Model Railway Forum

Being new to DCC I would appreciate some help on how to set prototypical lights for the UK. Having purchased the Lokprogrammer in the function mapping tab of the software is there any way of the headlights being on in forward direction of travel with the rear lights also showing, and then the opposite in reverse.

Hi
Usually the Yellow and White decoder wires (switched negatives) together with the Blue Common positive wire are used for direction controlled lighting. The White feeding the front headlight and rear red(s) while the yellow feeds the rear headlight and the front end red(s). They are often turned On/Off by F0 key, though reference to the decoders manual is really required. When On the lights work automatically via the direction of travel selected.
The only down side to this is that when pulling a train the locos red rear lights are on. By wiring the decoders function wires differently the reds at each end can be separatly turned On or Off via other F keys - F keys are Function keys.

Thanks Brian I will have a bit of experimenting and see what I can come up with

As standard, straight out of the box, the front and rear lights usually work as you want them to without having to make any CV adjustments. There will (usually) be differences with sound decoders, sometimes lights may be operated by f8 rather than f0. Read the decoder manual and/or sound project leaflet for the full story.

Getting white and red lights to operate independently can entail rewiring them.