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mini light bulbs to work on DCC and DC

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  • Member since
    December 2008
  • 22 posts
mini light bulbs to work on DCC and DC
Posted by Thunder Wolf on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 11:04 PM

I have a DCC, Ho scale locomotive with ditch lights that use miniatronics 1.5V 15ma mini light bulbs and a SDH164D Digitrax decoder (The light bulbs are connected to the Violet and green wires on the decoder).  I need help with the ditch light light bulbs, one problem is that I run it on DCC at home and it runs DC power a my friends layout; so the problem is that the ditch lights are so dim that you can't see them on DC power.  Does any one know of a way that the lights will be bright enough on DCC and DC without burning out (like with a capacitor or something)?

Thanks!!

  • Member since
    October 2004
  • From: Colorful Colorado
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Posted by Texas Zepher on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 11:42 PM

You have entered the twighlight-zone of DC constant intensity lighting.  I know several ways to do that, but have not considered how any of them would work in conjunction with DCC.

  • Member since
    January 2008
  • From: Central Georgia
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Posted by Johnnny_reb on Thursday, March 17, 2011 11:31 PM

A voltage regulator circuit combined with a diode to control the polarity of the input should do it.

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  • Member since
    January 2008
  • From: Central Georgia
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Posted by Johnnny_reb on Thursday, March 17, 2011 11:46 PM

This should help

 

http://www.awrr.com/lighting.html

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    January 2011
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Posted by PennCentral99 on Friday, March 18, 2011 8:14 AM

I use Evans Designs LED.  I had a DC turntable on my DCC layout and when travelling back and forth between the two, the brightness/intensity was the same.  Here is the link:

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/bl-212.html

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