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I belong to the Wilmington (NC) RR Museum (Non-Profit) & assist with their O Gauge Layout. They have 2-3 MTH Signal Bridges - Product Number 30-11009. LEDs appear to be burned out. MTH seems clueless about replacement parts. Design is actually pretty good since light heads are removable. Presumably: This means there was once an idea you could remove & fix without dismantling wiring. Believe bulbs are all that needs fixing - however the wiring / bulbs are inside a head that is close to impossible to access. I'm hoping this is not another case of "just buy a new one". Online instructions (MTH) provide no instruction as to head or bulb replacement (see attached). MTH Parts Dept. has no info on head or bulb replacement. Any advice would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Wolfpack1:

I belong to the Wilmington (NC) RR Museum (Non-Profit) & assist with their O Gauge Layout. They have 2-3 MTH Signal Bridges - Product Number 30-11009. LEDs appear to be burned out.

 

 

MTH seems clueless about replacement parts.

 

Design is actually pretty good since light heads are removable. Presumably: This means there was once an idea you could remove & fix without dismantling wiring. Believe bulbs are all that needs fixing - however the wiring / bulbs are inside a head that is close to impossible to access. I'm hoping this is not another case of "just buy a new one". Online instructions (MTH) provide no instruction as to head or bulb replacement (see attached). MTH Parts Dept. has no info on head or bulb replacement. Any advice would be appreciated.

 Wolf -- if you take the signal bridges off the layout, hook them up to a transformer and something to trip the LEDs like an infrared detector, do the LEDs work correctly IF you position the bridges on one or more of their sides or even hold it upside down?  That would at least confirm it's a wiring problem inside the signal bridge's wiring path.

I ran into a situation with one of the MTH "double-head" traffic lights where the left head's red LED would not illuminate when the signal was in the proper vertical position.  (Keep in mind this traffic light had the problem right out of the blister pack!)   If I removed the traffic light from the layout and laid it flat on my work bench or leaned it on an angle against something, like a parts cup, the problem red LED worked fine.  After several attempts to resolve this problem including a worthless phone call with MTH, I just threw the traffic light aside once I realized it was probably some wire inside shorting out when the traffic light was in the proper vertical position.

Originally Posted by Pat Shediack:
Originally Posted by Wolfpack1:

I belong to the Wilmington (NC) RR Museum (Non-Profit) & assist with their O Gauge Layout. They have 2-3 MTH Signal Bridges - Product Number 30-11009. LEDs appear to be burned out.

 

 

MTH seems clueless about replacement parts.

 

Design is actually pretty good since light heads are removable. Presumably: This means there was once an idea you could remove & fix without dismantling wiring. Believe bulbs are all that needs fixing - however the wiring / bulbs are inside a head that is close to impossible to access. I'm hoping this is not another case of "just buy a new one". Online instructions (MTH) provide no instruction as to head or bulb replacement (see attached). MTH Parts Dept. has no info on head or bulb replacement. Any advice would be appreciated.

 Wolf -- if you take the signal bridges off the layout, hook them up to a transformer and something to trip the LEDs like an infrared detector, do the LEDs work correctly IF you position the bridges on one or more of their sides or even hold it upside down?  That would at least confirm it's a wiring problem inside the signal bridge's wiring path.

I ran into a situation with one of the MTH "double-head" traffic lights where the left head's red LED would not illuminate when the signal was in the proper vertical position.  (Keep in mind this traffic light had the problem right out of the blister pack!)   If I removed the traffic light from the layout and laid it flat on my work bench or leaned it on an angle against something, like a parts cup, the problem red LED worked fine.  After several attempts to resolve this problem including a worthless phone call with MTH, I just threw the traffic light aside once I realized it was probably some wire inside shorting out when the traffic light was in the proper vertical position.

I took one of the heads apart to fix the position -- they're set up green on the bottom. The head is held together with a single, very small screw. I don't recall anything in them other than wires from the leds to the electrical plug (there's enough slack so you can turn the LED cluster around). Many modern digital multimeters have a continuity/diode check. You can check the diodes with one of those. As Dave said above, it's more likely there's a connection problem with the base than with the LEDs.

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