Ho block signal

[Cxs21]

Anyone tell me what I'm going to need to put power to this block signals.they are a two led light signals. There were no instructions. There is a green wire a red wire and w black wire with a resistor on the end.any help?

[Len]

Do you know who made the signal? There may be instructions on their web site.

Len

[jward]

WHat you will need depends on what you want the signal to do. Do you want to use it to indicate the position of a switch? or do you want it to detect trains?

What are the colour bands on the resistor? Those will help determine what voltage the signal power should be.

[Cxs21]

The color bands on the resistor as from what I can tell are red green brown.does that make sense?  I like the block lights just to show the direction of the turnout.hope that makes sense to you.I'm new at this.this.

[Len]

Red-Green-Brown would be a 250 Ohm resister, witha +/- tolerance of 20% if there's not a 4th color band.

Len

[rich1998]

Right now I am guess they have a light bulb, not an LED. Probably operate on 12 volts.
I made signals many years ago that were bi color two lead LED's. Different value resistors. I used TTL logic. 220 ohm resistors.

Rich

[Len]

The simplest way to do it would be with an Atlas #200 Snap-Relay wired per the diagram:



"To DS64" goes to whatever is controlling your turnout, whether it's a basic control button or a DCC turnout controller. With EZ-Track turnouts, the center wire would go to the center screw on the end of the relay. The red and green wires from the signal go to the two screws shown on the relay. The wire with the resistor goes to one side of whatever power supply you're using, the other side of the power supply goes to the screw marked with the "+". The "+/-" polarity of the power supply for your signal may not be the same as the diagram.

You could use a 9V battery to test the hookup before doing anything permanent to the turnout wires. Just connect the signal and battery to the relay and slide the lever manually to see which polarity goes where, and which lamp comes on for each position. A 9V DC wall-wart could be used for the permanent installation.

Len

[Trainman203]

Man.😲 .  All of this makes me very happy to model a dark-territory MP branch. Only two trains ran on it daily except  Sunday.  The out bound train left New Iberia for Port Barre every evening around 6 or 7, got to PB around 11, dropped off the outbound cars , picked up the inbound, left when the train was made up and got back to NI around 5 AM or so.  It was a mixed train  until 1935.  No opposing trains, ergo , no signaling requirements.  Although every train carried kerosene markers on the way car.  In and out!  Operation at its most basic!  My kind of railroad!  I cried when it was pulled up in 1986.

[jward]

As was mentioned, the resistor does not indicate an LED signal wired to work off a standard 12 volt supply such as many of the better DC power packs have.

For information, the resistor code is as follows:

first two bands are individual digits as follows:
0= black
1= brown
2= red
3= orange
4= yellow
5= green
6= blue
7= purple (violet)
8= grey
9= white

The third band is a multiplier, use the above code to determine the number of zeroes to add to the first two digits.

thus your red-green-brown resistor  is 2-5-0 ohms

And Led operated off 12v usually uses a 1000 ohm resistor. 1-brown, 0-black, 00-red, thus brown-black-red is a 1000 ohm resistor.


You can use higher values than what is called for but NEVER use a lower value. Resistors limit the current in a circuit to levels it can handle, and a lower value will allow excess current and probably burn something up.


Obviously, design of electrical circuits can become quite complicated. There are a few of us here that know a bit on the subject and can advise you if need be.

You never DID tell us if you are merely looking to use the signal to indicate the position of a switch, as shown in the diagram above, or if you'd like it to indicate if a train is beyond the signal like the real ones do.