For those of you who like running your passenger trains at night – with the car’s lighting bright enough to illuminate the near track-side foliage – here’s a tip that has garnered absolute approval from non-RR dinner guests!
Revisit the factory installed lighting in your USA, Bachman, LGB, and Hartland passenger cars. Add some 14v+bulbs 'n sockets to suit your lighting taste, and secure silver reflective tape to the undersides of the roof and on the flooring to bounce the light. I use Venture Tape 2" wide silver self-sticking tape. Other brands are available. Obviously, any true-to-scale passengers would be irresponsibly blinded. No matter. The effect as the train moves through the plants garners repeated kudos with “Please put the train on tonight!”

P.S. When too cold outside, and the train’s lighting is seen from the inside, your effort warms the hardest of non-RR hearts!

Wendell

I’ve changed to LEDs on a tape, since they already don’t “waste” any light in the “wrong” direction, but moreover, save a lot of current.

The first time I ran a big passenger train up my main grade, the ammeter said 9.7 amps… wow… then I realized that 7 amps was the light bulbs in the cars!

Regards, Greg

There’s another advantage to the LEDs, one can chose the type and adjust the values accordingly. The latest gimmick on EU GRRs seems to be tri-colour sequential lighting of cars. Almost like a regular circus.
OTOH doing a CP Holiday Train with all the lights would be “a good thing”.

Did I mention the programmable destination boards from Massoth? They developed them for the MLGB Allegra, but apparently they will also offer them for different purposes.

And since they have pulsed smoke generators for practically everything, it is only a question of time to have pulsed smell generators for outhouses and manure spreaders.

Wendell, I did not mean to draw away from your excellent suggestion for those who don’t want to convert from bulbs to LEDs.

Merry Christmas by the way!

Greg

Sign me up for a Smell Generator for more welcome situations, like near a Bakery. That always gets a smile from passers-by. Having grown up raising Steers, I actually like the smell of a stockyard, go figure.

Outrageous lighting does have it’s applications in our scale

(http://lsc.cvsry.com/post2/EBT_Plow-15.JPG)

(http://lsc.cvsry.com/post2/EBT_Plow-19.JPG)

Sure makes night plowing practical.

I am sure my neighbor would really appreciate my trains having lighting like you have on that plow. When the trains come out of the upper reverse loop, their headlight plays across the back of my neighbor’s house. She is already suggested that I could see into her bedroom window, and has taken steps to prevent me from doing so. Shining light like that onto her window would just convince her that I am a peeping tom.

And just for the record, I am not a peeping tom, and even if I was, she isn’t my type.

David Maynard said:

And just for the record, I am not a peeping tom, and even if I was, she isn’t my type.

Have you got any photos?

No, cause she aint my type, and cause I aint no peeping tom.

David Maynard said:

No, cause she aint my type, and cause I aint no peeping tom.

Just pullin’ your chain.

Joe I know.

I did like the green light my Aristo cars cast, in the yard, when I ran them at night. I think converting the lighting to LEDs would be a good idea. I am sure my TE would appreciate having to not have to work as hard to run my dinner train. As for all the reflective surfaces, so that I can really light up the yard, and blind my passengers, I think I will skip that.

Greg-
Your LED suggestion is a good one!
My knowledge of their use is limited – am I correct a voltage regulator is required if using track power?
Or, as with conventional light bulbs, the LEDs are available in varied voltages?
Wendell

Basically Wendell, you have to regulate the current, not the voltage. This is because the LED is basically a diode that emits light, and as such, acts almost like a short circuit itself.

Voltage cannot be regulated well enough to run them correctly. (Now a bunch of people will argue, because some LEDs can run at significantly lower power then speced).

The common way to use them is a resistor in series with the LED, but this depends on a maximum voltage, so if getting variable DC, it might not be optimal at lower voltages.

Enter the Suntek CL2, a little integrated circuit in a package that looks like a transistor. It will work at ANY voltage up to 90 volts, and will produce a regulated 20 milliamps of current, no matter what the input voltage. They are cheap and there are many other benefits, resistors can also get hot and melt plastic if not sized correctly.

Several members have excellent pages on LEDs, here’s mine (which is not guaranteed to be excellent ha ha!):

http://www.elmassian.com/trains/dcc-battery-rc-electronics/misc-electronics/led-lighting-basics

Regards, Greg

You could use these: http://www.dallee.com/LED_lighting.htm

Note that the Dallee units are nice, but $35 for the 10" one and $55 for the 18" one.

Outfitting a passenger train consist get’s expensive. If you want to solder up some LEDs yourself you save a lot of money.

Regards, Greg

That Supertex CL2 current regulator looks very interesting. I’m in the middle of changing out some LED headlamps on a loco that will end up being powered by a trail car. Normally I’d just add a resistor using a ball-park calculation. Since I need different polarities for the front and rear LED (1 each) I imagine I’d need two of the CL2’s. In this application do they make sense; or should I just stick with my cheap resistor?

David Maynard said:

… she isn’t my type.

Usually women who think everyone wants to look at them are nobody’s type!

John, you can use one CL2 to provide “common” power of 20 ma… so if you were using a decoder, you’d hook a diode (protection) to your common (which is positive), then the CL2, and then the cathodes of both diodes, and the then anodes would go to the “outputs” for the headlight and rear light…

If you are running from just track pickups, yes, 2 cl2’s in 2 separate circuits. Add a regular diode in series also to protect it, it does not have a high reverse voltage breakdown, and neither do LEDs …

Regards, Greg

Thanks Greg - In this application (same as track power) I think a resistor and maybe a protection diode for the LED is simpler. But I’ll keep the CL2 in mind for multiple LED applications.

Actually one CL2 could be used, if you used a bridge rectifier to get proper input polarity from both rails, and sent the output through the LEDs in parallel and then through protection diodes and then to the proper rail. One rail for the headlight and the other rail for the back up light. But for the cost of a bridge rectifier and the added complexity, 2 CL2s and 2 protection diodes would probably be simpler and cost nearly the same.