Directional lights on intercity loco and dummy car

[Blueandwhiteton]

Hello first time post, has anybody upgraded intercity locos to directional lights, I have watched a few videos but not two of them are the same plus where do you get the parts, resisters, capacitors, bridge rectifiers, what size led's one person used 1.8mms ones and I would also like to fit lights to carriages as well, I am a newbie so it will take me a while to get round to doing this, I have just started going to my local M R Club.I have two loops with various hornby, peck and Bachman track but no points so far and two controllers, if this has been covered before is there a link to this subject

[atom3624]

There are various pre-built lights kits on Ebay as well, unless you like tinkering with electronics.

 

I'm sure Chris will be along shortly to advise ....

 

Al.

[ColinB]

I have just done this, so assuming you don't mind wiring it is quite easy. What I did was buy 2mm tower leds in clear and red (relatively cheap on popular auction site). The advantage of these is you can file down the tower part. Now what I did was use the holes that hold the front reflector in, to house the clear headlights, and then drill a 2mm hole to the side of these for the red reversing lights. Remove the headlight reflector locators by cutting them off and filing flush, and permanently glue the reflector on. File the leds to fit behind the reflector, test before glueing in place and then wire up. You may need to trim the front of the chassis to miss the leds when you put it back together.

[Chrissaf]

Colin's reply covers the physicality of the mod (i.e how to fit the LEDs and LED type). But it doesn't answer the question about how to wire them up into a DC Analogue loco that does not have a DCC Digital decoder to power them.

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It is not a straight forward 'bridge rectifier' type circuit if you want 'directional lights'. I have been holding back from offering any form of circuit schematic advice because from previous experience you can build a simple directional lighting circuit for LEDs using diodes, but the downside is that they then become erratic due to the 'back EMF' produced by the electric motor. This manifests itself as the LEDs flickering when they are supposed to be off.

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The 'DCC Ready' locos deal with this issue by incorporating a full PCB with lighting control circuits that are DC Analogue friendly invariably using transistors and/or ICs.

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If you wanted to emulate the manufacturers circuits in a simpler DIY way. I would suggest a full bridge rectifier circuit with smoothing to generate a flicker free power source. Then the directional lighting is controlled by transistors or FETs used as switching devices. The switching logic of these semi-conductors then being controlled by the track voltage reversals that take place when the loco is going forward and going in reverse.

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This level of circuit design and construction, I believe is way beyond your skill set (based upon the comments in your post). In your position I would focus on trying to find a commercially available modification lighting kit from one of the specialist model lighting companies. Express Models might possibly do one....I haven't checked.

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Of course, if you don't want to operate 'directional lights'. That is to say the lights are always on regardless of loco direction, then a simple 'bridge rectifier' circuit with smoothing will suffice. Be sure to include resistors in series with the LEDs to protect them.

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If you want to stabilise the LED brightness over a wider input voltage range (this varies with the set speed of a DC Analogue loco). Then after the bridge rectifier and smoothing you would include a LDO (Low Drop Out) voltage regulator..... probably one set for 3 volts output. Thus the LED brightness then stays the same with any input regulator voltage above 3 volts. This equates to a track voltage of 4 volts as 1 volt is lost across the bridge rectifier.

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In terms of component supply (where to buy from) then this realistically has to be mail order.

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I do occasionally use eBay for components, but in the main I use online companies such as:

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Rapidonline

CPC

Farnell

ESR

Bright Components

Spiratronics

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TIP: As this is your very first post, just be aware that the 'Blue Button with the White Arrow' is not a 'Reply to this post' button. If you want to reply to any of the posts, scroll down and write your reply in the reply text box at the bottom of the page and click the Green 'Reply' button.

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See also – further TIPs on how to get the best user experience from this forum.

https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/forum/tips-on-using-the-forum/

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[96RAF]

You may also want to consider bi-colour leds where the white and the red (other colour combinations are available) are both in one led. These come in two flavours 2-legged where you reverse the voltage applied to the legs to change colour and 3-legged where you apply voltage to either outer leg to get the right colour. To add to the confusion these 3-legged leds also come in common (middle leg) cathode (general purpose) and common (middle leg) anode (suitable for DCC use).

 

Whether you use these or not depends a lot upon the configuration of the lights on your locomotive type. Some locos have sepearate coloured lights and some have them both in the same housing.

[Blueandwhiteton]

Hmmm, thank you for replies it looks like I will have to do a bit of searching for components and wiring etc, on one of my locos the light flickers but I have not lifted the body off to investigate and a broken wire on a resister on the other, I have a 45watt soldering iron but have been told it may be a bit warm so I will get a 25watt one, so it may be a trip to nearest mall in store. (Maplin)

[2e0dtoeric]

Two comments. 25 watts is too big for the tiny circuit boards you will be dealing with, and you want one with a 1mm tip, and 1mm multicore solder to go with it.

Also, with a dc track power, every time you stop the train, all the lights will go off.

You have to decide if the hassle justifies the work.

[Chrissaf]

For the kind of soldering work you have inferred, you want a small 15 watt iron. Have a read of my 'How to Solder' tutorial that will tell you all the 'best practice' tips and tools required for 'Model Railway' soldering.

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https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/forum/how-to-solder-for-model-railways/?p=1/

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You mentioned "Maplin" and also used the term "Mall"......so obviously you are not UK located. Maplin in the UK went bust and is no more and we don't use the the term 'Mall' for a 'Shopping Centre'. Are you perhaps in USA or AUS.

[ColinB]

The wattage of the iron doesn't matter if it is temperature controlled and a lot of the modern more expensive irons are. Also the size of the tip and the size of the solder make a huge difference. If you can find a second hand Weller, temperature controlled one, they are really good. Unfortunately, new they are mega expensive.

[96RAF]

I use an Antex 15watt iron with a 2mm tip for general soldering work including normal leds. Going down to a 0.5mm tip on the same iron for smd work.

 

I have a Weller soldering gun for use on bus and droppers, mainly because when I release the trigger it switches off. Having a permanently hot iron under the boards whilst fiddling with droppers is not safe in my hands.

[olly]

These are great for upgrading the lights on the old 125 https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F251999154032

[96RAF]

Go to Black Kat Tech site and download the instructions tosee how difficult or easy installation is.

[Blueandwhiteton]

Thanks for replies, I found a light kit on eBay from black cat electronics, that is the name of my local pub so that was good, my dilemma now is do I go for warm white to keep it more authentic or bright white, I am drawn to the latter but I suppose it's personal choice. Chrissaf I am in Scotland about half an hour from Glasgow, I tried to edit mall to maplin's, sorry for the confusion