Loksound 5 micro (58828) Front/rear LED, is a resistor required?

[craigolio1]

Hey all.

I’ve installed this decoder in an N scale Bachman Spectrum 2-8-0. I get motor control but no headlight. I’ve tried reversing the polarity. I’ve made sure to press F0. The Spectrum loco has a factory light board with a resistor and a diode. I have tested polarity and confirmed it works with a 9v battery. But from the decoder I get nothing.

I’ve looked in the manual and can’t seem to find it mentioned with this particular decoder. Could it have built in resistors for the front and rear light functions?

Thanks.

Craig

[peteski]

The headlight and AUX function outputs do not have on-decoder resistors.  Even if they did have a resistor, doubling up on the resistors would still allow the LED to light up (just a bit dimmer).

Do sounds work correctly?
What sound project is uploaded to the decoder?
Can you take an extra LED and resistor and connect it to the headlight output (white or yellow) and positive wire (U+) to test out the decoder?

[jdcolombo]

Do the last thing Peteski said:

Take a spare LED and a 1K resistor and connect that directly to the decoder.  See if that works.

If not, try doing a factory reset (that won't affect the sound file, but will reset any other programming changes you made).  Enter "8" in CV 8, then remove the decoder from power for 5 seconds, then power back up.

Still no joy?  There may be a problem with the sound file.  Very occasionally, files get "scrambled" when being loaded to a decoder.  Try re-loading the sound file (I'm assuming you have a LokProgrammer).

John C.

[craigolio1]

Thanks Guys.

I don’t have a speaker connected to it yet. This was a soft test just to be sure the connectors i rigged up between the tender and loco will work.

I just wanted to be sure I’m aware of what I’m dealing with before I start messing with wiring. I need to replace the factory board anyway as the light on this loco is out on a perch on the front of the smoke box. So I may as well just get to that now as the next logical step. I’ll add the speaker now as well.

I do have the Lokprogrammer but I’ve never used it. I also have the ESU decoder tester and this decoder has a Next18 with a daughter board so it would be easy enough to pop it out and test as well.

Peteski I didn’t think adding a resistor would be an issue. I regularly use 6-10k on my loco lights which is way higher than is usually found. But there’s diodes and such in there too so I thought maybe the added resistance combined with other voltage dropping components might make it so that it wouldn’t light.

Thanks again for the advice.

Craig.

Edit: while I have you….. I added 440uF of capacitance but I didn’t add the diode and 100ohm resister per the Loksound diagram. I’ve seen lots of other installs without so I didn’t bother. Am I asking for it? It’s connected now and nothing caught fire.

[jdcolombo]

Edit: while I have you….. I added 440uF of capacitance but I didn’t add the diode and 100ohm resister per the Loksound diagram. I’ve seen lots of other installs without so I didn’t bother. Am I asking for it? It’s connected now and nothing caught fire.

You don't need the diode/resistor combo for 440uf.  The diode-resistor combo is there to prevent sudden in-rush current to the capacitors from looking like a short to your command station.  But 440uf is too little to cause this problem.

John C.

[reinhardtjh]

Just as an FYI.  It doesn't sound as if you have loaded a sound file yet?  Or did the dealer when you bought the decoder?  In any case, I just did a test with a factory fresh LS5 Micro (58820) that hadn't had a sound file loaded yet and tested the light function.  It works and is set up so that the LokProgrammer throttle the "Light" button turns on the light.  It also switches between Front and Rear when you change directions.  I wasn't sure if the default test setup in the decoders had the light functions set, but it apparently does.

[craigolio1]

You don't need the diode/resistor combo for 440uf.  The diode-resistor combo is there to prevent sudden in-rush current to the capacitors from looking like a short to your command station.  But 440uf is too little to cause this problem.

John C.

Excellent. Thank you.

[craigolio1]

Just as an FYI.  It doesn't sound as if you have loaded a sound file yet?  Or did the dealer when you bought the decoder?  In any case, I just did a test with a factory fresh LS5 Micro (58820) that hadn't had a sound file loaded yet and tested the light function.  It works and is set up so that the LokProgrammer throttle the "Light" button turns on the light.  It also switches between Front and Rear when you change directions.  I wasn't sure if the default test setup in the decoders had the light functions set, but it apparently does.

No, I havnt done any programming yet and the decoder is factory. This is very helpful. Thank you.

[peteski]

For future reference, the factory installed sound on a "blank"  decoder has an odd sounding engine sound, and a shrieking sounding single-chime horn.  The headlights (front and rear) are mapped to the F0 (or headlight) function, and all the other decoder's AUX outputs are mapped to other function buttons on the throttle.  AUX1 is mapped to F3, AUX2 to F4, AUX3 to F5, and so on.

[craigolio1]

For future reference, the factory installed sound on a "blank"  decoder has an odd sounding engine sound, and a shrieking sounding single-chime horn.  The headlights (front and rear) are mapped to the F0 (or headlight) function, and all the other decoder's AUX outputs are mapped to other function buttons on the throttle.  AUX1 is mapped to F3, AUX2 to F4, AUX3 to F5, and so on.

Thanks Peteski