DCC & Lights

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I'm located in the UK and running North American HO diesel and steam loco's. I'm also new to DCC and use a Lenz LZV100 and LH100. I have non DCC loco's by Athearn, Proto (1k&2k), Bachmann and Atlas. DCC 'ready' loco's by Athearn (incl Genesis) and Proto 2k. DCC equipped loco's by Atlas & Broadway.

The 'equipped' loco's are no problem.

Can anyone please advise me what I need to do with regard to light bulbs on the other loco's prior to fitting DCC chips??? Should I be fiting LED's or 'upgrading' light bulbs?

Thankyou in advance....... Graham.

[Anonymous]

Graham,

Basically what you need to do is find a combination of LED/bulb, plus a resistor that is capable of handling a constant 12V+ , since DCC powered track is "full on" all the time. You should refer to any instructions given with your locos for converting to DCC. I know my P2K's had some basic instructions. You can also get info from your chosen decoder manufacturer - either in the decoder package, or from their web site. Tony's Train Exchange, Loy's Toys, and Litchfield Station sites (google) are also good sources of information.

Sorry I cannot be of further help, but my DDC installation experience is limited to P2K (as noted) and Bachmann Spectrum, which was just plug'n'play - no upgrades required.

Andrew

[jsoderq]

Actually this can be a pretty complex subject. First move to one of the DCC forums. Besides MR, Atlas has one as do many of the manufacturers. There are a lot of Yahoo groups dealing with DCC. One of the best places for info is Tony's Train Exchange - great people with a lot of information. The short answer is go LED's as it saves a lot of problems.

[jfugate]

As js says, this is a complex subject. He recommends LEDs. I say ... it depends.

Consider that you might want realistic lighting effects, as I do, in SP light fxtures on HO locos. The first problem, is the smallest white LED is way too big, as you can see in this comparison ...


(Click to enlarge)

The 1.2 mm 1.5v bulbs are a perfect fit into the headlight castings if you drill out the casting with a #55 drill:


(click to enlarge)

And finally, LED's don't have a nice smooth transition with gyralight and mars light effects like incandescent bulbs do. The Minatronics bulbs I use have a life of 1,000 hours. At typical model RR use of say, 10 hours per month, that's 100 months of life, or about 8 years. I install the bulbs with a dab of clear silicone caulk, so it's easy to remove the bulbs later if I need to change them.

And the bulbs look *wonderful* as you can see from this movie clip taken from volume 3 of the Siskiyou Line video series where I describe step-by-step how to install sound and lights in these locos:


To watch the video clip, click here.