Cliff, that might be helpful. I just purchased a roll of leds from MicroMark and want to use 8-12" segments in passenger cars powered with a 9 volt battery in lieu of track power. From your experience would a 9 volt supply be adequate or do I need to consider an alternative plan? I plan to use the remainder in structures with a conventional D.C. power supply. Thanks.
Rich, I’m glad you asked, since I’ve been wondering about it as well. And at the risk of derailing John’s thread (but hoping to add some data points to it), I did a quick test on a 11.5" long piece of “warm white” tape. This will be different from whatever MM sells, but hopefully it’s similar.
A 1’ nominal length draws ~.75mA @~9V. It was bright enough to start to bring on a headache.
9v batteries vary on mAH rating, but let’s say they’re 250. 10’ of this tape would be 7.5mA, so hours would be 33. If you get LiOn rechargeables, they’re at 600mAH, so 80 hours.
Your mileage WILL vary…
Greg, am I off here? If so, I sure hope it’s not by more than one decimal place… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Cliff
PS: the illumination still looked great at 7V. But down around 5.5 to 6V, it cuts out.
Thanks Cliff. I was hoping someone could figure it out. Sounds like a 9 volt battery will work fine as I usually run my passenger trains two or three hours in the evening. I’ve had problems with Aristo’s pickups on the streamliners off the track, shorting out the track and shutting down the power supply. I’m moving to battery for some of my engines, including eventually my ABA F-7’s, so apparently my thinking about changing out the lighting in the streamliners will work. Thank you again for your information.
My experience with this “LED tapes” is that 9 volts is not much difference in brightness from the rated 12 volts.
Cliff the only part you are off is: “10’ of this tape would be 7.5mA” , I’m pretty sure that everyone assumed you meant 10 INCHES, not 10 FOOT.
I’d say your estimates are pretty good. Found some people that measured this and got 10ma for about 50 hours. I think these were Duracells.
Now, the internal cell voltages will drop to about 1.25 volts at 50% discharged, so you will be at 7.5 volts at 50% discharge, which might not light off the LEDs.
So factoring the voltage drop, your estimate of 33 hours seems pretty right on, since 50 hours probably will be too low in voltage to fire the LEDs.
Greg
Rich Niemeyer said:
Thanks Cliff. I was hoping someone could figure it out. Sounds like a 9 volt battery will work fine as I usually run my passenger trains two or three hours in the evening. I’ve had problems with Aristo’s pickups on the streamliners off the track, shorting out the track and shutting down the power supply. I’m moving to battery for some of my engines, including eventually my ABA F-7’s, so apparently my thinking about changing out the lighting in the streamliners will work. Thank you again for your information.
When I converted my Aristocraft C-16 to bats, I discovered that one of the tender trucks was wired backwards.
I think they face all the tangs one way to wire them and some get turned around when installed. Only shows up on trucks with wired pick-ups. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-yell.gif)
John
Greg Elmassian said:
Cliff the only part you are off is: “10’ of this tape would be 7.5mA” , I’m pretty sure that everyone assumed you meant 10 INCHES, not 10 FOOT.
Thanks Greg, good points. However, the 11.5" (the “nominal” 1’ length; my tape is cuttable at ~2.9" increments) length drew .75mA. Hence, ~10’ would be 7.5.
At least, I thought it would be linear. So I just measured a full roll (~16’) of warm white at 9v off a dc power supply, but it pulled only 5.8mA (at 9.1v). Go figure. But then I hooked it up to a new 9v battery, and got only 0.55mA (at 8.2v)! Maybe the battery can’t discharge fast enough for higher demands?
Here’s the battery test,
Here’s the test running off the power supply.
You can see that the battery-supplied method is quite a lot dimmer. But, that’s 16’ of tape, so maybe shorter lengths will be brighter. Also, since it’s puller much lower amperage, I’d think the battery would last that much longer.
Chris, those look like reputable products. Here’s the el cheapo stuff I’ve been using,
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JQV6SFU
Cliff
Cliff,
The dealer is VERY REPUTABLE too. Still a good personal relationship type of guy.
Chris
Chris, thanks for the tip. I’ll archive the info for the future.
John or Kevin, where on facebook is Kevin’s lighting project. I would like to check it out. Thanks, Pete
Pete Lassen said:
John or Kevin, where on facebook is Kevin’s lighting project. I would like to check it out. Thanks, Pete
Kevin’s photos are on his “wall”; posted on June 20. This is a link to one; but you may need to be a “freind” of Kevin to see them…
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10213575694732561&set=pcb.10213575696852614&type=3&theater
My apologies to all the anti-FB people on here. You may ignore this post.
i am one of the love facebook people here and Thanks for the answer. back to regularly scheduled programming.
I want to add some post lamps. I picked up some 12V grain-of-wheat bulbs with wire leads and some bendable brass tubing. I’ve always loved the lamps at the Chama station as they are unusual. My Google foo has not been strong today as I can only locate these two photos on-line…
I took my own photos when we visited in 2000, but they are on film and I have no idea where they are.
Does anyone have better photos or maybe even a shop drawing with the radius sizes?
Those flexistrip LEDs. They are available on EBAY from China on a roll ( 5metres) (300 lights). They come in two types. The brightest is the 5050 type and waterproof as well. A lot cheaper than you usually find
I love them corrugated shades.
Still looking for better pictures or a drawing and some measurements, but in the mean time I decided to just wing it. Here is a quickly thrown together test build. It needs improvement, but the basics are there. Base is just temporary to hold it for photos, lamp on the right came from a Christmas set with wreath removed and re-lamped…
A beer cap was bent and drilled to represent the shade…
A slightly different bend. This was my second attempt, but the tube is too long for the leads on the bulbs, so I need to extend them first keeping the joint small enough to fit in the .125" OD tube…
Gen II shade components. Cap hasn’t been bent yet, the top part is cut down from a BD Nano needle cover…
Gen II mock up…
Now I just need to figure out how to bend more than one to the same exact shape (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
The “devil winds” out here on the desert trashed my town and all the rest of the buildings on the layout.
Once I see what parts I have I am going to put things back together and light my town!
I do have to figure out how to attach my buildings to bases so they won’t get blown away.
have you found a good place to buy lights and mounting fixtures or were you able to get all of them from the field signs?
To Hell with the Devil Doug !
Love it !!!