Adding Hidden Lighting Inside a Walthers Dome Passenger Car

[Trainman440]

I figured I'd share this quick project of mine, adding lights inside a Walthers Santa Fe Pleasure Dome car.

I like adding lights to all my cars, but the lighting boards for purchase are all too expensive(and too bright) for my large fleet of passenger cars, so I always make my own!

The biggest challenge with this project is having lights on both the upper deck and the lower deck of the car. Walthers' lighting kit for this car only lights up the lower deck, which is disappointing. 

A second challenge is to have wires going up to the dome, without being seen. 

First I drew a very crude diagram of what my plan of attack was...

As you can see, I divided up the light strip to 4 sections, and found ways to hide the wires inside the car. The 4 sections are: front end, back end, lower deck, and upper deck. Front end denotated by where Walthers supplies the ground pickup(left side). 

Im using 3528 LED 12v strips - warm white. 

Here's a pic of the light strips laid out on the car:

Note that the middle tan piece is the interior for the dome car, upsidedown. I intentionally had the light strip mounted on the rear of the lower deck, because it was better concealed on that side, as there's a walkway there, with walls, and the windows on that side are lower. 

Now time to begin the wiring process!

This is the lower deck LEDs mounted and wired. Note the plug, which connects the lower deck lights to the rear lights. This allows the roof to be removed for future maintenance (adding figures and paint).

Rear LEDs mounted and wired. Again, note the plug. 

Next was the front and top deck lights. In order to conceal the wires, I used some super fine wire, cut off from a resistor. These are glued so they are concealed behind the thin support columns of the dome!

Finally, I hid the wires that come from the lower deck(and rear lights) in a little gap between the clear windows and the frame. You can see the wires dip down from the dome interior piece, travel along that crack, and appear at the front end of the car!

---------------------------

Now for the constant lighting circuit. Here's another crude diagram of my simple circuit, which contains:

• Bridge rectifier
• 470uf 25v capacitor(any cap greater than 360uf should work)
• 10k ohm resistor

You can use anything larger than a 100 ohm resistor, with the larger the resistor the dimmer the lights. I've found that a 10k ohm resistor makes the lights dim enough so you dont see it in the "daytime", yet at "night time" the cars are clearly lit up, adding a bit of realism. 

Here is the car before final assembly:

And that's it! Note that the capacitor/bridge are all "floating" above the interior, so you can't see them unless you look carefully from below the car. 

An easy trick to solder wires onto Walthers' ground pickup contacts is shown here: 
https://bit.ly/3b4dgvU

A wonderfully lit car, with smooth, even lighting!

And you cant see ANY wires!

Lighting up cars with my simple circuit costs around $3 per car, with parts purchased overseas from Ebay.

I hope you enjoyed my mini project. Although its not as complicated as some other's car lighting projects, a simple lighting circuit like this does the trick for me!

Charles

[gmpullman]

A very clever bit of engineering 

Thanks for taking the time to photograph and document all the steps. I've also come up with my own, reliable flicker-free DCC lighting. Perfect 

Thanks, Ed

[garya]

Nice job. I'm not so good at hiding the wires.

EDIT:  I studied your diagram a bit more.  I am a bit concerned about a 16V cap.  I would think 25v would have more "headroom," though they are a bit bigger.

Are you running DC or DCC? If DC, about what voltage does the lighting come one?

[Trainman440]

garya

Nice job. I'm not so good at hiding the wires.

EDIT:  I studied your diagram a bit more.  I am a bit concerned about a 16V cap.  I would think 25v would have more "headroom," though they are a bit bigger.

Are you running DC or DCC? If DC, about what voltage does the lighting come one?

 

Yes, I used to use 35v caps, but my layout is only 13v (NCE Powercab). I do plan to swap all the caps to 25v, and also maybe change the resistors to around 8k(I recently switched to a new roll of LED strips and theyre dimmer) one day, but I got around 40 passenger cars, so it'll take a while. But you're right, if I ever bring my cars to a club layout I'll be sure to swap the capacitors. 

I don't run DC, but the lights came on at around 7-8v. However your mileage may vary as I used 12v LED strips. 

Edited the OP.

Charles

[garya]

Trainman440

 Yes, I used to use 35v caps, but my layout is only 13v (NCE Powercab). I do plan to swap all the caps to 25v, and also maybe change the resistors to around 8k(I recently switched to a new roll of LED strips and theyre dimmer) one day, but I got around 40 passenger cars, so it'll take a while. But you're right, if I ever bring my cars to a club layout I'll be sure to swap the capacitors. 

I don't run DC, but the lights came on at around 7-8v. However your mileage may vary as I used 12v LED strips. 

Edited the OP.

Charles

 

OK, if it works for you.  I figure you get 1.4v drop through the bridge rectifier, so you're safe with the Procab.  Some DCC systems run "hotter," so you could blow a capacitor.

I've used some LED strips as well.  Someone gave me one with 3M sticky on the back, and that holds really well.  Unfortunately, it wasn't warm white.  I bought a roll of warm white LED strips off eBay and the adhesive isn't as good, so a few have sagged down a bit.

I used a diode, a capacitor and a couple of resistors in my circuit.

 

[Trainman440]

Looking good! Yes, I've also had issues with certain rolls of LED strips not being sticky. If they don't stick, I just use some silocone glue to glue them into place. 

I see you're using the 5050 LED strips. While very bright, those seems to draw much more current than the 3528s. Since Im dimming my LEDs anyways, I figured I should go with the smaller ones. 5050s are really great for lighting up model structures and tables though!

Lovely Bachmann Southern dining car by the way :)

PS here's a comparison of the cars at day and night time. Note that the lights are dim enough so you can't see them during the daytime. 

Day:

 

Night(baggage/mail cars have no lights, can't confirm if this is prototypical):

 

Charles

[garya]

Trainman440

I see you're using the 5050 LED strips. While very bright, those seems to draw much more current than the 3528s. Since Im dimming my LEDs anyways, I figured I should go with the smaller ones. 5050s are really great for lighting up model structures and tables though! Lovely Bachmann Southern dining car by the way :)

The 3528s would be better.  I went with the 5050s because I didn't know any better and that's what someone gave me.  The 5050s are a bit bright; I've fooled with the resistors to dim them some.

The car is no longer Southern...I removed the lettering and now it looks like this:

I followed some advice from this thread 

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/277702.aspx (solvaset, pencil eraser).  It will look like this coach soon:

Nice K4 and train, btw