red jumper blocks) and kept track of the turns that each adjustment was turned clockwise or counterclockwise.

Nothing seemed to make a difference in the flash sequence.

Again as always thanks for your help and knowledge.

The eBay listing identifies which is which and the effect of CW or CCW turning.  We have to take this at face value.  What's nice about the module is that LED on the board should flash at the same rate and duty-cycle as the Pennsy signal so you have "independent" confirmation.

The adjustment controls usually have a range of 10, 15, 20 or so turns.  If you are in a quiet room an listen very carefully, when the adjustment reaches the end-point you will hear a faint mechanical "tick" once per revolution telling you it has reached its end-point for the direction of turning (CW or CCW).  Then if you start turning the other direction you won't hear this "tick" sound until you've gone the 10 or 20 (or whatever) turns in the other direction.  You do not harm the adjustment knob by turning beyond the end-point.  OTOH, to my knowledge there's no way to know where you are in the range other than observing changes to the flashing rate or duty-cycle as the case may be...unless you have a meter to measure the resistance of the adjustment which is something you shouldn't have to do.

Hello Stan, thanks again for the information.

I was only making 3 full turns in both clockwise and counterclockwise so this is probably why I did not see any change in the flash sequence.

I will try these adjustments and see what I come up with,

Thanks !!!!!!!

So here we have an example of "you get what you pay for".  I just received my module from Asia and observed the dim-bright vs. off-bright flashing.  Bottom line, the transistor on the board that drives the output is hooked up incorrectly.  For the record, the transistor has the emitter and collector pins reversed (in my opinion).   While it took me maybe a minute to remove and re-orient the part, this is close-quarters soldering so I'm not recommending it.  

That said, I don't know what to suggest.  I suppose you can get your money back but that's about it - it appears they are just a distributor of random stuff.  There are other 12V DC timers/flashers/pulser modules out there but for obvious reasons now I'm hesitant to recommend one

Actually, if you have another wall-wart or AC-to-DC adapter that puts out no more than about 9V DC, you might try the board as-is with the main Pennsy signal.  The transistor is not operating in the "gain" mode but may have enough drive capability to flash the single-LED off-on rather than dim-on.  If you do this all the LEDs will be dimmer when on so this may just be a waste of time...

In any event, on the module I received I counted the adjustments as 30 turns.  And here's a video of it in action (albeit with transistor re-oriented) using 1 red-connector...and with each adjustment set to the mid-point or about 15 turns away from the end-of-travel. 

Nice detective work on the transistor. 

FWIW, if you just form the leads to the other side, you can solder it upside down and not need the jumper.  I had this happen on one of my designs, I entered the part outline wrong and got the pins swapped.

Is this a possibility? Take the bulb out of the signal and replace it with an Evan Designs flasher bulb which only requires a power source.

You can simply buy a flashing LED bulb, direct replacement and much easier.

Good evening Stan, oh well thats not the end of the world and I am still very thankful for your help with this project.

Looking at the photo you provided I thought ah that may not be to bad to re-solder then I went down and looked at the actual module and thought "I don't think so"

I will see if I can find somebody to modify the boards like what you did.

I don't think sending them back to the manufacture would be cost effective.

Thanks again!!!

Yup. It's a pretty tiny part.  Reminds me of, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." 

No, it's definitely not worth it to send it across the ocean.  If you make a good faith effort and can't find anyone who will step up, I will mod your boards for free if you pay the return shipping ($2.32 USPS First Class package w/tracking #).

BTW, can you actually open up the signal head and install a flashing LED as suggested above?  I was under the impression that some LED-based signal heads are sealed - "NO user-serviceable parts" - unlike the older incandescent heads with provision for bulb replacement.

Hello Stan, how about sending me an email.

My address is in my profile.

Thanks !!!!

Stan, this is the signal in question.  The LED is in a little holder lower on the pole.  It'll take a bit of work to get it out, but it's a standard 3mm LED, and it could be replaced.  The tiny wires to straight down the shaft, so it's no issue to slide them down after the mod.

I appreciate the simplicity of just swapping out the existing LED with a blinking LED.  OTOH for those that don't want to muck with the original device (affects re-sell value?), an advantage of using a timer module is you can install a capacitor to simulate the fade/decay of an traditional incandescent bulb.  I'm not aware of any integral blinking LEDs that emulate the nostalgic filament fade when turning off.  Here's a video of a blinking amber LED using the eBay timer module without and with a 100uF capacitor.

Also, I am modifying Mark's eBay modules and now that I've seen 5 modules, I'm convinced mine was not a fluke and there's an error in the design.  I've gone back-and-forth with the seller several times trying to explain the problem but it's hopeless - but I did get a full-refund (yes, we're talking nickels and dimes but there is a principle involved) and did not have to send my module back.  It's amazing that apparently thousands of these modules have sold.  I tried searching the web and couldn't find any complaints or whatever.  To that end I am including the following photo and some keywords from the eBay listing as it appears the OGR site gets picked up by Google search.  So if anyone else in cyberspace searches, maybe they will come to the OGR site and find this thread which explains how to fix the module or at least understand why their module does not work as claimed and that they should be able to get a refund as the "item is not as described" to use eBay lingo.

lm358 pulse square wave module

I don't spend a lot of time worrying about the resale value of stuff like this, I suspect it'll be a long time before they're worth anything significant.

The fadeout is neat, but it's certainly a lot more trouble.

Attached is a link that you can see a short video of a the MTH 30-11013 Pennsy Style Seven Light Signal with a flashing lower light.

The signal is in the background as a MTH Imperial Pennsy M1A Mountain waits on a siding as a newly shopped MTH Premier Pennsy L1 Mikado passes by on the inner main with it's Cabin Car.

 OGR Forum Member Stan2004 help me achieve this effect.

I realize this may not be prototypical of the Pennsy signal system but it does add interest to the signal showing a stop "horizontal" position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

You could just get a blinking incandescent bulb from Town and Country. I've used them to keep the "old look" and add a blinking feature.

Per GRJ's photo of actual signal, a challenge would be to find a flashing incandescent that fits the space - both diameter and depth. 

The flashing incandescents at T&C seem a bit large for this application?

http://stores.towncountryhobbi...king-flashing-bulbs/