Flickering Lights

[joe323]

Is there a way on a standard DC layout to have constant light in the passenger cars out all the flickering?

[RR_Mel]

Battery on board works for me.

 

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2016/04/april-15-2016-more-car-lighting.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mel

 

Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951

 

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

 

[doctorwayne]

Another option is Rapido's Easy-Peasy Lighting Kits.

Wayne

[RR_Mel]

I use a battery power supply E7B dummy to power the LEDs on my streamline passenger trains but it requires a pair of wires the full length of the train.  Not what most model railroaders would do.

 

I rarely uncouple my 11 car SP Daylight passenger trains (2) so it’s not a big deal for me.  I also use shelf couplers on my passenger cars so that they don’t come uncoupled accidently.

 

A single 1000mah 3.7 volt rechargeable Lithium battery will power all 11 cars easily for several hours.  I use multiple Warm White Wide Angle LEDs in each car operating at very low current for the most realistic looking lighting.  The total current draw for all 11 cars is just over 50ma at 3.9 volts.

 

I used a chip charger in the E7B to charge the Lithium battery from rail power.

 

I’m kicking around building the battery/charger into a streamline baggage car and do away with the E7B dummy.  

 

If you are interested and need more info send me a message.

 

 

Mel

 

Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951

 

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

 

[DigitalGriffin]

If you don't want to use a battery,

Truck Eletrical Pickups -> Rectifier -> Capacitor -> LED.  It's about $3.00 per car depending on size of your capacitor.  With a large enough standard cap, you can get about 15 seconds of LED lighting at 7ma.  If you drop below ~5V (3.5 for LED and 1.5V for rectifier) on the track, then the LEDs will not work once the capacitors run out of juice. 

If you want longer time, you'll need to go super caps, which will stay lit for a minute when fully charged.  But they slowly dim over time as the voltage starts to sag during the discharge process. 

Either way as you change voltage on the track, your LEDs will get brighter and dimmer.  There's little you can do about this unless you use a current limiter or voltage regulator.

[joe323]

DigitalGriffin

If you don't want to use a battery,

Truck Eletrical Pickups -> Rectifier -> Capacitor -> LED.  It's about $3.00 per car depending on size of your capacitor.  With a large enough standard cap, you can get about 15 seconds of LED lighting at 7ma.  If you drop below ~5V (3.5 for LED and 1.5V for rectifier) on the track, then the LEDs will not work once the capacitors run out of juice. 

If you want longer time, you'll need to go super caps, which will stay lit for a minute when fully charged.  But they slowly dim over time as the voltage starts to sag during the discharge process. 

Either way as you change voltage on the track, your LEDs will get brighter and dimmer.  There's little you can do about this unless you use a current limiter or voltage regulator.

 

 

I am aware of the limitations of DC as my main layout is DCC. 

These are not long distance cars it is a Walters subway set running above the layout on Bachmann auto reversing track. As with the prototype the power is completely separate from my freight operations. I also know that subways of this age did flicker but not like a Lionel caboose. 

One idea I have is to run the cars as a set like The Broadway Lion does and wire them all together placing the batteries in one car and running them in series using thin wire to connect the cars I also know that Lion uses drawbars in lieu of couplers.