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1: Automotive taillight
bulbs, wired in series in
a power block feed, indi-
cate short circuits with-
out tripping breakers in
some – not all – DCC
systems.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Light bulb for short protection
Q.
I have set up a test area to work out the wiring for your
1156 bulb short management system. I believe that you use
EasyDCC as I do. However, I was unable to duplicate the results
that you showed on the video. I never saw the 1156 bulb light
up. Are there any common errors that rookies make, or can
you provide hints that might help me debug my test setup?
– Dan Foltz
A.
This idea may be less practical than it used to be, depend-
ing on what DCC system you are using. EasyDCC and Lenz have
made their systems' response time to short circuits too fast for
the bulbs to work, which is unfortunate. Taillights in automobiles
are moving away from incandescent bulbs to LEDs. This means
the 1156 auto taillight bulbs will get more scarce over time, and
more expensive.
My EasyDCC installation used older Lenz boosters that reacted
slowly enough to short circuits for the bulbs to work great. You
need a booster that reacts at about 250 milliseconds or longer.
Anything faster and the booster wins, not the bulb.
NCE boosters and Digitrax systems still work great with the
bulbs. Digitrax systems have a firmware OPs switch that controls
short response time, and if you set it to half a second (500 milli-
seconds) the bulbs work great. Lenz systems are too fast, except
for their oldest LV100 boosters. The EasyDCC boosters are the
other way: the older EasyDCC booster cards don't work.
See my two-minute video about using 1156s for short manage-
ment at
– Joe Fugate
Why are we talking about taillights? What's an 1156? An 1156
is a 12 volt incandescent automobile bulb. It generates light by
heating a wire filament.
Questions, Answers & Tips - 1
MRH-Mar 2013
