Model Railroading > Athearn Genesis SDF40-2 surprise

I picked up one of the ATSF SDF40-2 today and had a few minutes to put it on the layout. Much to my surprise it has lighted number boards but wait, it has working lights over the front trucks. Oh and the lights are LED's. Pretty cool.

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Happy to see number indicators alive at Athearn. Also the "ground lights" above the trucks; nice too. Envious that my FP7s don't have them, because they certainly need both.

How's the color temperature? Does it fake a bit of the incandescent spectrum pretty well?

~ BZ

Notch16 Wrote:

> How's the color temperature? Does it fake a bit of
> the incandescent spectrum pretty well?
>

On my SDP40F the temperature looks pretty good. If I'm going full "rivet counter" mode on it, it's slightly shifted too much to the "white" side but I'm very happy with it and won't be messing with it.

Thanks for the report! It does look so nice to have those areas come alive...

~ BZ

Finally Lights on the Trucks!!!! About time!

KA7008 Wrote:
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> Notch16 Wrote:
>
> > How's the color temperature? Does it fake a bit
> of
> > the incandescent spectrum pretty well?
> >
>
> On my SDP40F the temperature looks pretty good.
> If I'm going full "rivet counter" mode on it, it's
> slightly shifted too much to the "white" side but
> I'm very happy with it and won't be messing with
> it.

I agree, it may be a bit on the white side but nothing noticeable. It is such a nice addition I hope Athearn keeps it up on future locomotives.

4thDistrict Wrote:
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>
> I just wish they used brighter LEDs. The
> headlights on my two SDP40Fs are on the weak side
> for headlights. The number boards seem brighter.

Athearn has set the brightness level CVs to less than max, so you can increase them to get brighter lights.

CV 61 default 70 max 255 Brightness Register 1 (number board LED set to this one)
CV 62 default 50 max 255 Brightness Register 2 (truck light LED set to this one)
CV 63 default 130 max 255 Dimmer Level (headlight when dimmer function also on)
CV 64 default 192 max 255 Master Brightness (all lights)

Michael Mosher
Millville, NJ