# DCC Control Of Passenger Car Lighting



## pmcgurin (Sep 7, 2010)

If I want to control passenger car lighting via DCC does this require a decoder for each passenger car? Mainly I have lighted Kato N scale passenger cars lit with LED or bulb lights, but I could also consider trying to control the light level in Atlas lighted cars, and Atlas have bulb lights. Each car has lighting power pickup from the track in DC.


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Yes. You will need a decoder for each car, or one decoder for all cars depending upon how you want to control and wire them.


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## pmcgurin (Sep 7, 2010)

Thanks. I could wire them all together. I had been considering soldering the lights to the wipers anyway for better connection.


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## OilValleyRy (Oct 3, 2021)

Honestly, each car having a decoder would be better than one decoder for all. The latter would require wiring from car to car which presents 2 problems… they cannot be uncoupled (unless you add plugs) and wiring may interfere on curves too if they mess with coupler swing, truck swing, etc.
Each car having a dedicated decoder is far more costly and potentially time consuming to turn them all on. You could of course program them all to the same address, and turn them all on at once. That of course eliminates being able to turn only a sleeper car off, etc. 

An alternative (which I a recently decided is better for my situation) is to use magnetic reed switches instead. Far far more economical, pennies worth each. But they require a magnet to remain on, which means you’d need some sort of magnet disguised as “roof detail” as your on/off switch. The difference is $30-$40 for a decoder per car, or $30 for the whole train?

As an aside, I forget who but somebody makes lighted Drumhead kits in N scale. These would be the illuminated sign hanging on the rear of the Observation car. They made a number of specific ones, like 20th Century Limited & California Zephyr i.e.


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## pmcgurin (Sep 7, 2010)

Thanks, those are some good ideas. I am exploring this and would have to reduce the amount of stuff to put decoders into to make it workable.


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