Stumped. Tsunami installation into P2K GP9

[MartyG]

Hey Tetters. Ya ,That looks to be right .With my instals I have gone one step better and put in a 1 k resister.I do that for people using other layouts as it safegaurds the LED up to a 20 volt system .Not that I have seen any that high but power spikes can happen and the right color LEDs are hard to find.As I said goodluck and keep smilin. MartyG.

[tetters]

Well... I don't get it. I tried programming the CV's as suggested but its not working for me. Do I need to do this on a programming track? I guess I should have mentioned that I've been doing Programming on the Main. If that makes a difference. However, I wired up a 12 v bulb and it works. I can manipulate the headlight, on off, forward / reverse. The issue here I think is voltage. The outputs do not seem to be sending adequate voltage to the bulbs. Is there a CV to increase the amount of voltage to the lights?

[woodone]

Ok. From what I saw on your photos of the Tsunami decoder you are working with is a decoder that was meant to be use in a Athearn locomotive. At one end of the decoder you should see two capacitors mounted to the board, they are silver and about the size of a pencil eraser. If so, that is the board and the photos I saw confirm that.
Athearn locos use 1.5 volt bulbs if you are going to use LED's you must get the positive voltage off the 14 volt pad. Power the LED's off that through a resistor.
Sounds to me like you are trying to power the LEDs through a resistor off the 1.5 volt pads. At 1.5 volts they will never light up.
You need to look real close at your decoder. You should find a square pad that has 14 v or 14 volts written by it. Very small
I don't have a decoder in my hands and can not remember where it is. And there might be more than one pad. LOOK hard to find it or them.
The pads shown on the instruction sheet are 2&3 1.5 volts, 10&11 1.5 volts,15&16 1.5 volts, 13&14 1.5 volts. Look close at these pads, one pad of the pairs I noted should be oval, NOT square. That is the positive or common 1.5 volt pad, the other one should be square and it is the funcion wire for that light. Front- rear or what ever. That is the wire that should be going to your LED's and the other lead of the LED's to the 14 volt pad THROUGH a RESISTOR. This lead is the positive lead of your LED. The long lead on the LED is positive.
Double check!! Try one ( and only one) of the out puts on the side of the board- That way should you wipe out a function you will still have a function pad at the front and rear for a front light and rear light.
I am old and this is from memory, so go slow and check and recheck, decoders are money gone when you let the smoke out of them.

[Wayne R]

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

[Wayne R]

Tetters

Woodone is correct. Somewhere on the decoder there sould be a small pad with 14v or 14 volts written on it or next to it. I found refrence to it but not to where it is located. I will see if I can find more info about it.



Wayne Reid

[Gary S]

Hey Tetters, sorry I don't have anything to add about the LEDs, but it looks like you are getting some good advice from others. And while you are learning more, so am I. Keep us posted on whatever you find.

[tetters]

Found it! I think?



Next question. What size resistor should I be using on this circuit? Will 1000k be enough?

[woodone]

Eureka!! You found it.
You will need to use a resistor to EACH LED from this pad. The 1K resistors will work just fine.
I think I see a light shining on a locomotive soon.

[woodone]

tetters.
Is that masking tape you are using to hold the board in place?
You might want to replace it with some Kapton tape. The masking tape will make a gummy mess after a while, then it will become imposable to remove if you ever need to. The blue tape works well to hold things in place for trial fits. Not for permanent use.

[tetters]

tetters.
Is that masking tape you are using to hold the board in place?
You might want to replace it with some Kapton tape. The masking tape will make a gummy mess after a while, then it will become imposable to remove if you ever need to. The blue tape works well to hold things in place for trial fits. Not for permanent use.

Yes it is. I agree with your comments. I am planning to make a trip to an electronics supply warehouse tomorrow and pick up some Kapton tape instead and pick up some 1000k resistors while I'm at it.

Thanks to everyone for your help so far. It is much appreciated.

One more quick question. There is a tab for a ground wire (so to speak) on the board just in the lower left of the picture. What purpose if any would this serve as far as wiring the decoder goes?

[MartyG]

Hey Tetters. Looks like your learning alot with this one.Yes a 1 K resistor will work.I have dwarf signals on my small switching layout with power taken from the bus at 14 volts.They are LEDs and they work good with a 1 K.I didnt relise it was a drop in for another loco or I would have told you the same thing .At least you didnt have to remove the shrink wrap on it to find the output. MartyG

[tetters]

Hey Tetters. Looks like your learning alot with this one.

Yeah, no kidding!

The thing is looking closely at the manuals and such, they never mention this little trick any where. It just says wire to the function pads. Even the Litchfield Station website has a drawing that shows LED & Resistor getting wired directly to the pads. It must be part of a theory I have developed over the years based on the Lowest Common Denominator Principle.

Meaning that if you can't figure it out for yourself, then you are forced to take to someone who does. Likewise, if everyone and their brother knew about this, then you'd probably hear about a lot more of these decoders getting smoked and Soundtraxx would go out of business. By withholding this little trick from the layman, Soundtraxx can't be liable for providing the instructions on how to "hot wire" it in the first place.

S.

[MartyG]

LOL .I think with this one we all learned a little bit.At least you will know for the next one .Its good to see everyone adding their bit of imfo got you farther each time. I made a little note to myself about this decoder if I happen to do one. But then again I do like a challenge. MartyG

[tetters]

LOL .I think with this one we all learned a little bit.At least you will know for the next one .Its good to see everyone adding their bit of imfo got you farther each time. I made a little note to myself about this decoder if I happen to do one. But then again I do like a challenge. MartyG

The only thing that gets me about this, is when I purchased the decoder, I told the LHS guy I wanted to retro fit to P2K and use LEDs for lights. You'd think maybe he'd mention this or maybe not... perhaps he was counting on me bringing it in? :|

[tetters]

A quick wiring schematic I whipped up MS Paint.

Just to make sure I understand woodone's instructions properly...for which I am extremely grateful for!!!

Have a look see and tell me if I got it wrong.



Edit: I played with the drawing a bit more...just cause...