I've Got a standard length passenger car I need to install lighting in. ive tried the walthers mainline lighting kit-it smoked when I tried using it, so I don't want to try it again. The easy peasy kits are never in stock if they still are being produced by rapido. I'd prefer to use a battery powersource, since the car has a huge theater window on one end. Anyone have any suggestions?
(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).
Jimmy,
Here's how I do mine, if you page down a little at this link:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/213765.aspx?page=2
I use strip lights I got at Radio Shack, but not sure that stuff is available from them anymore. There are lots of other sources for it, though.
I also use track power designed for DCC. You'd need a battery or a different circuit for DC. The issue I have with batteries is that you need to replace the battery every so often. You may also need to pick up each car every time to turn it on and off, although there are things like magnetic reed switches, etc that can workaround that with a circuit.
The track lighting will be plenty strong enough with the circuit I use on DCC. Usually, it's a matter of dimming them to be more realistic since they are so bright. I don't use a switch to control them, I just leave them on track power since they draw so little and last forever (especially once you dim them down.)
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I tried battery lights. Got a "Type N" (smaller than AAA) battery and holder from Radio Shack. The battery just could not light enough bulbs to make the car lights bright enough to see. I doubt that AAA or even AA batteries would do much better.
I tried a supercapacitor ( 0.47 Farad at 5 volts) with wheel wipers, a full wave rectifier, a 5 volt regulator, and an emitter follower to light a pair of 1.5 volt bulbs, giving marker lights in a caboose. The circuitry while bulky, did fit inside the HO caboose, and the supercap held enough juice to keep the markers lit for 20 seconds after track power was turned off. Friction drag from the wheel wipers was excessive, to the point where a long coal drag down at the club, pulled by one of those old heavy Bowser steamers, could no longer make the grade up Campanella Ridge with the caboose attached. Lesson learned, use axle wipers, not wheels wipers. They used to sell a nice bronze weatherstrip for doors that yielded nice springy axle wipers. Last time I tried to buy some more, my friendly local hardware store said he didn't carry it anymore, but he could order it.
The sucessful passenger car lighting scheme was to use a Walthers light bar (LED's and the necessary rectifier and current limiting circuitry) powered from the track.
Couple of other tips. Some passenger cars (IHC for example) use such thin plastic for the roof that the interior lights make the whole roof glow in the dark. Not cool. Some bright silver Christmas wrap ribbon on the ceiling fixed that problem. And you want to paint the interior of the car in a light color to reflect light and make the car lights look brighter.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I don't know what You mean by ''smoked'' but I have ten of those Mainline wiring kits and have completed installing them in 8 Mainline cars. They all work perfectly and I use DC. They are half bright at start-up and remain constant at a 1/4 throttle. No flickering evident. When used with the metal trucks they come with, they have 4-wheel pick-up on each side....You had to have done something wrong in the set-up if they are smoking, cause there is No wiring involved, just contact points. Which I did find a slight problem with the first one I installed. The contacts in the light board are supposed to touch the contact pieces supplied, but they don't always do that without some Mods. I did not want to use wire or bend them...so I soldered Kadee knuckle coupler springs to the light bar contacts and that solved all problems. They say that they won't fit all the cars...but I got mine to fit every car, including the observation car by reversing the position of the board and all the hardware is at the other end, with a little cutting and mod to the vestibule end. I did have to also take care of light blead through, at the roof seams and a little further up the roof. I used 1/2'' Automotive Black pin-stripe tape for that. Too hard to try to paint it at that angle. They say the window glazing is not glued in..but all mine were. I also did not file or sand the pegs that keep the roof on..but once You learn how to take it off, it is easy to do again...plus it keeps the roof on tighter and hardly any seam is visible...which is what I wanted.
Take Care!
Frank
Okay, first off, I got in contact with rapido trains about the easy peasy sets:
N scale is on sale right now, but the HO kits are completely sold out, and being redesigned Theyll be out summer 2017.
Second, interesting idea mike, but I would like the battery, so it could be completely independent from the track, so I could run on either DC or DCC.
Third, I need something that would be barely visible, due to the big glass window on the end of my car. So no track pickups if at all possible.
maybe I got a bad lighting kit, but when I installed it..I applied power to the track, got like four seconds of lighting, then it shorted itself out, and smoke poured out of the car. The light board had scorch marks on the brass pads as well.
Jimmy_BraumSecond, interesting idea mike, but I would like the battery, so it could be completely independent from the track, so I could run on either DC or DCC.
Yeah, if you need lights for both DC and DCC, battery power is the way to go, more or less.
Don't know if the lighting decoders I've seen for DCC are dual-mode (work on both DC and DCC) or not, but that's another possibility. A quick check shows most are capable of DC, too, but check this out if you do change your mind and go for a decoder instead. Initial cost would be a more than battery power, but long term operating costs and hassle should be less.
Just a note on my installs, I think my pics depicted mostly the larger size components I used in my first installs. You can go smaller and more compact if you need to and wiring can be routed to conceal lines down to pickups on the trucks very easily. Is the theater car completly open? You can hide components in the undercarriage's mass of various stuff. But any self-respecting theater car (or other car, really) needs a restroom -- that's where I generally hide my lighting components.
I'm not sure which lighting kit you used. But the OLD walthers cars light bars for DC had a very big design issue. They had a voltage regulator on them that stepped down the input voltage to 1.5V. Well when you step down 10->12VDC to 3V you have a lot of waste heat using LM7803 like walthers did. This eventually causes them to overheat and shut down. (Plus potentially damage your car)The simple fix is to reduce overall current load by replacing the incandecent bulbs with LEDs and a resistor to lower overall power drain.
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
Don,
I don't know what light kit He used.....but the ones I have do not have a LM7803. They are constant-intensity SMD light bar for DC/DCC, that screw to the inside top roof of the car. You do not see the light bar or any other parts that are installed in the vestibule end. Mine work perfect in all 8 cars, soon to be 10. Walthers part# 910-220, comes with everything you need to light one car, including trucks. I got the cars, light kits with a Yardmasters discount and it is still cheaper than buying them already done, like in their Proto series. I personally believe they did a great job in designing that kit, including the truck pic-up, no wipers, no wires of any kind. Mine all work flawlessly and stay at a constant brightness, even on DC.
https://www.walthers.com/passenger-car-led-interior-lighting-kit
zstripe, the old original design used incandescents with a 7803. They practically gave them away towards the end.
Deleted