Maybe I got a defective one, but This lighting kit had the SHODDIEST wiring and soldering I have ever seen. The one wire snapped the second I opened the packet, and there were dead batteries in the box. What a waste of 15 dollars!
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
I didn't have the same problems as yours but I also found them wanting. It was especially pesky to get them to turn on and off. Plus changing the batteries was a pain. I switched to LED strips stuck to the ceiling of my passengercars, with resistors in series to tone doewn the track power I used to light them. No capacitors. Some very minor flicker but satisfactory to me.
You should address your concerns to Rapido and see what their response is. Jason and the guys are pretty good at making things right.
As far as the magnetic on off switch I have had no issues with it. In fact I chopped up one of the wands (you get one with every car) painted it and hid it hanging from a signal bridge. If I wanted the lights on or off I routed the train along that track. It worked really well and worked even better when I used a much stronger magnet. I was going to suggest to Jason, Rapido make a magnetic signal bridge as optional equipment to go with the coaches.
Jasons a good guy. Give him a shout.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Sorry, I was just disgusted that this could happen to me. Granted I know that it's a risk every time you order from Walthers, I just had a really good record for non-damaged equipment.
skagitrailbirdNo capacitors.
Just a FYI in case you do decide to elminate flicker...
Very easy to install a capacitor, but you need to feed it DC power. I see you're lighting the strip light LEDs without a bridge rectifier and that will work. It actually helps dim the strip light LEDs as feeding them this way only lights them for half the cycle, although this on-off swicthing isn't visible to the naked eye.
I use a 1.5 amp rated bridge rectifier available for All-Electronics or (sometimes) Radio Shack, run the output from that to my capacitor -- which sits across the output leads -- and then to the strip lights.
Here's a pic of this circuit wired up for a Walthers passenger car.
I usually use a 470uf capacitor now. It's very satisfying to lift a car off the tracks and have the lights to stay on for 5 to 10 seconds.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Jimmy
Like others have said, give Rapido and Jason Shron a chance to address your problem. They want to get things right the first time, but that doesn't always happen. They do have an excellent history of correcting any problems.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Mike,
Could you post a Q&D circuit diagram for your keep alive? Is that a 333Ω resistor? For some reason I thought the resistor went before the cap to slow the inrush?
Thanks, Ed
Jimmy_Braum,
Let them know about it:
http://rapidotrains.com/support.html
Frank
After owning a set of nine Super Continental cars for a short while, I decided the EasyPeezy type lighting doesn't make sense. It never happened, but if I forgot to turn the entire consist off and had to replace 18 batteries, I'da been madder than a hatter. And I found that replacing the batteries wasn't fun either, considering that the holders aren't very well made. The best car lighting I've seen so far is (gasp!) MTH. Their engines have some faults for sure, but I like their passenger cars. The lighting works equally well w/o flicker on DCC or DC above 5 volts, and the pickups add no friction to the wheel or truck rotation. Hal
Ed,
Nothing fancy but it's at the bottom of this post. Note this circuit is for DCC only.
The cap is across the +pos and -neg leads. I suspect it being across the leads limits the inrush? In any case, haven't noticed any problem with them and I have about 10 on the layout. I'be adding another 10 or so when I get the parts.
That's a 33,000 ohm resistor. The particular value is not too important so long as you have at leat 1,000 ohms per LED. I use lots of resistance so the lights look good, draw very little current, and have even longer lives than LEDs usually do. All are important when there's no off switch, except turning the layout off. In this case, the load is two of the 3-LED sections of strip lighting
I've been using the 470uf capacitor primarily. Smaller still works well, especially with few lights in narrowgauge cars and in cars like RPOs and cabooses. Bigger is a luxury o one cb
The first pic is my funky midnight circuit diagram.
The second show the Radio Shack part #s for the cap and the bridge rectifier. RS seems to ne phasing this item out for some reason, so may have to special order it. You can also get them from All-Electronics as FWB-15. And don't forget your resistors as it's still a LED circuit. You can add a voltage regulator to this circuit if you need more exacting control of voltages.
The second show the Radio Shack part #s for the cap and the bridge rectifier. RS seems to ne phasing this item out for some reason, so may have to special order it. You can also get them from All-Electronics as FWB-15. And don't forget your resistors as it's still a LED circuit.
You can add a voltage regulator to this circuit if you need more exacting control of voltages.
Thanks for your reply, Mike! I'm going to play around with it right now. I have a bunch of components on hand...
I agree with Hal on the MTH cars. They did seem to get them right! I tried to decipher their circuit board but its all tiny SMDs and I'd run the risk of litigation if I—God forbid—used a resistor or diode that MTH has a copyright on...
Thanks again, Ed