my bulb went on the walthers street light, is there a way to change the bulb?
No, unfortunately, I don't think there is. Of course, there must be some way to do it, but they're not designed with bulb replacement in mind.
These bulbs are rated at 16 volts. I run mine at 12 volts, which greatly extends bulb life. I also like the dimmer, warmer glow that running them at a lower voltage provides. I've been running quite a few of them for several years now, and I've yet to burn one out.
Watch the Walthers flyer. Pretty much every month, one or another model of these lights goes on sale. Pick up a few extras when they do. In the meantime, install them with the plug-in mounts and be happy that at least they're easy to replace.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
There probably is a way to put a new bulb with leads in it,if you like tinkering, without having it in front of me I couldn't tell you how to do it. Purchase a replacement and mess with the burnt out one and see if you can find a way to do it,could save you money next time..I suspect though,that you are running them at full voltage,they won't last long that way. I make all my own street lights out of Brass tube,so I can change any bulb,the heck with the sockets.
Cheers,
Frank
Frank, I might like to see a photo or two, maybe a brief how-to on how you built these. Thanks!
Brad
EMD - Every Model Different
ALCO - Always Leaking Coolant and Oil
CSX - Coal Spilling eXperts
Brad,
I would love to show pic's,sometime ago my camera went south,but I will have a new one and scanner,for my 35mm shots about the middle of Nov. The ones I made,are like you would see in the 30's to 60's era,street lights,not Modern looking ones,they disgust me.. I use miniatronic's bulbs in them,pretty easy to change if they burn out..Good to better soldering skills,are a must though,if you want them to work right. I'll book mark this discussion and when I'm ready,I'll either post it on the forums,or PM you.
Frank, I'm sure others would love to see photos as well, so a forum post might be a good idea. Though I'm likely to forget about the thread or lose track of it, so a PM would also be helpful and appreciated. Thanks.
JKM3438:
It might help if you could post a picture of the street lights, but don't hold your breath for a solution. Any of the Walthers street lights that I have seen use pretty fine wiring to get power to the bulbs so dissecting them would seem to be quite a challenge.
There are a couple where you could possibly cut the lamp head in two with a dremel to expose the wires, but I can't see how you could solder in a new lamp or LED without destroying the lamp head.
Sorry if I am raining on your parade as it were, but your situation speaks loudly for making any layout lighting easily replaceable. Absolutely no criticism intended.
Dave
P.S. In a related note, I recently noticed that some street lights offered on eBay from China that were made of plastic bore a warning that if you leave them on for very long they will melt the plastic! Bet your insurance company would have a ball with that claim!!! Caveat emptor!
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
The old Life Like and Tyco and Ideal lights and signs almost always melted the plastic if connected to the Accessory terminals of the power pack. I have boxes full of them from our old layouts that have melted spots or even holes in them, yet the bulb still works fine. In those days, early 70's, they were probably 50ma or more bulbs, at 16 volts that's .8 watts, but in a confined space. Bet they were even higher current than that. Never had a headlight bulb melt a shell, but on DC you didn;lt run wide open for extended periods of time, so the bulb was dimmer and cooler most of the time, hook them up to DCC and when on, the bulb gets full voltage, and generates full heat. Thus LEDs - no heat. Hopefully more accessory l;ighting like street lights will start using LEDs too.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
jmk3438 my bulb went on the walthers street light, is there a way to change the bulb?
Nope. Just change the name of your city to Detroit, and you are all set.
ROAR
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Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS