Useful resource.
Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
Those are done in TinyCAD, a free schematic capture program. It's a quick and easy way to draw schematics.
well, got the headlights and all wired up and now glue drying, hopefully, ill have it buttoned up and done tonight for the grand test. everything lights, I let it all sit turned on for a few minutes just to make sure!
I look forward to seeing your finished product.
Copter
Originally Posted by Chris D:
well, got the headlights and all wired up and now glue drying, hopefully, ill have it buttoned up and done tonight for the grand test. everything lights, I let it all sit turned on for a few minutes just to make sure!
Always a good sign when everything works. 
well........ all seemed to be ok, until I closed her up and test ran it. All the lights were on when I plugged in the TIU! so the engine lights all came on. turned on the engine and that was separate, worked fine. lights flickered a little. So, I think Im grounded out on the chassis wall with one of my wires. I will have to tape better to prevent this. darn! pulling apart!
Pinched wires and shorts are a very common issue in some tighter fitting shells. It's best to do good wire management BEFORE you put the shell on.
In interesting idea Stan. I've not run into fit issues yet, but that's an alternative I hadn't considered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwYSlDHhY10&list=UU_lca3Q0uAVuf0skoq-2vnQ
ok, see my vid and see what you think is happening there. at the end, youll see me move the engine and the lights go on and off. so what the heck???????
In your video, I can hear the smoke fan puffing yet I don't see any smoke. Is it just hard to see in the video? Just don't want you burning out the wick if there's no fluid.
Why does your drawbar come loose? Perhaps irrelevant but if it's just the tether pulling the tender and passenger cars, that's got to be an undesirable stress on the wires in the tether which may be causing electrical connection issues.
At about 3:10 in the video the engine stops and yet the engine continues chuffing. This is a symptom of noise on the 5V supply voltage or something like that. One of the MTH techs should be able to tell you where to look given the type of engine.
At various points around the loop the passenger car lights (and headlight) flicker suggesting dirty track or whatever. Perhaps unrelated to your firebox problem but does make diagnosing things a bit more difficult.
Also maybe it's obvious to everyone else, but is this DCS or conventional and what is your power source?
ok, Its DCS power. all the lights are tapped from the same source, markers, headlight, flickering LED, cab light. Now, I did clean the track. I also noticed when I stopped the engine, the sounds continued. I wonder if its the resistors in the Evans LED setups? I used them for markers and headlight.
I thought it was a shell issue, so I taped the connections well. still the same. so is the flickering because of the source I grabbed it from? maybe I need a different source of power off the engine?
I think my signal is disrupting the DCS or smoke unit.
Posted by stan2004:
In your video, I can hear the smoke fan puffing yet I don't see any smoke. Is it just hard to see in the video? Just don't want you burning out the wick if there's no fluid.
Why does your drawbar come loose? Perhaps irrelevant but if it's just the tether pulling the tender and passenger cars, that's got to be an undesirable stress on the wires in the tether which may be causing electrical connection issues.
At about 3:10 in the video the engine stops and yet the engine continues chuffing. This is a symptom of noise on the 5V supply voltage or something like that. One of the MTH techs should be able to tell you where to look given the type of engine.
At various points around the loop the passenger car lights (and headlight) flicker suggesting dirty track or whatever. Perhaps unrelated to your firebox problem but does make diagnosing things a bit more difficult.
Also maybe it's obvious to everyone else, but is this DCS or conventional and what is your power source?
Where are all the lights powered from? If it's the 6V headlight output, I can see the Evans stuff perhaps having problems as they'd be operating at the bottom of their voltage range.
John-
You said your circuit for the flickering LEDs is for command. What would have to change for it to work in conventional? I'd love to do this, but I want to make sure it'll work in both conventional and command environments as I do run my locomotives both ways, going back and forth between them depending on how I feel that day.
Here's a circuit that will run a single LED at 20ma over a wide range of input voltages, this is good for conventional running. Just connect the flickering LED to the constant current outputs.
Attachments
Images (1)
Thank you. Now, what happens if I connect more than one LED to it? Like Chris did with his engine, I'm thinking of converting and "tricking out" several of my PS-1 locomotives with LED lighting.
This is a circuit designed to connect the single firebox LED to track power. I think you need to define exactly what you want to do in order to suggest solutions to other configurations.
Okay, I will do, but by starting another thread when I get closer to actually starting the project, so as to not hijack this thread.
Sounds like a plan. 
by all means, keep it going! no problem. no hijacking at all. All support here. it give us all the options then!
the conventional and your track power is varable. this setup would essentially make the firebox dim alot and not work to full potential. so john has the alternative to keep it lit at full? with PS-1 you will barely see th light until your fast. JOhn, do you use bigger capacitors to store energy to keep the lights up in voltage? im curious also
The circuit posted keeps 20ma constant current on the LED down to about 4-5 volts track power, that's the purpose of the CL-2 constant current chip.
The capacitor is not optional for the flickering LED, it requires a steady DC source.
