Wiring Lights

[cheech]

I have some Dept 56 Stadium Lights. the wiring from the lights is connected to a small battery holder [c batteries] for power. It can also be powered with a wall-wart.

I'd like to omit the batteries and do not want another walwart for power.

Is it possible to cut the connection to the battery device and connect it to a track lockon or other power source? since it works off of batteries do i need a rectifier?

there are no wiring info for the dept 56 products that came with them.  

thanks in advance

ralph

 

[phillyreading]

Ralph,

Your Dept. 56 Stadium lights are probally three volts DC and your track power is at least eight volts when you first start and goes up to 20 volts. If you were to wire the Dept. 56 lights to track power you would get a flash effect for one time and the lights would be fried!!  You need a small transformer that has a three volt output on it to wire those lights to. DO NOT use the accessory power output from your train transformer either!!

What I suggest doing is getting a multimeter and checking how much votage you get from the battery holder, then use a small transformer from Radio Shack or other electronic store to power those lights.

Lee F.

[lionelsoni]

Unless I were sure those aren't LEDs, I would hesitate to connect them to a transformer of any kind.

[Dub]

Most likely they are LED's I think you will be surprised how long the batteries will last. I use discarded batteries from Gameboy's and the Nintendo DS. No shortage in my house LOL.

[cheech]

thanks for the replies. Appreciate them.

It is more a matter of where these lights are located and how easy/difficult it will be to get to them AND the multiple battery boxes  which have the ON/Off switch and wherein is plugged the wall warts needed to operate them. 

Two towers connect to one batter box, two boxes can be serviced by one wall wart. I have 8 sets of two that i am trying to connect around an industrial scene [modified walthers blast furnace and the like] and it is a ways away.  plus 8 battery boxes each with an on/off switch is not how i want to spend the time lighting up the scene.

Any ideas?  If i could guarantee 2v to the lights by rigging a trfmr handle with tape, is it possible to connect these in some way?

thanks again

ralph

[sparks32]

How many batteries does it take to power 1 set of lights?  (2 - 1.5 v AA ?) total 3V.  If so you you could wire the lights in series to drop voltage.  20 volts with 8 sets would make your voltage at 2.5 v per unit.  Remember that is in series, connecting the power lead from the transformer with a master on/off switch before the lights installed to the positive red lead of the first unit ONLY!.  Then black from first set to red of the second set. Do this the same for all the rest until you get to the last set. Connect the black lead from the last set to common on the transformer. You can bypass the batteries boxes with jumper wires.  Good Luck.

Sincerely

 sparks32

 

[cheech]

Thanks Sparks.  There are 2 batteries per box, 3 volts output is what it says on the  box. the wall wart says 2.5-3volts output.  I think i understand the series vs parallel. 

One more question. I plan to snip the battery boxes off. The wires from the light tower are both white. is there a way of looking into the battery box, before i snip it off, to determine which is black and which is red [power vs common, i guess is the issue].  Also, any ideas on the switch, would the lionel slide switch work?

thanks again

ralph

[palallin]

Light bulbs don't care about polarity.

[phillyreading]

One draw back to using series wiring is that when one set of lights go out they all go out!!

Most incandescent lights don't care about polarity, not so sure on LED lights.

Lee F.

[dougdagrump]

I have some Dept 56 Stadium Lights. the wiring from the lights is connected to a small battery holder [c batteries] for power. It can also be powered with a wall-wart.

I'd like to omit the batteries and do not want another walwart for power.

Is it possible to cut the connection to the battery device and connect it to a track lockon or other power source? since it works off of batteries do i need a rectifier?

there are no wiring info for the dept 56 products that came with them.  

thanks in advance

ralph

 

Ralph,

Go with the walwarts and hook them up, along with any others for the layout, to one of those remote operating extension cords that are turned off and on via a remote control. This time of year they should be available in the aisles with the Christmas decorations and/or electrical cords. I use one for all the houses and stuff on our Christmas/Thomas layout and it works like a champ.

 

[lionelsoni]

Unless I were sure those aren't LEDs, I would hesitate to connect them to a transformer of any kind.

LEDs are non-linear devices, very unlike incandescent lamps.  They do care about voltage and they care about polarity and they care about waveform.  A transformer is very unlike a battery.  Three volts of AC from a transformer is actually varying continuously between -4.2 volts and +4.2 volts.  It is entirely possible to run them from a transformer; but we would need to know a lot more about what is in the accessories and how they are wired to be able to adapt them to the transformer without damaging them.

[phillyreading]

Unless I were sure those aren't LEDs, I would hesitate to connect them to a transformer of any kind.

LEDs are non-linear devices, very unlike incandescent lamps.  They do care about voltage and they care about polarity and they care about waveform.  A transformer is very unlike a battery.  Three volts of AC from a transformer is actually varying continuously between -4.2 volts and +4.2 volts.  It is entirely possible to run them from a transformer; but we would need to know a lot more about what is in the accessories and how they are wired to be able to adapt them to the transformer without damaging them.

Bob,

Thank you for the info on LED lights!

Lee F.

[cheech]

Thanks for the info bob. Helpful as always.

These 'lights' are LEDs, not bulbs. 15 led's in 5 rows of 3, soldered to a 'board' of some kind. I cannot see how the led's connect to the board or if there are other electronics on the front side. I can only see the back where the power feed wire connects by solder to the board.  It takes 2 1.5V batteries. the battery holder has an on/off switch and an adapter receptacle for a wall wart.  It needs both batteries to work, one battery absent somehow stops the connection. The batteries face opposite +/- and -/+ directions in the holder

Is it possible to connect these LED's to AC power?

Ralph

 

[lionelsoni]

As I said, "It is entirely possible to run them from a transformer; but we would need to know a lot more about what is in the accessories and how they are wired to be able to adapt them to the transformer without damaging them."

[Dub]

This LED is using a 750 ohm Resistor and a 1N4001 diode. The diode is attached to the negative side of the LED . Because of the AC it works if the connections are reversed.

[wsdimenna]

For DC power leds one of the following

Use a full bridge retifier to convert the power on transformer from AC to DC or buy a DC voltage supply.

Connect the sets in parallel using terminal buss strips,  Use 2 of the simple black ones with jumpers.  One wire from each light set goes to each terminal. A wire from each terminal goes to the power supply or bridge rectifer.  

there are leds made for AC. check the package and AMp rating for each unit. If not available contact Dept 56 for info. Most of time these Dept 56 are for DC only.

full bridge rectifer

Call them , sure they will give you good answer 

[cheech]

thanks for the suggestions. i do appreciate them.

dept 56 has no customer serv grp. their items are all china made. the boxes have no info, the product labels, other then made in china say nothing about the item, electrically speaking.  these particular items are not made to be examined or adjusted. They do [oops did] look good in the particular scene i had planned for them.

They come in pairs and i performed an autopsy on one tower to see what could be done which is how i found the info in the earlier post. if i spent time with a soldering gun and a magnifying glass i probably could bring it back to life, but i'll just trash it and chalk it up to a lesson learned.... the internals on these things were not meant to be touched and there is no replacing of the 'lite' should one of the 15 burn out.

I plan to play with the 2nd tower of the set , sniping off the battery box and attaching it to a bridge rectifier as wsdimenna describes, throttling the voltage to see what will happen when i reach 5 or 6 volts.  if this works without issue, i'll hook it up to my TMCC AVC device which i have set up to power the Atlas Turntable which also is a low voltage DC item.

If the test fails, the other sets will get trashed as well. 

Thanks again for the ideas.

Ralph  

PS: Dept 56 has a few interesting items...fences, rock walls and the like. Just stay away from the electical items as they aren't made for prime-time and i'd be wary of using them at all as decorative items.

                                            

[Dub]

To run the lights on 6 volts DC you need two sets in series or add a 150 ohm resistor to each set. My Lemax set has four lights they are LED's (directional DC, reverse current did not work)with a 10 Ohm resistor(Brown,Black,Black,Silver). They run with 3 volts 2 AA batteries.

With some extra thought I think the LED's are in parallel so the theory to place them in series for 12 volts won't work. I concluded this by assuming the LED operated lower than 3 volts.Assuming a 20 Milliamp draw a 10 ohm resistance gives a .2 volt drop. I figured the LED operates at 2.8 volts. My lampost had 4 wires to them not just two,t support a parallel hookup. I haven't seen the Dept 56 stuff.