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Athearn Veranda Gas Turbine Lighting Upgrade Kit
Revised 8-4-2010
Author: Steve Gill, Ulrich Models
Abstract
Note: If you have purchased the Veranda Sound Upgrade Kit, install the light kit first. If
you have already installed a sound system, you will have to move the decoder out of
the way to install the light kit.
The Athearn Veranda locomotives come with poor DCC lighting that is very dim. This was
also a problem on the original gas turbine model made one year prior to the Veranda.
Athearn ignored the poor quality lighting and shipped the Veranda without making any
improvements. The factory lighting also has the Mars light and headlights wired to the
headlight function so there is no independent control of the Mars Light. UP operated the
gas turbine with the headlight on but very seldom used the Mars light. With the factory
lighting, it is not possible to turn the Mars light off and leave the headlight on.
The LED Upgrade kit installs bright LED lighting and supports independent control of the
headlight and Mars light.
Figure 1 - Before and After (shown on the gas turbine)
Before – Original Lighting
After – Updated Lighting
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Kit Design
Figure 2 - LED Upgrade Kit
The kit is designed to plug into the 8-pin DCC connector for ease of installation. The 8-pin
connector is in parallel with the 9-pin connector and is available since the decoder installs
into the 9-pin JST connector. This kit bypasses the Athearn lighting boards for headlight,
reverse light and Mars light.
On the end of each lead is a miniature surface mount LED glued to a 1.5 mm fiber optic
tube. The tube slides into each light mount in place of the bulb. The reverse light and Mars
light LEDs shine through the light tubes into the turbine lenses in the shell. The headlight
LED is mounted on the front of the light tube pointing out. It is installed with the LED
pointing directly toward the headlight lens openings in the shell. This is required since the
headlight mount is positioned between the two headlight lenses. Note that the bulb
mounting holes are 1.4 mm and the light tubes are 1.5 mm. The mounting holes do require
a little reaming; this is covered in the installation portion of the document.
Installation
This kit is easy to install; however, care must be exercised due to the fragile components.
Rough handling of the LEDs/light tube assembly can result in separation of the LED from
the tube. Care has been taken in manufacturing to provide a sturdy bond but it is possible
for the LED to become unattached. If this happens, we will exchange the kit.
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This kit is designed for the decoder programming that is loaded into the QSI decoder sold by
Ulrich Models. If you are using a decoder purchased from another source, the decoder must
be reprogrammed or a wiring change is required. See Appendix 1 at the end of this
document for the wiring change. If you send the decoder to us, we will reprogram it free.
If you have a Quantum Programmer, we can send you our turbine file.
Figure 3 – Veranda Turbine as Delivered – Shell Off
Front
Rear
Installation Steps
1. Remove the shell and tape.
The shell is held on by four screws located under the front and rear trucks. Once the
screws are removed, the shell slips off easily.
Remove the two pieces of tape that run across the narrow width of the frame.
2. Remove the headlight and Mars light bulbs.
Slide the light bulbs out of the front light bulb mount. Pull the bulbs through the
tape that wraps around the front circuit board. Lift the tape along the side of the
motor cover to release the wires; pull the clips off the circuit board tabs and remove
the two wires. There is no need to put the wire clips back on.
Figure 4 – Veranda Rear Section
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3. Remove the backup light bulb
Remove the bulb from the rear light mount. Remove the clips from the two tabs the
wires are connected to. Remove the wires.
There are two additional wires on these tabs that are grey. The wires must be
reinserted into the tabs and the clips put back on. It does not matter which wire
goes in which tab. These wires are for the tender light.
4. Install the Light Kit Connector
Lift the plastic shield and plug in the 8-pin connector for the kit. Pin 1 is marked on
the circuit board and is shown in Figure 4. The yellow wire (backup light) is
connected to pin 2 and will be one hole over from the marked pin 1. Route the LED
wires back under the shield. Use thin tape such as Kapon tape or Scotch tape to
secure the plastic shield to the frame.
Figure 5 – Rear Section, Light Kit installed
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5. Install the Backup LED.
Gently use the #51 or 52 drill in a pin vise to expand the backup light mounting
hole. Test the backup light mounting hole size with the spare fiber optic tube before
proceeding. Using a fine tip pair of needle nose pliers, insert the backup light tube
into the rear lamp mount as shown. Position the resistors so they lie as flat as
possible.
Lay the LED wires and shrink wrapped resistor on top of the factory electrical tape.
Slip a piece of tape around the LED wires, as shown in Figure 5, covering the
resistor. Kapon tape was used in this install. Electrical or Scotch tape can also be
used.
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6. Install the headlight and MARS light LEDs
Figure 6 - Front headlight installation
Remove the headlight / Mars light mount assembly from the frame by removing the
two screws. Take a #51 or #52 drill bit in a pin vise and gently use it to increase the
size of the headlight and Mars holes. It does not take much to enlarge the hole so
don’t be too aggressive. The Mars light hole is the top hole and the headlight hole is
the bottom hole. Test the hole size with the extra piece of light tube included in the
kit.
Insert the headlight into the lower hole as shown. The headlight is attached to the
white wire. Insert the headlight from the front. Be careful to not dislodge the LED
from the light tube. You can use a pair of needle nose pliers to carefully insert the
tube and then push it in with your fingers. If the orientation is not correct, it can be
rotated from the backside with the pliers or tweezers after it is installed.
Note: The LED light pattern is not always the same. If the two headlight lenses are
not evenly lighted, remove the shell and rotate the LED 90 degrees to vertical.
Some trial and error may be required to find the best angle for the LED.
Insert the Mars light into the top hole as shown. The Mars light is connected to the
green wire.
Placing a small piece of tape over the wires and taping them to the flat part of the
headlight mount assembly will help to secure the installation.
Reinstall the headlight mount.
Figure 7 shows the competed headlight LED installation and the wire routing. The
wires need to be run similar to what is shown. The shell mounting posts are located
so they are a major problem. When the shell is put back on, those posts will grab
any wire near them and trap the wire between the post and the screw hole. It is a
very poor layout. Use a piece of tape to secure the LED wires to the top of the
Plexiglas cover as shown. Do not secure the rest of the wires at this time because
the sound decoder has wires that need to be routed and secured.
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Figure 7 - Front LEDs Installed and Wiring.
7. Complete the installation
Place a small piece of black tape over the Mars light to prevent stray light from
escaping. There is no way to use tape on the rear LED fiber optic. Use black paint on
the exposed fiber optic tube and LED edges to close off the light.
Install the Sound Upgrade Kit next. There are instructions in the Veranda Sound
Upgrade Installation procedure for routing and securing the wiring.
Be sure that all wires are inside the shell mounting holes in the frame; any wires
outside of the holes will be caught and crushed during the shell reinstall.
F12 turns on the Mars Light.
Figure 8 - Completed Install
8. Tender Lighting
There is a 51 Ohm resistor in the light kit. This replaces the resistor that Athearn
installed in the tender to increase the tender backup light intensity.
Remove the tender shell by removing the 4 screws in the bottom frame. Remove the
bulb from the backup light.
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Remove the shrink wrapped resistor by cutting it out
Replace the resistor with the 51 Ohm resistor and new shrink wrap.
Reassemble the tender
9. Headlight Notes.
The design of the factory headlights for the gas turbine model is quite poor. There is
a single 1.4 mm bulb mount pointing at the two headlight fiber optics. The headlight
openings in the shell are located to the right and left of the bulb mount on the frame.
This is not a good design. There should have been a bulb for each headlight optic
with direct alignment to its respective fiber optic tube or a more sophisticated fiber
optic design used. Furthermore, incandescent bulbs should not have been used in
this model; LEDs are required due to their greater brightness.
To compensate for the headlight design flaw, the kit uses a high intensity miniature
LED mounted on the front of a fiber optic tube. Miniature LEDs have a wide light
spread and are not directional like the 3 mm LEDs. Mounting the LED pointing at the
holes offered the best light spread to support light entering both of the headlight
optic tubes. Mounting the LED to the rear of the tube would make the light beam to
narrow.
Unfortunately, the turbine manufacturer was very sloppy with the installation of the
headlight optic tubes. On some turbines, the optic tubes do not reach all the way to
the back of the shell. On these models, it may be necessary to use the #53 drill to
enlarge the backside of the headlight holes in the shell. I encountered one model
where the fiber optic tubes were either not installed or had fallen out. I had to insert
new Details West lenses in to make the headlights work properly. Check your lenses
carefully; they may be loose and could fall out.
If there are headlight difficulties after installing the kit, some tweaking may be
required due to the above issues.
Appendix 1 - Wiring Change for decoders purchased from other dealers.
Our decoders are programmed for the rear Mars light on function output 3 and the front
Mars Light on output 5. The standard QSI turbine file has the Mars light on output 5 only.
We added Port 3 for the rear Mars light to allow the 8-pin DCC connector to be used for the
kit install. There is not a function 5 output on the 8-pin connector. The front and rear Mars
light outputs are both programmed to operate when F12 is pressed.
To move the Mars light to output 5 for other decoders, the green wire from the 8-pin
connector must be removed and then connected to the green-stripe wire from the rear
Revolution decoder (P2) connector.
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