front lights on a Piko 218 loco

[DRG11]

Hi all,

hoperfully somebody can advise me on how the lighting wires go into a massoth XLS decoder please.

there are 2 wires each end normally joined with the power wires in analogue which puts the light on all the time,

As ive now fitted the XLS decoder does anybody know where these wires now go ? do they just go into the light front and rear ?

cheers

 

[PhilP]

I can give you some general information, but am not familiar with the Piko loco's:

Your decoder should have an 'front' and 'rear' light output. These will automatically switch on, dependent on direction of travel.
All function outputs switch to ground (negative) so the other side of your lights will connect to 'decoder +'.
BY DEFAULT, THE LIGHTING OUTPUTS WILL BE FULL TRACK VOLTAGE - 24 Volts!

You will need to discover (wait until someone tells you, on here!) what voltage the bulbs(?) require.
If they are LED's you will need a suitable series resistor, to limit the current.

 

[Tanker man]

Somewhere on this site there is a good description of how to connect the lights, it's posted, with a picture, by 'Stockers' I think, if you search the site for DB218 you should find it, I know I have the picture somewhere but am unable to locate it at the moment, on my iPad, if I find it, I'll post it later
Cheers
Dave

 

[muns]

Massoth used to do a lighting board for the 218 which added Red LED tail lamps. I have attached the old instruction manual for that set which shows how to wire the lighting to an XLS.

 

[DRG11]

Hi, many thanks for the replies, will see how i get on, cheers

 

[DRG11]

Hi all, well ive done something wrong as the lights do work, tried to wire up as stated but nothing at all,

could it be a problem with still trying to use the piko lights ?, im not worried about tail/rear lights just the front ones in direction of travel,

 

[PhilP]

Did you work out if the original's are bulbs or LED's?
If LED's, are you driving them with the correct polarity?
You DID use current limiting resistors, I presume?

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Always difficult to give a precise recipe when the fundamentals are not understood.

I would suggest the OP posting pictures showing what wires are hooked to what.

The alternative is learning how electrical circuits work, polarity of leds and current limiting diodes, and that "common" on a decoder for lighting is positive not negative.

Greg

 

[dunnyrail]

I seam to remember when I did my 218 back in Mad days that I did all new Lamps using LED’s powering them using the correct voltage direct from the Chip. I also incorporated blocking Diodes just to be safe with the LED’s. This was all posted on Mad but sadly possibly lost in the change of site.

 

[DRG11]

cheers gents I will start looking into it all, many thanks your help.

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Using a meter to determine if anything is happening (on volts scale) will eliminate false starts due to wrong polarity, wrong voltage, burned out bulb.

Greg

 

[DRG11]

Hi all,

Many thanks for all your help ive got them working fully now Thankyou for all your ideas with what to do.

Just need to change a bulb now as one had blown.

Thankyou

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Great!