PS3 headlight/reverse light voltage?

First question will be are the markers enabled for that chain/sound file combo.  Next question will be, do you have the tiny contacts to connect to the PS/3 board.

I see what you want to do, you want to emulate the Atlas TMCC lights.  MTH uses series LEDs for Markers for PS-2.  We don't have  a lot of technical info out on the PS-3 boards yet.  The board does drive all LEDs.

I guess if I was going to try this, I would put series marker LEDs in the rear in parallel with the Head light, and put the front series markers in parallel with the reverse light.

Series would limit the current through the marker LEDs and probably not taxes the LED FET to much.  Question is will it light well.  The MTH steam headlight LED was a single LED with no resistor, so all current limiting is done on the board.   G

I would have traced the marker lights to see what function they connect to. It maybe different on each board??

 (32 wires???)

Thanks for your help.

GGG - I'll try that. The head/reverse LEDs look like standard 3mm soft white LEDs to me so wiring 2 series markers in parallel with them may not produce enough light. My plan B is to mount a single red LED parallel wired to the opposite head/reverse light inside the shell with 1mm flexible fiber optic 'pipes' to each of the front and rear dummy marker housings.

John - I don't know the answer to Q1 and Q2 is "no". I was hoping to do this the same way I recently did a PS2 diesel by just splicing wires instead of disturbing the guts of the PS3.

Joe - I'm not sure what you mean - the engine has no marker lights to trace and i don't know where the marker connection would be on a PS3.

I'll let you know what happens.

Here you go, that's where they connect on the 30-pin connector.

Thanks John,

I can't see which pin the reverse LED + connects to. Am I missing something?

He gave you a steam plug which is not the same.  The Steam uses a boiler and tender board, while the diesel is a single 40 pin connector.  Additionally, it might not be standard.  Any pin out can be used for any LED light, the chain file determines what it is used for.

It does look like the Marker LEDs in PS-3 is Parallel though.  You can see the return is to a common PCB Ground.  This is normally blue in PS-2, so check your led lights.  The source for voltage is the control power for the LED.

Since you want to have rear red leds markers on when the engine is moving forward Correct?  Tapping the headlight would work.   G

Just trace your reverse or headlight wire plug.

Would work tapping off the headlight circuit until the engine stops, then when rule 17 lighting dims the headlight won't the led's go out?? 

Has MTH started using bi-color led's in the markers yet for PS3? I've seen them used in the One-Gauge GG1.

Good catch GGG, I shot the wrong connector.

I seem to have opened Pandora's Box with this question.

CRH makes a good point.  Can you disable Rule 17?  If not, don't give up hope.  PS3 controls LED brightness by changing the pulse width (duty-cycle) of the voltage applied to the LED.  So even if dimmed, the peak voltage applied is the same which means the red markers would dim by essentially the same ratio as the headlight (as opposed to go out due to low voltage).

Now if I were doing it, I'd make the observation from GRJ's diagram that for whatever reason PS3 uses active-high LED drive...meaning the LEDs have a common ground.  That tells me that they are using digital drivers rather than the open-drain FETs of PS2.  Digital drives means they drive high or low.  So take the headlight.  When ON the wire from the board is "high" going to the + side of the LED, the - side of the LED goes to ground.  When OFF, the wire from the board is "low".  So if you put the - side of the rear marker LED to that same wire and tie the + side of the rear marker LED to P5V (pin2 on GRJ's diagram...change to whatever pin # for diesel board).  Then you won't burden the headlight or tail-light with the marker LEDs.  Do the same for the tail-light power the front marker LEDs when the tail-light is OFF.  May need some resistors to adjust brightness.  And no, I have not done this myself and I fully realize that Nothing is so easy as the job you imagine someone else doing.

Looks like my 'marker light project' will have to wait for a while.

I programmed and ran the engine for the first time today and, after about 5 minutes I noticed that the headlight was no longer working and smoke (which was impressive at first) was just wisping out of the stacks.

I removed the shell to check for loose connections and found a section of bare headlamp wire and 'that' smell. It looks like heat from the smoke unit melted the hot glue holding the wire to the top of the shell, causing it to drop onto the smoke unit and melt the insulation. The smoke fan still works but the smoke unit doesn't generate smoke.

A bit disappointing for a brand new Premier engine.

I'll save your tips (which I really appreciate) and get back to this in 2015.

Stan, you beat me to it!

Tying into the P5V (which drives all the electronics on the board may have unintended consequences. Sorry to hear about this latest casualty.  G