KB02
Well-Known Member
If you browse ebay at all, you may have seen those Rivarossi U25C going around for really low prices. Well, I picked up one of the DCC Ready versions a while back and have been extremely happy with it. The mother board has both 8 and 21 pin connectors and I converted it to DCC with a simple 8 pin adapter plug connected to a 9 pin decoder. The downfall to this set up is that even though the loco comes FULL of lights pre-wired into the mother board, when you use the 8 pin plug, you only have headlight control (without an additional amount of soldering anyway). Well, with my birthday coming up, I figured I'd buy myself a present an get a good, 21 pin, sound decoder for it. I chose the Econami ECO-21PNEM decoder as I already have an Econami in one of my other locos and am really happy with it. Plug and play operation (just had to solder on the leads for the speaker) and I was back on the tracks. The problem comes with the lights.
The ECO-21PNEM decoder is a 6 function decoder. I figured that would enough to run all the lights, but it was not. On the loco I have headlight front and rear (functions 1 and 2), Number lights (function 3), and two emergency lights front and rear (Red and white in each direction - total of four lights, functions 4, 5, 6, ???). When all is said and done, I have 7 functions I am a trying to run through 6. Headlights and number lights are all set, no worries there. It's the emergency lights that are perplexing me.
As I don't need them to all come on/off individually, I would like to have the front white light and rear red light on in forward direction, and vise-versa for backwards. It is the rear Red light that appears to fall off the decoder's capability. Attached is a basic Schematic of the motherboard (pt# HornbyU25C-V10 if that helps anyone). I tried wiring The Emergency light 2 (red) to the Emergency Light 1 on the front. But then the rear light worked, the front did not. Why would this be?
The ECO-21PNEM decoder is a 6 function decoder. I figured that would enough to run all the lights, but it was not. On the loco I have headlight front and rear (functions 1 and 2), Number lights (function 3), and two emergency lights front and rear (Red and white in each direction - total of four lights, functions 4, 5, 6, ???). When all is said and done, I have 7 functions I am a trying to run through 6. Headlights and number lights are all set, no worries there. It's the emergency lights that are perplexing me.
As I don't need them to all come on/off individually, I would like to have the front white light and rear red light on in forward direction, and vise-versa for backwards. It is the rear Red light that appears to fall off the decoder's capability. Attached is a basic Schematic of the motherboard (pt# HornbyU25C-V10 if that helps anyone). I tried wiring The Emergency light 2 (red) to the Emergency Light 1 on the front. But then the rear light worked, the front did not. Why would this be?
