Athearn and MTH SP Mars Lights With DCC Decoders?


J

jwb

Member
I have several Athearn Genesis SP GP9s and an MTH SP GP35, all with DCC plugs but without sound or decoders in them. Has anyone installed a multi-function decoder in any of these to get Mars light effects? Was rewiring necessary? Any other tips?
 
I couldn't tell you about MTH. I don't own any of their locos. I have done several Athearn Genesis models. I replaced the factory boards with Tsunamis and had to test each light to find out which bulbs were which, as all the bulb wires were black. Tedious but not hard. Just take your time. MTH might be a little more work as they are positive ground where everyone else is negative ground. Not sure about their newer "DCC friendly" stuff.
 
Thought so Carey. I didn't want to tell anyone wrong. I don't intend to buy any MTH locos so I'm no help when it comes to working on them!
 
The Athearn ones are very easy to drop in an 8-pin decoder to get working mars lights, no wiring necessary.

As far as getti the Emergency light wired, I drilled out the shell to fit a bulb. It wasn't worth doing another; the SP rarely used them.
 
On mine the mars light and headlight were wired together. All would have lit with function 0 as supplied from the factory. I had to separate the headlight bulbs and the mars light bulbs and get them connected to the correct terminals on the decoder, so some relocating of wires was required.
 
Interesting, the one non-sound unit I have didnt need rewiring, I just put in a Tsunami non-sound decoder...which speed matched the tsunami sound equipped locos I have almost perfectly right from the get go. Moving the wires for the mars lights shouldn't be difficult, but there is eight wires to track down!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top