I searched this topic but came up empty handed…question…are the lights on the shay LED? I’m in the process of converting to Railpro from RCS America. Taking the older equipment out I came across some chokes that TOC recommended soldering on. I know with the LEDs I need to add resistors. So just wanted to check.
If they are not I’d like to convert them to LEDs. What is a good type of light to use and where can it be purchased?
Thanks for your help,
Richard
Don’t know if the shay has LED’s or not, but I personally take all factory lighting out of my engines, plus the factory boards, ie, I do strip the engine of all its electronics. I also remove or disconnect the power from the trucks as I run Rail Pro with battery power. I use the 12v LED’s sold on eBay with resistors, the 3mm and 5mm in both bright white and soft white color, bright white for headlights, ditch lights, etc., and soft with for interior, running lights, etc. I power the LED’s from the Rail Pro 5v lighting terminals and the lights will give very good light and I also use another resistor if I want the light less bright. Rule of thumb is, just don’t over power the LED’s with more power then what they are rated for, 5V on 12 volt LED’s will give a very bright light, you have to experiment with LED’s and resistors. Look under the topic lighting for passenger cars and you can see where I posted the type of LED’s I use for all my lighting needs on both engines and rolling stock. Using LED’s on less voltage with extend the life of a LED and will probably never burn out.
I do what John does.
I get all my prewired LED’s here:
6 volt for RailPro. No need to worry about a resistor.
Thank you John!! Your reply is most helpful.
Richard
Thanks Richard, I realize that for many who never used LED’s before that they can seem somewhat hard to figure out the voltage, LED size, etc. One thing I forgot to tell you is, LED’s are power sensitive, that is they only light in on direction, that is, test the LED with say a 9v battery, hooking the wires up one way the LED will light, reverse the power if the LED does not light. There will be no damage to the LED if you hook it up backwards, just won’t light. I will say on my Rail Pro light wires on the module I wire them all the same, that is the module-colored wires are all wired to all LED’s where they light, thus the module ground wire will power the LED’s with just one wire from LED to LED.
Clear pics to identify polarity of a given LED as pics sometimes help 
I’ve been very lazy since retiring and have not made much progress on my RailPro conversions…but now I’m fired up!! 
I’ve gone back read replies to my questions about the lights. Should I order 3mm or 5mm LEDs for the headlight and rear lights? I’m planning to keep the firebox flicker lights and smoke box lights…should I put resistors on those?
Thanks!
On my two-truck RailPro conversion I retained the flicker board in the fire pan and powered it right off the battery, after a fuse and on-off switch with no resistor.
If your Shay is the DCC ready version want to leave all the factory wiring intact, I have wiring diagrams that I developed to do that to one I had here for a short time.
I would like to get it as I have one to on the list. Thanks.
Jon, does your diagram work for non-DCC dead rail?
Yes. But you need to change the power source from the rail to your battery / charge jack / fuse / power switch. You could use the built in power switch, but I like to be able to completely isolate the battery with a second switch.
In step 1, Rather than using the Red and Black wires from J2, you would remove and cap them (isolating track pick-up). Then feed RailPro’s “Track” inputs from your battery system.
Jon,
Got it!!
Thanks,
Richard
I’ve just ordered 6 cool white 5 mm LED lights that are 5-12 volts from Evan Designs. Looking forward to them arriving so I can get this project up and running.
Richard
