Proto wires?

I'll be the first one to figure this out I guess!

Hi Kerrigan,

Unfortunately, I can't really follow what you're asking.  I assume you are asking about wire colors.  It would be of great assistance if you at least used industrial standard color code abbreviations.

WHT = white

RED = red

BLK = black

GRY = gray

VLT = violet (purple)

ORG = orange

BLU = blue

GRN = green

YEL = yellow

BRN = brown

If you are asking which colors coming off the board need to got to which features, that depends on the type of engine.  Some engines with two smoke units used a slave board while others used a mux board.  Tell us more about what you're working on.

One has four sets, in addition to the W/Y for the smoke unit fan motor,  that slide onto pins; Blu/Blu, B/R, B/B, and R/B.  The other has three sets: O/O, R/B, and G/G

One what?  One smoke unit?  One engine?  One wire harness?

I'd doing a Proto DDA40X upgrade to Proto2.  The wires on the rear board, with four spring pads, are WHT & YEL for the fan motor, and ORG & ORG on a plug, RED & BLK on another plug, and GRN & GRN on the other plug.  The are for light, but which ones; it has markers and a back-up light at that end.

The other smoke board has eight spring pads with the same WHT & YEL for the smoke fan, then the wires BLU & BLU on one plug, RED & BLK on another plug, BLU & BLU on another plug, BLK & BLK on another plug, and finally BLK & RED on the fourth plug.  It has markers, headlight (with two bulbs together) blinking yellow light on top, number board lights and both boards have the heater for the smoke unit, but I can't figure out if any of those wires are for the heaters.

I have not worked on one of these, but unscrew the spring pad on the shell and trace wires.  You can test each with a 6 volt source.  If they light well they are the 6V bulbs not the 18V bulbs.  You can replace them with the ones in your kit anyway.

As far as smoke, remove the unit and look under it.  Most likely there are extra CV components on this board to drive the lights.

Normally green is reverse light, and blue is forward.  Black and red are probably AC in.  Proto One smoke ran off track voltage via a switch.  You have to disable all of this anyway for PROTO 2.  Smoke fan is easy, ensuring the heater elements are isolated will take some tracing of the board to ensure you cut appropriate traces.

Unless the spring pads on the smoke are just pass through connectors to the wiring, I would unsolder the springs and remove the spring pad on the shell and direct wire the lights like any other diesel.  G

Tested the rear headlights with 6v AC and it blew them out immediately.

Tested the markers with 1.5v AC and they lit ...

So the resistors, etc., on the underside of the board must be reducing the current down to 1.5v AC.  They look like that's what they are doing.  I'll snip them out and jumper the stubs in the traces to get pass-through, then use the existing plugs/pins to connect up with the new bulbs.  Might get 6v LEDs from Evans Products instead.

Can't use the 1.5v bulbs with the new Proto2 board anyway ... but this is something to remember:

Always test lower rather than higher first ... it doesn't work too well the other way ...

Yes, I am sorry.  The Rev and Fwd lights where always 1.5V bulbs when directional.  Even when connected to a CV board such as the F-3 the signal to drive them came in from the PS-1 board and that was 1.5V.  The other lights and even the markers should be 6 volts.

Again, with a diesel kit installation you will get all the lights for markers, headlights, ditch lights and cab lights with the wiring harness to hook them all up.  So the original wiring and bulbs should not matter.  Can you post a picture of the bottom of the smoke unit?   G

Haven't got the boards pulled yet to take a picture ....