In these locos the contact for the smoke generator and the front light are common.

What I did is to leave the contact as it is and solder the f1 br/red (AUX 1) for the smoke unit on it. The return will be the loco body and frame.

Don't use the contact for the light and replace it with a LED connected to f0 gray and orange (through an appropriate resistor) totally insulated from the frame and the old light contacts

Regard

Costas

you may find the information on separating the smoke unit from the light about half way down this page: https://cabin-layout.blo...llingdigitaldecoder.html useful... its on a 3048 but sounds similar.

Hi all, I finally got to work on this project. My proposed solution is as follows, I'd welcome opinions before I accidentally fry a decoder!

- I have isolated the headlamp by adding plastic spacers between it and the copper smoke unit contact below. This seems like a simple wiring job of connecting the headlamp to the white (NEM DCC/ESU) forward headlight wire. It retains the screw grounding to the chassis.

- Now for the smoke unit. I know I need to attach a current wire to the copper base plate (+) for the smoke unit. In theory it should just retain its common ground (-) contact to the body housing. Assuming that is correct thus far, the question becomes this: which wire on the ESU decoder do I connect? The Green "AUX1" wire? I'd assume so, but images show it requiring a blue wire as return. Is that no longer necessary?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks John! Worked like a charm. Now the smoke unit itself is clearly heating and the contact isolated with voltage, but not smoking the way it should so on to step two...