A few months ago Karl R mentioned some creative Mars use on the Fox River branch.....
Myself, I didn't like them from the inside. They were very hypnotic to watch and made it hard to stay awake.
DougSent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
From: William Barber <clipperw@gmail.com>
Sender: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:52:46 -0500 To: <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> ReplyTo: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CBQ] Re: Mars Light Operation
Nelson,
While your description of how the headlights and Mars lights should operate is essentially correct, keep in mind that none of that happened automatically except for the operation of the red Mars light in emergency. All of the other functions were manual operations conducted by the engineer. He turned on the headlights, dimmed them, turned on the white Mars light and could control it's movement (the Mars light oscillated in a figure 8 pattern, sweeping a large arc of light from side to side with the cross point over the tracks. The light's aiming direction was random whenever the oscillation was stopped). There was an "inching" switch which allowed the engineer to reposition the light when it was not oscillating. (Most of the time, the Mars lights were in the oscillation mode when turned on. The oscillation was seldom stopped.) I am not certain that there was a dimmed position for the Mars light. It was customary to turn the light off when stopped to meet another train. When trains met at speed, it is my recollection that the Mars light were left on. At night, the Mars light could be seen long before the locomotive came into view.
While I don't have first hand experience, I am fairly certain that the Mars light function were the same on the shovel nose Zephyrs. In fact, I suspect that those functions may have been developed with the Zephyr applications and were carried over to the later steam and diesel locomotive applications.
Bill Barber Gravois Mills, MO Mon Jun 25, 2012 10:37 am (PDT)
Thank you to those who provided information about the operation of
headlights and Mars lights on GP-7 and SD-7 motors. Here’s a summary of what
I learned, for those needing to program DCC decoders.
Pyle National sealed beam twin headlights were used on both motors. For the
GP-7, they were mounted below the Mars light, which was located where the
stock headlights would have been. For the SD-7, they were below the elevated
twin oscillating Mars lights. Both lenses of the Pyle lights are clear. The
top lens of the Mars light in clear and the bottom lens is red. The white
Mars light oscillated in the direction of movement and extinguished in the
opposite direction. The red Mars light lit and oscillated only when the
emergency brake was applied. The headlight dimmed in reverse, and the white
Mars light turned off. The oscillating speed of the Mars light was
approximately one rotation per 0.75 to 1 second. Speed varied between
locomotives due to mechanical issues.
I’m still adding details to the GP-7 and SD-7 before painting them, so it
will be a while before I get to decoder installation and programming.
Meanwhile, I’ve added a QSI Titan-U decoder to the Con Cor Mars light
Zephyr. The decoder came programmed with Winton sounds, and was plug and
play for the lights, however the lighting effects I get don’t match
operation characteristics described above. Here’s how they work now:
Front Lights (headlights and Mars Light)
Idle – headlight dim, clear Mars light dim, not oscillating, red Mars light
dim, not oscillating.
Forward – headlight bright, clear Mars light bright and oscillating, red
Mars light bright, not oscillating.
Stop from forward – headlight dim, clear Mars light dim, not oscillating,
red Mars light dim, not oscillating.
Reverse – headlight bright, clear Mars light dim, not oscillating, red Mars
light dim, not oscillating.
Stop in reverse – headlight dim, clear Mars light dim, red Mars light dim
Rear Lights (Mars light)
Idle – clear Mars light off, red Mars light dim, not oscillating.
Forward – clear Mars light off, red Mars light bright, not oscillating.
Stop in forward – clear Mars light off, red Mars light dim, not oscillating.
Reverse – clear Mars light bright, not oscillating, red Mars light off.
Stop in reverse – clear Mars light off, red Mars light dim, not oscillating.
There seem to be some anomalies compared to GP-7 and SD-7 Mars light
operation. I don’t think the front red Mars light should ever light on the
model, unless a decoder function is programmed as a manual emergency stop.
The headlight should dim in reverse. I think the rear clear mars light
should oscillate in reverse. Does anyone know how the front and rear Mars
lights operated on the shovelnose Zephyrs? I’d like to know before
reprogramming the decoder to make the red Mars light follow prototype
practice.
While the Winton sounds are recorded from a 248 instead of a 201A, they are
better than the available EMD 567 sounds recommended for the Con Cor Zephyrs
by other decoder manufacturers. The addition of two speaker stereo sound
from the Titan-U is a nice development, as now the horn, bell, fan, motor,
etc. sound can be localized in a locomotive to their actual locations. Two
speak sound is much richer, especially since there’s room in the Con Cor
models for two 1 in. speakers or a 1 in. speaker in the front and a ¾ in.
speaker in the back of the powered unit. Now if I can just get the lights
working as they should, this will be a truly impressive model.
Nelson Moyer
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