Hi Guys,
I have just converted from DC to DCC and want to light a few of my passenger cars. I Tried the "easy peasy" light set for my PRR Scene Master Observation car but you can't tell if the lights are on or off. The magic wand works but what use is that if you cant see the lights?
So I wondered if anyone here could give me some advice as to how to light a passenger car ( actually 8 in total) without draining the power from a DCC layout.
I converted a lot of DC passenger cars to have full LCD car lighting but now I dont know what to do with DCC.
Also, will LCD have a problem with DCC as it has a polarity issue?
Chris.
Loco Guy - is a state of mind - not an affinity to locomotives.
Sit back and enjoy your track...
If you can barely see it, I'm guessing you need new batteries.
If you have the room, you could replace the button batteries with AAA for longer life. Batteries are going to be your only option if you don't want them connected to track power.
I'm assuming you are referring to LEDs (light emitting diode) - LCD's (liquid crystal display) don't give off any light. By installing a bridge rectifier between the track and the LEDs, it will convert the "AC" track voltage to DC voltage for using the LEDs. You should be able to install a LOT of LEDs in your passenger cars before it would cause any noticeable drain.
However, any track powered lighting will come with the invariable flicker which requires a few more components to overcome (I'm sure Mike will have something to say on this).
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Doubt you would see lights on in a real passenger car with tinted windows in the daylight either.
What does it look like with the room lights out ?
How much power does your DCC system have? I have a Lenz system that puts out 5 amps. My layout is on the second floor above a 2-car garage, and I'm slowly filling the space. I've currently got about 125 square feet of layout, and there's a loop of subway track below part of that, too. There is a lot of track and a lot of trains. I've got passenger cars lit with LEDs, incandescents and even an old flourescent tube. The subway cars have incandescent lights.
The important thing is that I never have any issues with power. Those 5 amps run multiple sound locomotives, many in consists of two. I don't worry about the small amount of power that a few passenger cars take up.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
With DCC you do not need easy peasy or whatever. LEDs do not draw enough current to put a dent in your track power. You do need electronics (a full wave rectifier ahead of your LEDs to control toh polarity, and of course resistors to control the current.
LION estimates that 100 LEDs will not phase a 1 amp supply.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
LOCO_GUYMark, These are brand new batteries - but the Scene Master series have darkened windows. So Lots a light but no brightness.
Chris,
The lighting may be set at a level appropriate for a darkened room. Much of the passenger car lighting in the past seemed designed to be obvious even when the room lights were on. That's way too bright for night operations, though. Tinted windows will also cause similar effects, but when the room lighting is down, you should be able to see into the car if it's lit. This is a Swiss-prototype coach. The windows are heavily tinted, so hard to see in during the day. At night, the lighting makes everything visible -- or it should.
I have a lot of similar info in this thread: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/213765.aspx?page=2
There's circuits with parts call-outs, design and wiring tips, etc plus lots of pics of examples. I'm not especially neat with my installs where things can't be seen, but feel free to be as neat as possible.
I have a NCE 5 amp PowerPro and another 5 amp booster. I probably have about 3 dozen lighted cars on the layout, plus the locos of course. None of the lighting only loads are on a decoder, they're just on all the time, saving me a bunch of money and hassle installeding decoders to control lighting. Most of my LEDs have enough resistance build into the circuits there's relatively little draw, which may contribute to not having any issues, but there never has been.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Just wanted to do a quick post of some of my electronic lighting work - this is Mels Diner. Just some internal LEDs and some Electroluminescent wiring for the neon.
Nice work!
You can add a decoder to each car's wiring. This will allow you turn each car on and off individually. Some non-motion decoders come with a "keep alive" built in so the lights stay on for 5-10 seconds after power is shut off - eliminating the 'flicker' of normal track power.
Evans Designs (see Walthers catalogue) has LEDs that come with the resistors and diodes already connected. They cost more than just LEDs (list price is 5 for $15) but you can hook them up a lot easier. In a few remote buildings, I've just hooked them up to the nearby track's power and it works great.
mlehman
Thanks for the feedback - it took me ages to get it looking right.
As a British Guy (living in the USA) - it took a lot of research to find out what this place looked like in the past. I have Toad with his scooter an Curt with his 2CV and Milner with his "deuce coupe". So I think I captured a little of the atmosphere.
wjstix
I'll look into your suggestion - it may be right for me. The flicker stop would be cool. The price also sounds really good.
Thanks for the tip on the LED's with the rectifier,capacitor built-in. Dirt cheap on the Evan Designs website:
http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/bl-212.html
Got 10 LED's for $28 - don't know how much it would cost to buy all the separate parts to make one of these but I'm guessing this is a bargain - not to mention the time saved. And they give you a 2 year guarantee - free replacement if they blow.
Those will save you some time and are handy to have made up. But look them over when you get them. They're really quite simple to build yourself, so long as you don't mind some simple soldering of connections.
The main issues in building the prewired LEDs are using a resistor to protect them and identifying the positive lead so they will light correctly (backwards polarity doesn't work with a LED and can damage it if high enough.)
Any resistor that's at least 1000 ohms will work for protect. You can use as little as around ~500 ohms at 12 volts, but 1k will give you good all around protection at the voltages encountered in model railroading. But if you want the light dimmer, as you often do to get certain realistic effects, just choose a higher resistance resistor. You can even do that with these prewired ones you're getting, as resistance simply adds up if wired in series. How much to add depends on what looks good to you. Feel free to experiment, as the higher values can't hurt anything.
Identifying the positive lead on an LED can be done several ways. Most LEDs come with one leg longer than the other. That is the positive + lead in most cases. Some times the leads are trimmed in being assembled or for some other reason. Is the LED is big enough to see (some aren't!) with the naked eye, you can see there's to "flags" separated by a gap inside it. The smaller one is usually the positive + lead. How to be sure in anyw case? Build a simple LED tester.
Radio Shack and any place that sells parts will have battery holders of various sizes. Get one that holds two AA or two AAA batteries. On the positive lead, solder in a 1k ohm resistor for protection. Configure the leads so that you can use them as probes. Just touch to the LED leads and it will light when you have positive + on positive + and negative - on negative -. This will confirm what's what's and that the LED is good.
Note, you can also buy fancier LED testers that go beyond this simple one, but it's good for most things and costs less than $5 to make.
Mike,
I was wondering if those LED's I bought with the rectifier and resistor built in would allow some other led's to be wired in parallel with the single LED supplied.
My thoughts are that I could build a strip of 3v white LED's for the interior lighting of the car and then attach the LED's to the one LED bulb supplied on the rectified supply. I think that you can run in parallel at the same voltage - whereas in series the LED bulbs would dim due to increased resistance.
I have worked with LED's on some simple projects like adding red/green LED's to a signal tower. So I think I can put together a strip of LEDs no problem.
Probably not. Two LEDs in parallel require a different value current limiting resistor than just one LED. Two LEDs in series MIGHT work at the upper end of the voltage range (ie, if the single LED assembly says 7-15 volts, putting 2 LEDs in series, they might still light up enough at 15V, at 7V they probbaly would not light or would be VERY dim)
If you roll your own, for DCC track voltage, you get do 3, maybe 4 LEDs in series, with a resistor and bridge rectifier, since the total supply voltage will exceed the drop of 3 LEDs in series. Maybe 4 depending on your exact track voltage.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
wjstix You can add a decoder to each car's wiring. This will allow you turn each car on and off individually. Some non-motion decoders come with a "keep alive" built in so the lights stay on for 5-10 seconds after power is shut off - eliminating the 'flicker' of normal track power. Evans Designs (see Walthers catalogue) has LEDs that come with the resistors and diodes already connected. They cost more than just LEDs (list price is 5 for $15) but you can hook them up a lot easier. In a few remote buildings, I've just hooked them up to the nearby track's power and it works great.
Stix,
I just installed a couple of those Even Designs LED's in the observation car and WOW - its looks real good. No messing about with polarity - just connected them to the trucks feeding power from the rails and they worked like a charm.
Took maybe 15 minutes including shrink wrap of the wires. Now thats cool.
Thanks for the advice - I'll try and take some photos this weekend and post them here.
Wjstix,
Thanks for the lead on those LED's from Evans Designs. I liked them so much I bought some more from them. It only took a day or two and they were delivered. Great customer service - so keep that in mind if anyone else is looking for a good LED supplier.