Good morning model railroaders,
Looking for HO cab mount remote control locomotive four color light housing .
Are these cab mount fixtures available in HO ? If so,who makes them ?
To darn tiny to scratch build...
Fear an Ignorant Man more than a Lion- Turkish proverb
Modeling an ficticious HO scale intergrated Scrap Yard & Steel Mill Melt Shop.
Southland Industrial Railway or S.I.R for short. Enterchanging with Norfolk Southern.
I'd bet there isn't one available. From what I recall, these lights were often home-made and unique to the plant, so they tended to differ.
As for making one, surface mount (SMD) LEDS come in a variety of tiny forms and are suitably intense to call attention to themselves. With magnet wire leads, you should be able to pack them suitably close to fit in a housing that is close enugh to scale to be credible. Getting exact scale in HO would likely require a fiber optic light source.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehman I'd bet there isn't one available. From what I recall, these lights were often home-made and unique to the plant, so they tended to differ. As for making one, surface mount (SMD) LEDS come in a variety of tiny forms and are suitably intense to call attention to themselves. With magnet wire leads, you should be able to pack them suitably close to fit in a housing that is close enugh to scale to be credible. Getting exact scale in HO would likely require a fiber optic light source.
Thank you Mike. Figured some electronic wizard would have thought of that already. Would be neat if lights worked with locomotive. As you stated fiber optics .
Way,way beyond my abilities .
Tried Shapeways . Only one was in N scale .
Scratch build it is...
Yeah, even in HO scale, they'd be pretty small.
I think, though, that Mike's idea of surface-mounted LEDs might be preferable to the fibre optics - the latter can be bent only so sharply, and the inside of a switcher cab is a pretty open space to try to disguise them. It also doesn't allow much room to hide the light sources.In the photo below, the lights aren't aren't even all that noticeable when they're not lit....
I'd suggest mounting the LEDs directly on the side of the cab, rather than free-standing at the corner, and at about the same height as those in the photo. You might even want to drill holes in which to mount them - this will allow you to hide some of their bulk, if necessary, in the thickness of the cab's walls. The exposed portion can be shaped, using a file, to reduce the bulk, too.
Wayne
doctorwayne Yeah, even in HO scale, they'd be pretty small. I think, though, that Mike's idea of surface-mounted LEDs might be preferable to the fibre optics - the latter can be bent only so sharply, and the inside of a switcher cab is a pretty open space to try to disguise them. It also doesn't allow much room to hide the light sources.In the photo below, the lights aren't aren't even all that noticeable when they're not lit.... I'd suggest mounting the LEDs directly on the side of the cab, rather than free-standing at the corner, and at about the same height as those in the photo. You might even want to drill holes in which to mount them - this will allow you to hide some of their bulk, if necessary, in the thickness of the cab's walls. The exposed portion can be shaped, using a file, to reduce the bulk, too. Wayne
Thank you Doc . Scratch building the light fixture. I'm a firm believer in Dean Freytags hole punch system. He could glue a couple hole punch circles together & presto a detail out of junk.