# K-36 AIR WIRE



## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

I have recently opened up a K-36 tender for Airwire, battery, Phoenix installation. Gosh, I don't think the wiring could be much simpler and straight forward. Only question I have is do the leds need 6 volts, would you feed the existing voltage regulator or bypass it and add a limiting resistor only.


----------



## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I run constant track voltage, so power wise, I'm in the same position. I would jettison the regulators and just use resistors. One less component to go bad. On my K4, there were 2 of them, and one was in a very inaccessible location. 

Regards, Greg


----------



## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

Be careful with the limiting resistors. I put AirWire in a C-16 that had multiple lamps in parallel on the front of the engine (headlight & marker lights). If you use a resistor and one lamp fails, the loss of voltage drop will almost immediately blow the other lamps. In that case, I installed a voltage regulator to control the voltage.


----------



## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

That is a good point Bill, especially in the case of incandescent lamps, which WILL burn out eventually. 

Does the K have leds or lamps? 

(I tend to put a resistor on each individual led/lamp, so I guess that's a good practice. 

Regards, Greg


----------



## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

True Greg. Individual limiting resistors is the best way to do it.


----------



## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

The K-36 has LEDs. Looks like markers and cab are wired together, always on. Just a pair to the tender, so do not really want to open Loco to wire a resistor to each LED. They appear to need 6 volts to stop flicker.


----------



## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

What K-36 do you have?


I thought Accucraft used bulbs. Have they switched to LEDs? Does Berlyn uses LEDs?

My KISS (1:22.5 scale) K-36 uses LEDs. They operate well at 3 volts. 


I'm planning to convert my new K-36 to Airwire and battery. Probably will use 680 ohm (1 Watt) resistors to limit the voltage which might vary from 15 to 18 depending on what battery(ies) are used. I like to use 1 watt or greater resistors for large scale trains where the heat build up might be greater due to higher amps and volts. 1/4 or 1/8 watt resistors are fine for HO and small scales.


----------



## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

Unless you specifically have to have the lights wired separately, why not simply connect a small DPDT relay, wired as a change over switch, in the power supply to the on board regulators. 
It would be powered by the traction batteries and the coil would be controlled by the reverse light output on the ESC.


----------



## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

Matt, I would guess this is the most current run of the K-36. It came direct from Accucraft this month.


----------



## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Treeman on 28 Dec 2009 06:30 PM 
Matt, I would guess this is the most current run of the K-36. It came direct from Accucraft this month. 
Thanks for the info. Good to know that Accucraft uses LEDs. My older Accucraft C-16 has bulbs. So I was curious to see if Accucraft had switched to LEDs.


----------

