Athearn's bulbs and cables

[faraway]

Athearn's current RTR SD40-2 has the usual bulbs and the black cables running from the bulbs in the shell in artful loops to the PCB. I had a look at the overall design of the model when I replaced the bulbs with LED and installed my standard DCC decoder. The PCB with the voltage regulators for the bulbs was of little help and got replaced with a little scratch board.
Next topic was the installation of the LED. I was surprised to find out that Athearn has all necessary support already build into the base casting of the model. Front and rear LEDs could be easily installed into locations of the casting that look like supposed to be support LED.
It is amazing how the model is intentionally spoiled with bulbs and lots of rattling cables while a clean solution is already built in.



ps. only external required add-on are front ditch lights. A nice looking and running model.

[Catt]

The newest Athearn I own is a CF-7 and it has bulbs.I do not understand Athearn's logic for this ,but since it was DCC ready the only thing I've done is install a decoder.Somewhere down the line it will get LEDs. My current blue box SD40-2s will get LEDs soon (only one is DCCed so far).

[torikoos]

I've replaced every set of Athearn bulbs with micro LED's.
This is my supplier:
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I feed them in from the outside, adding a little drop of Micro Kristal Klear in the hole where the original bulb was, this will prevent the LED to fall as it is somewhat sticky.
I carefully maneuver the LED in place and add another drop of MKK with a toothpick and carefully wipe away any spills and let dry.
The following day I have super bright, warm white bulbs, that will last a lifetime.

And to show what kind of light comes of these little led's, see this picture, which shows my detailed and painted SP GP9 almost head on, with Gyralight just reaching full strength. :-)

Untitled by K2K Koos, on Flickr



Koos