Keep tail light on all the time

If you purchase some LED 's  from Evans Designs, you can get one with a built in resistor for use with 7-19 volts. They come in different sizes,  the smaller ones can be hot glued to the inside cab roof and wired directly to the pick-up leads, giving you constant lighting.

As a point of continuing education, locomotives do not have “tail lights.” They have front and rear headlights.

I suspect you could just tap into the cab light pin on the PS/3 board and wire in a proper cab light with an LED.  That way the cab light would be on when stopped and turn off when moving, just like you'd expect it to do in real life.

That's a decent chance they're even a Molex connector for the cab light inside...

Click on image to enlarge

Thanks for all the replies so far!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I suspect you could just tap into the cab light pin on the PS/3 board and wire in a proper cab light with an LED.  That way the cab light would be on when stopped and turn off when moving, just like you'd expect it to do in real life.

That's a decent chance they're even a Molex connector for the cab light inside...

Click on image to enlarge

I thought about that at first, but I was a bit nervous about tinkering with the wires on the board. I'm mot sure how fragile the connections are and I don't want to ruin this brand new board.

Does the 40 pin bar come out fairly easily?

Could you just parallel wire the lights so that if one comes on it would light the other? Would the board stand the back feed from the one light?

Parallel isn't a good idea, they're LED's and they have individual drivers.  I suspect identical LED's might work, but they might overload the circuit.

@VonFrank posted:

Does the 40 pin bar come out fairly easily?

Not really, and you have to be really careful with those 1mm connectors.

I only suggested it because I have PS3 engines with dual headlights and taillights I thought were wired in parallel, like number boards too.

If you use two identical LED's I think that will work.  I'm actually looking at one with two parallel LED's, so apparently that's OK.

Alright, so I plan to go out today to get some LEDs and the proper connectors. Is there a certain type that has to be used with PS-3 boards? What voltage of LED for example.

Standard white 20ma LED, most of the lights are 3mm LED.  As for the connector, the pins are Chyao Shiunn JS-1253-T,JS-1253-TG.  However, unless you have the correct crimp tool, trying to use them will be an exercise in futility!  Best bet is to find someone that has installed the PS/3 diesel upgrade kit and get the connector with pins from them.  Many of us routinely take all the extra unused connectors off the harness before installing the kit.  If you don't, you have a massive tangle of tiny wires to deal with.  Removing all the unused feature connectors makes the install go much smoother.

I have a PS-3 steam upgrade kit currently out with an old PS-1 engine for installation. If I have any unused lights left over from that upgrade, are those compatible? Or does the steam kit have different components entirely?

The PS/3 diesel board has totally different connectors than the PS32 board for steam upgrades.  You need the tiny 1mm connectors for the diesel board.

Ok, understood.

So unless I happen to find spare Diesel upgrade kit parts, my best bet is to hope I can somehow attach the tiny 1mm connectors to the wires and then to the 40 pin connector piece... Sounds challenging.

Correct, I recommend the spare parts route.  I actually have the crimp tools, and use them often, but those tiny connectors are a PITA, I get them properly crimped maybe half the time, otherwise I have to try it again.