Constant Headlight on On30 Forney?

[pandprr]

Hi all,

Anyone know how to modify the circuit board on the Forneys to make the headlight stay on in both directions?

It's easy with standard Tsunami decoders (just connect yellow and white wires together) - but there must be a way of doing it on the Forney circuit board (which has no yellow/white wires of course, just printed circuitry).

With the older style prototype headlamps (oil, etc) they would have been on all the time of course once lit, not on and off each time the loco reversed.

It must just be a simple question of what to 'bridge' on the circuit board - but thats the question.......what?

Don Mason
Nottingham
UK

[Mike_AA9ZY]

Hello Don!
I'm not a dcc expert by any means, but I wonder if there is a configuration variable that can be adjusted for this.

Any dcc "experts" out there want to comment?

[Tim]

Don

On the 8 pin socket connect pins 2 (rear light) and 6 (Headlight) together.

Your light should remain on regardless of direction.

Pin 6 is the decoder output to the headlight, pin 2 is the decoder output
to the backup light.

Tim Anders
Souderton, PA

[JohnR]

It's easy. No cross-wiring required.  CV's 33 & 34 are your front and rear light CV's for F0 (fwd & rev respectively).  A value of 1 turns on the head light.  A value of 2 turns on the rear light. 

If you have oil/kerosene lamps on your loco, you'll want these on irrespective of direction.  For the headlight to be on constantly, set the two CV's to 1.  If you have front and rear lights, and want them on, set the CV's to 3 (1-front + 2-rear).  With the CV's set to 3, the lights will remain on forward and reverse and turn on/off with F0.  If you want the same effect with electric lights and a dynamo, set the CV's to 67 (3-lights + 64-dynamo).

-John

[Mike_AA9ZY]

I thought so!

[pandprr]

Thank you John.

This must be the first time I've been both extremely grateful and extremely irritated at the same time...

...extremely grateful for your info and extremely irritated to find out that it was as simple as programming a CV - which I could have done months ago on all five of my Forneys in about 45 seconds flat.

Oh well, just goes to prove we can all learn something.

Pity we can't reinstate the safety valve 'blow-off' which Bachmann stripped out of the standard Tsunami - the one glaring omission from the sound range ....or does anyone know different ?

[JohnR]

I honestly haven't paid close attention to that feature on any Bachmann installed Tsunami to note it as missing.  What makes you think it was stripped out?

-John

[pandprr]

Simply the fact that the blow-off doesn't operate automatically as it does on standard 'full' Tsunamis (likewise other things like 'Fireman Fred') and there is no apparent means of making it operate -  i.e. no obvious CV that can be programmed to turn it on or off.......and tweaking within the 'advanced' system programming is way beyond my electronic knowledge.

You can sort-of simulate it manually by hitting the 'escaping steam' button on your control unit (F4 on my NCE unit) but it is not the same at all as the automatic 'random' blow-off on the standard Tsunami - which always delights when it suddenly blows off when you least expect it.

I'm sure all sorts of things can be done in all sorts of areas - for instance I read somewhere that somebody had programmed a 'cracked' bell sound into a Forney - but heaven alone knows how. 

But going back to the blow off - I still think this is by far the most tragic omission....unless it is there someplace waiting to be 'dug out'

[JohnR]

Ya.  I'm slow sometimes.  I didn't associate it with the random Fred events.  That and the injectors would have been nice.  The rest I don't miss.  Even so, a Bachmann with built-in Tsunami is hard to beat.

-John