scubaterryI have been wanting to experiment with fiber optics for awhile now
Well I ordered and rx ten feet of all the sizes of Fiber optic cable this company had.. .25 -3.0 mm. They also give you a small sample bag of the various sizes with each order including a small length of their 32 and 64 piece bundles. thefiberopticstore.com
I also ordered 6 jordan miniture vehicles. I'll let you know how things go.
Terry in Florida
Thanks everyone for your input.
Cisco as a matter of fact I have a "Butt-load" (that's a lot) of SMD/T LEDs of various sizes and I will certainly give them a try as well. I got a package fm Jordan minitures today with a half dozen car kits. These will be a great test bed for the Fiber Optic light.
I'll let everyone know how they turn out.
Tks again
Terry in Sunny Florida
scubaterry I have plenty of 2, 3 and 5 mm LEDs that I plan on using.
I have plenty of 2, 3 and 5 mm LEDs that I plan on using.
Terry, this sounds interesting. I have yet to try fibre optics, but I have been researching LEDs for some time now.
You might want to consider some surface mount (SMD) LEDs or another type in place of the regular ones. The difference is that some configurations of LEDs like SMDs have a much greater viewing angle (they incorporate reflectors in some cases). A regular can have a viewing angle of only 30 to 60 degrees, meaning you would have to bring the ends of your fibre bundle to nearly a dead center spot in front of the your regular LED. With SMDs, which have viewing angles of 120 or better, I am guessing you could "center" the LED and bring various strands up to it from different positions, almost sideways, and still pick up the full beam.
I dunno, this just might be easier in some instances, than trying needing to arrange the fibres in a "dead on" bundle.
Below is a link to a site with info about LEDs in general, and to a vendor of various types. I should say I have never used this vendor....I include it just for info. You would want to double check about the viewing angle of any you were going to buy though.
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/components/led.htm
http://www.lc-led.com/ecommerce4.html
If you plan on having the cars stationary then yoiu can drill out the lights as to the appropriate size and install a single strand in each light opening and keep all the clears together and tape up the end and you can install a little light like for a house on your layout and this will transmit the light to the head lights and the same goes for the tail lights but this bulb would be red and if you cannot find red use some Tamiya transperant red on the bulb that should not get to hot , hope this helps
Terry,
I've used fiber in several locos and had the same question you have when I first began. My advise would be to use the size that most closely fits into the lens opening for the headlights.
For the marker lights, if you have to drill through the fake lens take a measurement first or research what diameter the 1:1 lens would be and use the appropriate scale size in mm.
Bruce
I have been wanting to experiment with fiber optics for awhile now. I now have the time to devote to it. I envision using the fibers to direct light to vehicle head lites, tail lights etc. I have plenty of 2, 3 and 5 mm LEDs that I plan on using. I have visited several sites that sell the fiber optic strands but so far all have been in Metric. So my question is for the 3 sizes of LED's listed above what would be an appropriate size. I will have to bundle several together to send light to the frt and back for red and two for the headlights.
After reading this post I can see that the question may be a bit general so maybe I should just ask if anyone has had any experience with fiber optics and what did you find that worked for you.
Thanks in advance.
Terry In not so sunny Florida