Power hungry lights.....

[EMPIRE II LINE]

Got another one for everyone out there, you all seem to be into the smaller rail operations. Mind you not knocking it and all, however I personally like to try and operate the prototypical US mainline operations of the early to mid fifties, with the long lighted streamline passenger cars and all. Charlie Ro/USA, Aristo, MTH, as well as LGB all manufacture really nice lighted cars now days, all pretty much prototypical of the US streamliner era. But wow, are they power hungry. THE QUESTION---has anyone come up with a way to relight these cars so that they will use/require less current/amps to power them ?? I use a Bridgewerks Mag 25 TDR, 25 amp power pack and if I run my Empire Builder F3's ABBA W/Phoenix P5 sound and 15 to 17 cars, it blows the heatsink after only about 10 minutes of running. I'd like to run more than just one train at a time. Freight---NO PROBLEM....Diode lighting Maybe ???? Any suggestions....Byron       

[GP-9_Man11786]

LEDs sound like a good way to go. Not only do they use less power but they also last forever. You could also try running the lights with batteries instead of track power. Out of curiosity, do you run conventional or comand control?

[pimanjc]

I run battery power so I installed a 3v. Radio Shack battery pack in the baggage compartmentment of each car, with a sliding switch in the original Aristo location.  The switch and batteries are wired to two 3v. Mag-Lite bulbs - one on each end of the car.  The Mag-Lite bulbs use little more energy than LEDs and are much less directional.  I get even coverage throughout the length of the car. 

Other alternatives to individual car lighting would be to MU the cars together using a 12v. battery in your headend car.  To reduce the amperage consumed by the stock lights, the OEM lights can be replaced with "Grain-of-Wheat" bulbs.

If you want to stay with the track pickup lighting, the "Grain of Wheat" idea is still an improvement.  Hot glue them to the interior roof of the car.  Even if using track power, for the lights, the MU idea would even work with pickups on the headend car  or the back of the loco instead of the battery suggested above.

In my Aristo Sierras, I used the MU system between cars with a choice of battery in the head end combine, or plugging into the back of the LGB Mikado or Aristo Pacific tender if running  track power.

Image taken at Wichita Botanical Gardens Holiday Luminaries, 2005.

I hope one of these ideas, or a variation of them, will be useful.

JimC.

[Anonymous]

Byron mate;

Lets not try and reinvent the wheel; LGB have a lighting set which is very easy to fit to any carriage of theirs and it is not a very big power user at all. They also have what they call kuggel wheel sets that will pick up all the power you need from the track and they will reduce the overall inertia within that piece of rolling stock. 

I have a train with 6 lit carriages plus a combination postal van as well; the loco pulling it is well illuminated as well. I have a 6 amp transformer and i can run all this with as many other trains as i like.

So if you have a proper fair dinkum (real) 25 amp transformer, the amount of power available is not even a consideration.

Rgds Ian

[EMPIRE II LINE]

Those do look good Jim, however I want to shy away from more batteries, As it is I plan to use the Loco-Linc RC/radio control ( IAN ) system for most of my layout control, as well as MTH's DCS RC'd engines and system, both together. And it requires a constant bit of recharging, of both AAA and 9-volt transistor batteries for the hand held controls at present. I want to stick with powering most everything else otherwise with the power packs, I run track (Aristo stainless steel with  JAWS rail clamps), power. That is why I am swayed towards the lower light diode system. It's almost like the Manufacturers of a good number of these products only go through maybe 70 to 90 % of the design and research process before putting a unit out. The rest is up to us to come up with something that works for us that is more prototypical of the era that we are trying to model or emulate-maybe a bad word choice. But I think you all know what I mean. I do really appriciate any practical and in use/experienced suggestions that may be offered.

THE EMPIRE II LINE

Byron          

[Tom The Brat]

[bman36]

Torby,

What kind of lights are those? Looks like it lights up well. Later eh...Brian.

 

[Tom The Brat]

Those are plain old yellow LED's. Each requires about 3v to operate, so I put 2 in series and run them on 4 aaa batteries.