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Wire Color Code For LEDs on DCC Ready HO E7?

Started by jwb, January 22, 2017, 03:14:44 PM

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jwb

I have a new DCC ready E7 loco. I would like to install a Digitrax DH166 to be able to control the various light functions -- headlight, Mars light, and numberboards -- separately. Testing it on DC, I see that the default is for all LEDs to be lit. It looks like I will need to identify the wires going to the LEDs, cut them, and splice them into the corresonding wires coming out of the DH166. However, the wires on the loco are colored blue, green, and yellow, and I'm not sure how they correspond to the white, violet, and green wires coming out of the DH166. Has anyone worked this out? I can experiment, cut the wires on the loco, and see what happens, but if someone already has this figured out, I'd like to learn it.  Thanks!

dutchbuilder

Standard for a dcc decoder is i believe always the same.
Correct me if i'm wrong.

Black and red for right and left track.
orange and grey for the motor - and +.
white and blue for head light.
Yellow and blue for back light.
brown and blue for extra function F5.
green and blue for extra function F6.
Purple is used for speaker.
Tan for cam (steam)

For led lighting add 1K resistor in white, yellow, brown and green wire.

Ton

Len

According to the instructions for the DH166 Digitrax is using the standard NMRA colors:

Red - Engineer's Side Track Power
Black - Fireman's Side Track Power
Orange - Motor +
Gray - Motor -
White - F0 - Forward Light
Yellow - F0 - Rear Light
Blue - Common
Green - F1
Violet - F2

Functins F3 and F4 are also available by peeling back the shrink wrap slightly, and solding on your own wires to the provided pads.

Len
If at first you don't succeed, throw it in the spare parts box.


jwb

OK, yes, I'm aware of that. However, the problem I'm referring to is that the wire colors on the Bachmann E7 don't follow the NMRA standard.

My question is whether anyone knows what the colors on the E7 correspond to on Digitrax -- i.e., what does the yellow wire, which seems to go to the headlight area, control, since there is no rear headlight (which yellow controls in NMRA0 in the E7?

Hunt

jwb,
No one can answer your question with certainty.  Using multimeter continuity testing, you must  confirm the function of all wires. A function match with one color does not indicate you can assume there is a color function match of the other wires.


jwb

#6
Here is what I found: the headlight and warning light LEDs (on the locos that have warning lights) are surface mount LEDs directly attached to the nose PC board. Without really major micro PC board surgery, it isn't possible to separate these headlight LED circuits to control them separately. They are reached via the green and blue wires from the end of the PC board. The number board LEDs are on a separate circuit reached via a yellow and red wire coming from the side of the main PC board. You can control these separately via either the green or violet wire from a multi function decoder. However, you will need to connect the wire from the LEDs that you use for this via a resistor -- I used 560 ohm. Works via F2 now. Wish you could set up the warning light separately, and if someone figures this out, I'd like to hear it!

So you're a little better off with an E7 with just the upper headlight.