II am looking for a comprehensive guide so I can add lights in a HO caboose it doesn't matter which maker. I need a lot of pictures if possible and what parts to get. I have checked the forms and youtube videos but I haven't had any luck. If someone knows a place to get this type of guide it would be great it doesn't have to be free it just needs to keep the guess work to a minimum.
Kev
Can't stop working on the railroad!
I think you're asking for the impossible, because there would be so many variables that would have to be taken into consideration.
Primarily, the first step would be finding replacement caboose-style trucks with electrical pickup wipers.
After that, would come other factors such as whether you want to use LEDs or incandescent bulbs; the need for additional circuitry to incorporate flicker-free operation; voltage regulation if intended for a DC layout; and other considerations.
Caboose and passenger car lighting is being done by many. Even an action figure by a figure in the caboose operated by a tiny motor and decoder.
Go join the Yahoo SoundTraxx DCC group. A fellow from down under is very active in this issue.
You better have electrical and mechanical experience. Forget, plug and play.
There are many circuits online for building your own lighting. Commercial stuff for flicker free is being sold.
Google is your best friend. I have found quite a few lighting circuits. Your PC is a powerful device and you can build an very good Favorites folder in your PC with useful links.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
As was said, there are many different ways to do this. Below are some examples.
http://tinyurl.com/9ewwxjv
Do you want to use 12 volt bulbs, 1.5 volt bulbs, LED's. Some LED's are 5mm, 3mm, some SMD, etc.
Caboose Lighting with Digital Command Control, Mike Polsgrove, DCC Corner article, Model Railroader, November 2012.
Thanks everyone this will help greatly. I have a lot of experience working with electronics and so wiring and understanding what goes where is not a problem I just needed a starting point. I will go with LED lighting for all.
Thanks again,
More links.
http://tinyurl.com/mdpo6n7
Laurie McLean does a lot with LED's, micro motor, DCC animation, speakers for DCC sound, etc. Search Google and You Tube for him.
x2
You'll learn from anything Laurie puts out. He's very good at walking through the basics for you and showing people how to do for themselves.
Laurie is a great chap who is as glad to help the beginner as he is to help a "name" you might be familiar with. Right now he's digging into his first production WOW installs after being a beta tester for TCS with those. keep an eye on new video on those to pop up shortly.
I'm glad to call him a friend and fellow narrowgauger. He has some great caboose installs.
BTW, is there something specific you're looking for ideas about. There are so many things that you can stuff into a caboose these days it helps to narrow the topic down.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Kev,
Athearn Genesis has released a series of cabooses with digitally-controlled lighting. Rather pricey, but check their offerings as they may have some in the road name(s) you want.
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=bwgencaboose+ATHG&CatID=THRF
Laurie has some great lessons on how to do this I will give it a go this weekend. I just want basic lighting in the cabooses. O gauge has spoiled me in this aspect. You cannot put a value on these forums I appreciate all the help.
Thanks for the lead, these are very nice and MTS has them for 69.99 instead of 99.00 after all how many cabooses do you need. I may get one or two of these until I find a way for me to do it myself.
No one's gotten real specific about things yet, but track power was mentioned, the need for wipers, etc. That's one way to do it.
Another possibility is to consider onboard battery power. Rapido has done a lot of this with their passenger cars, but I think it was incorporated in their caboose also. They may have useful parts for sale, I don't know, but the battery holder and the magnetic(?) on-off switch could definitely come in handy for a DIY project if battery power turned out to be a good idea for you. Biggest thing is to put the battery where it can be changed without tearing up the car of course.
I looked into the Rapido lights and I prefer something that doesn't have to depend on a battery. I have everything I need for lighting any car but I don't have the knowledge of how to get power from the rails to the car. The Rapido I believe uses watch or hearing aid type batteries. I picked up a roll of strip LED's for 12.00 off Ebay, it took two weeks to get them from China but I don't have to worry about LED's for passenger cars for a couple of years.
Just thought I'd mention the battery system as an alternative. One issue cabooses have is getting enough weight on the tracks for reliable operation of the wipers. So the battery is one way around that issue, which is a bigger deal in narrowgauge than in standard.
Laurie goes over building your own wipers on locos in some of those videos. I'm thinking he used the built-in wipers on the Blackstone cabooses as they are pretty sweet. But all you need is some PC tie material to act as a mount, some phospor-bronze wire (Tichy), solder them together with a wire lead to wherever you need the power. You just need to figure out a spot on the truck to mount it so the wiper hits the correct wheels.
One great tip Laurie gave me was to strip the wire out of the cords of dead mice -- the computer kind. Very thin and flexible and you may just have it around when the hobby shop is closed or a thousand miles away. It's ideal for the flexy stuff you need to hook up wipers to trucks can rotate freely.
Here is a kit that you may find useful.
http://www.sbs4dcc.com/nandhocabooselighting.html
I have used the Bowser caboose lighting kit, mainly for the pickups on the trucks. I used a very dim amber LED in the interior since I have never seen a caboose that was very brightly lighted, it would ruin night vision, just a small shaded lamp over the captain's desk. Mainly I wanted lighted markers and the setup works fine for me.
Take a look at this old thread for some more ideas.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/744/t/83476.aspx?sort=DESC&pi314=1
The Bowser part number is 74060. I see that Ring engineering has pick-up trucks as well but seem to be a bit more costly than the Bowser.
Have fun...
Go here
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/back-issues
Go to the Sept 2013 issue (download or view online)
On page 21 is a great article by Bruce Petrarca on ways to light cars.
Its free, so go ahead and download it so you can refer back to it.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
The Athearn Genesis "generator" trucks have electrical pickups built in.
This was very helpful except once again not one person covered how to get power from the trucks to the lighting system. I understand how they get power from the trucks on all my lighted passenger cars but I don't know if you can buy wheel sets that you can use to get power to the lights, I can make my own copper wipers but they are no good unless I can figure out how to get power to them. I have built a couple of lighting circuits that they suggested and put them in a couple of O gauge cars and the work great especially to remove flickering. Any help figuring this out would be great.
RRaddictThis was very helpful except once again not one person covered how to get power from the trucks to the lighting system.
Well now, Pilgrim, that is not correct. I posted above a reference to an MR article about caboose lighting. In that article the author referenced a company called Streamlined Backshop Services (www.sb4dcc) that offered an assortment of axle wipers, plus some hints about the types of wheels required.
I see PHARMD98233 also posted a link to the same website.
And I see gmpullman posted a reference to the caboose wiring sets available from Bowser.
I'm not certain what else can be done to help you with your project.
RRaddict This was very helpful except once again not one person covered how to get power from the trucks to the lighting system. I understand how they get power from the trucks on all my lighted passenger cars but I don't know if you can buy wheel sets that you can use to get power to the lights, I can make my own copper wipers but they are no good unless I can figure out how to get power to them. I have built a couple of lighting circuits that they suggested and put them in a couple of O gauge cars and the work great especially to remove flickering. Any help figuring this out would be great. Kev
Any metal wheels will pick up power from the tracks. Plain run-of-the-hobby-shop metal wheels. For a caboose you want 33 inch (HO scale inch) wheels. Assuming your trucks are plastic (non conducting) you want to make axle wipers out of phosphor bronze. Copper and brass are not springy enough to make good wipers. Not quite sure where you get phosphor bronze these days. They used to sell long strips of it to weatherstrip household doors and I got one and it will last me a lifetime. If Walthers or Micro Mark doesn't have it, McMasters Carr might.
You want to make axle wipers, not wheel wipers. Wheel wipers have too much friction drag. Bring the juice off the wipers and inside the caboose with the thinnest most flexible wire you can find. Stranded wire. Someone said the wire in the tail of a dead computer mouse is good.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
http://www.ringengineering.com/PowerPickUpTruck.htm
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Sorry about that Chief, I read the article and now I know where to get the wipers and what kind. I am very new here so I have one last question not covered in that article. Do all metal wheel sets have one insulated side Thanks?
I also supplied some instructions on how to build wipers.
After you build them as I indicated, then attaching them is the next problem. I've drilled and tapped screws to hold them, epoxied, super-glued, soldered, etc. Doesn't matter, so long as the side with the wiper attached is insulated and you can run the feeder for it and tack it next to the wiper. Since you're using the PC tie material, you can also cut the attachment side longer or short to suit an install, if you need to attach it some place a little hard to fit.
I can only add to watch Laurie's earlier videos, as he demonstrates making wipers at least a couple of times.
In another Laurie tip, for the feeder, use as small and flexible of wire as possible. I thought I mentioned that here, but maybe thinking of another thread, but the cords on old computer mice offer excellent fine gauge, flexible wire very usuful for this and DCC installs. Basically, you want a small loop of wire between the truck and the frame where it goes inside the caboose. This loop needs enough slack to reach the full swivel of the trucks, but not too long, either.
RRaddict Do all metal wheel sets have one insulated side Thanks? Kev
Do all metal wheel sets have one insulated side Thanks?
Nope, many are double-insulated nowadays, with the axle being plastic and the metal wheels pressed on both ends. These are easier to get and keep wipers on without shorting, because you don't have the close clearances that a single-insulated wheelset often has on the insulated side.
BTW, gather your stuff and let us know if you run into problems. This is the point where Laurie will usually say, "Give it a go..." because there are lots of things you really only learn by doing, even when he shows you how on a video. The first wiper will be awful, but the second probably usable. We're all here to help.
mlehman RRaddict Do all metal wheel sets have one insulated side Thanks? Kev Nope, many are double-insulated nowadays, with the axle being plastic and the metal wheels pressed on both ends.
Nope, many are double-insulated nowadays, with the axle being plastic and the metal wheels pressed on both ends.
Well, I wouldn't exactly call metal wheels on a plastic axle "double insulated" in the normal sense that both wheels have an insulating hub. They end up being insulated from each other because the axle is plastic.
I suspect that most wheel sets with metal wheels and a metal axle are only insulated on one side.
For the purposes of what you are wanting to do, you have to have a metal axle with one wheel hub insulated. Otherwise the axle wipers won't work. Note that if you are using the axle wipers the insulating wheel sets have to be on the same side in one side frame, and on the opposite side in the other side frame. Otherwise you won't complete the circuit.
maxmanFor the purposes of what you are wanting to do, you have to have a metal axle with one wheel hub insulated. Otherwise the axle wipers won't work. Note that if you are using the axle wipers the insulating wheel sets have to be on the same side in one side frame, and on the opposite side in the other side frame. Otherwise you won't complete the circuit.
True, but most of my wipers are made to wipe on the back of a wheel. But good point to help clarify for the OP. He's got options.
The reason why I don't generally use axle pickup, even when it's possible, is that I want wipers on all wheels. This is important for good sound on locos in DCC, but very important for lighting rolling stock, which tend to suffer more than locos from contact problems.
That said, you can combine axle and wheel wipers and still have them both on an axle. I just got in the habit of wiping the wheels unless that can't be done for some reason.
Ring Engineering makes power pickup trucks suitable for cabooses. A simpler and cheaper way, is to pickup a couple AA battery holders at Radioshack, and some rechargable AA batts. I took a Dremel and ground off the locking tabs on several cabooses, so I could get the body shells off easily, and just put a rechargable battery in each, and a 1 1/2 volt bulb, along with some Tomar marker lights. When I want to do some night running, I just put a fresh battery in several cabooses, and I'm good to go. When I'm done, I just leave them in and let them run down, although you could just remove the batterys. Just remember when picking up the caboose, that the tabs are gone from the body shell. That's the KISS method.
Eureka! I think I will go with that idea and I think LED's will last a while on a couple of batteries and there will be no flickering. Thanks,
You could simply solder 28 guage wire to the brass pickups built into the Athearn "generator" truck and run up through the bottom of the caboose.