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Interior Carriage Lights Not Working
Lincoln models HO and asked:
“Hi, I have a basic DCC train with passenger carriage (Roco) setup. I have a wire to the axle but the interior lights are not working. Do they need to be programmed into my DCC control? A little bit confused???!!”
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My reading of various books, magazines and Youtubers suggest that a chip is required. See Charlie Bishop’s vlog where he gives an excellent tutorial on this and related subjects
DCC puts an AC voltage on the track, but your LEDs operate from DC, therefore you must have a rectifier bridge between the wheel pickup and the LED lighting circuit (plus sufficient resistance to control the current).
So then your LED carriage lights can work directly from the track (no chips), and they will be on when the track is powered. It is also possible to fit a DCC accessory decoder in the carriage which will enable remote control of the carriage lights.
Have you tried the cars on DC? Are the cars DCC ready or DC/DCC? Is there power to the track?
Lincoln,
I have some questions before we should go into DCC details:
What coaches do you have (Roco-#)? I can easly investigate then – I am Austrian and have access to details- maybe the same products)
Are they original equipped with lighting (bulbs or LEDs?) Or after market equipped?
Do they have (wire)-pickup from both trucks independently?
Are the axles correctly set in (for DC) – opposite sites insulated?
Typo correction: opposite sides isolated ?