02-25-2010, 08:43 PM
tetters
After looking over the instruction sheet for the TSU-GN1000 you posted I have a feeling the decoder only supplies 1.5 volts at the lighting outputs. The GN1000 is a replacement for the Athearn Genesis lighting board so sounds can be added to the Genesis locomotives. All the Genesis locomotives come with 1.5 volt light bulbs for the lights. The instruction sheet for the GN1000 talks about wiring the the headlight bulbs to terminals 2 & 3 for the headlight and 10 & 11 for the reverse light. There is no mention of needing resistors and the diagram does not show any. If your 12 volt bulbs are not lighting very bright I would bet if you tried some 1.5 volt 20 to 30mah bulbs they would light at the proper brightness. Another thing you could do is measure the voltage at the lighting inputs with a voltmeter. If you do so you have to be very carefull not to short out the lighting outputs as they will no longer work if you do short them. I would attach a long wire to each pad ( 2 & 3 for example ) so the ends could be kept far apart and hook one lead of the voltmeter to each wire then power up the decoder with the voltmeter set to the 12 volt setting.
Before hitting submit for the is reply I decided to see if I could find out if the lighting outputs for the GN1000 are actually 1.5 volt outputs. On the Yahoo Soundtraxx group I found out they are. This statement was copied from a post on the Soundtraxx group. "Recommending the GN board does not
make sense. All it's outputs are 1.5V because they were designed for Athearn
units which use all 1.5V bulbs around. "
Now for the bad news. Seeing as the GN1000 does put out 1.5 volts at the lighting functions this means LEDs are not going to work as most of the high brightness ( golden white and sunny white ) LEDs need about 2.3 to 3.5 volts to light up. But there may be a way as the post found at this link suggests. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soundtraxx/message/20659">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soundtraxx/message/20659</a><!-- m -->
Wayne Reid
After looking over the instruction sheet for the TSU-GN1000 you posted I have a feeling the decoder only supplies 1.5 volts at the lighting outputs. The GN1000 is a replacement for the Athearn Genesis lighting board so sounds can be added to the Genesis locomotives. All the Genesis locomotives come with 1.5 volt light bulbs for the lights. The instruction sheet for the GN1000 talks about wiring the the headlight bulbs to terminals 2 & 3 for the headlight and 10 & 11 for the reverse light. There is no mention of needing resistors and the diagram does not show any. If your 12 volt bulbs are not lighting very bright I would bet if you tried some 1.5 volt 20 to 30mah bulbs they would light at the proper brightness. Another thing you could do is measure the voltage at the lighting inputs with a voltmeter. If you do so you have to be very carefull not to short out the lighting outputs as they will no longer work if you do short them. I would attach a long wire to each pad ( 2 & 3 for example ) so the ends could be kept far apart and hook one lead of the voltmeter to each wire then power up the decoder with the voltmeter set to the 12 volt setting.
Before hitting submit for the is reply I decided to see if I could find out if the lighting outputs for the GN1000 are actually 1.5 volt outputs. On the Yahoo Soundtraxx group I found out they are. This statement was copied from a post on the Soundtraxx group. "Recommending the GN board does not
make sense. All it's outputs are 1.5V because they were designed for Athearn
units which use all 1.5V bulbs around. "
Now for the bad news. Seeing as the GN1000 does put out 1.5 volts at the lighting functions this means LEDs are not going to work as most of the high brightness ( golden white and sunny white ) LEDs need about 2.3 to 3.5 volts to light up. But there may be a way as the post found at this link suggests. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soundtraxx/message/20659">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soundtraxx/message/20659</a><!-- m -->
Wayne Reid