Large Scale Central

Traintek drop ins and leds for USAT

General Discussion
#1

I don’t know how many people remember or have used the Traintek “drop in” boards made for various USAT diesels.

They give you an “Aristo” socket in your USAT diesel.

They aren’t cheap, but apparently an option was to purchase a set of “custom” LED replacement boards that would replace the incandescent bulbs for the number boards, headlight, etc.

I have NEVER seen these “LED boards” and there are no pictures on their site. Has ANYONE a picture or can share anything about these boards? I noticed they dropped the prices on the by $5 (!!) and the links to the user installation manuals are all bad (at least the 3 I tried).

Greg

#2

I just bought the GP30 that Gary (owner of TrainTek) used to develop the product, and it has the LED boards in it. I haven’t really dug into it, but I can pull one out and take a picture.

#3

Welcome Eric!

#4

Thanks, Rooster!

Here are a couple of photos of the LED board from the LH of the GP30. That cast plastic piece is actually part of the original USAT equipment. It just fell out when I pulled the board. It has a couple of 3 mm LEDs shoved into it.

I think these are meant to connect using a ribbon cable, but I’m not certain

#5

So, Greg, this TrainTec is not an ESC, but rather a board to make it easier to "Plug’n’Play. Do I have this correct?

#6

Geeez if this product actually worked as written up, still existed in their catalog to purchase, and the pricepoint was not bad, they would be a great alternative for electronics novices (amoebas (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif)) such as myself.

Thanks for this heads-up/query Greg !

doug c

p.s.1 for the peoples with the knowledge base and time; Senor Norton’s ‘led headlights and number board lites’ section embedded within, http://ovgrs.org/the-trains/battery-power-radio-control-and-sound/usa-trains-gp-9/

p.s.2; although I did a basic 44T headlight swap out over 10 yrs ago. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)worked well till recently when the engine did not roll no longer so the engine is in the backshop waiting for a teardown/analysis/repair… maybe a cold solder .

#7

My understanding is that the main target for these boards was the QSI Titan.

#8

Yes, actually the previous model of QSI… they were announced and in development for a while.

I’ve looked at them, makes an easy upgrade, but pretty costly, and also they swapped out all the switches on the bottom of the stock USAT board leaving only the smoke switch.

I did post this because I wanted to see the LED boards, and as Eric has found they were designed to use a flat ribbon cable to power lights, so you were sort of “forced” to use his LED boards because of the ribbon connectors. Check the first picture to see 3 of those “flat ribbon” connectors.

I was hoping that eventually the LED boards would be sold separately, which I thought would have more market for people that did not necessarily want to spend the $$ for the main board.

With the screw terminals on the Titan (and other decoders) wiring the track pickups and motors on a USAT is easy and does not require soldering: Basically you connect some 2 pin JST connectors to the QSI and then plug into the existing track and motor wires. This only takes 5 minutes.

It’s the LED lighting conversion on USAT locos that is a pain in the pa-toot.

Greg

#9

So reading the last post, the LED headlight boards are part of the main board package ?

I was wondering why they were not listed (seperately) within their online cat.

Ahh, -**301 is the complete kit ;

http://www.traintekllc.com/traintek-ab301-adapt-a-board-for-usa-gp38-2-with-led-lighting-kit/

doug c

#10

Yep, I communicated several times to sell the light boards separately (even with the funky connector)… no go…

Greg

#11

It seems no one took the time to let them know about the broken link links to the ‘installation manuals’ till recently ;

"Doug, Thanks for the info on our user guide link. It appears they became broken with our recent site upgrade. I’ll try and fix them this weekend. Attached is a copy for you to review.

Best regards, Gary Paulino TRAINTEK, LLC . . . . "

Doug c

#12

Luckily the installation is pretty straightforward, so the manual probably does not add much.

Are there pictures of the LED boards in the manual you received?

This thread was about trying to get information on the LED boards.

Greg