Hornby Int'l dimmable coach lighting

[ellocoloco]

OK, I've used the I word, but thought this should be shared and its much cooler than a magnetic wand.......!

This short Jouef video about the

popped up on my YouTube feed this afternoon. Don't worry its not in French.

Sooner or later its got to come to OO.....I can't find details of it on the Jouef side of this webpage and existing Jouef (and other Hornby Int'l) coaches aren't cheap but I am impressed. thumbsup

[Topcat2018]

I clicked on your link and sure enough the video isn't in French, it appears to be in Spanish, or maybe Portuguese? I don't speak either.

It appears to be a capacitive touch system, but I can't think why anyone would want to put fingermarks all over their coaches.

I'm unimpressed. To operate the lights you would have to be able to physically reach the coaches. With an electromagnet on an overhead gantry or buried in the track you can operate the lights remotely.

[JJ73]

Oh I thought that was pretty c😎😎l - I would like some is possible - Topcat - you have to put your 'fingermarks' on the Carriages anyway when you have to pick them up or put them down on to the track - so what difference does it make??? 🤔🚂

[Topcat2018]

@JJ

The point is that you are unlikely to be picking up coaches and putting them down frequently. With this lighting system you will be leaving fingermarks on top of the coaches every time you switch the lights on or off. Also leaning over the layout to operate the lights isn't very realistic, and you would have to stop the train to do it or risk derailment. A lighting system operated by strategically placed electromagnets, or LEDs and photosensors, would be much better in my opinion.

The only advantage of the touch system that I can see is that it is a ready-made solution requiring no interaction with, or additions to, the layout.

[Bulleidboy]

Lovely coaches - not sure that having the lights dimmable is of much use, other than for you to be able tell friends "I can dim the coach lights".

To my knowledge in the UK carriage lights are usually on or off (usually on). As Topcat says it is fairly straightforward to place a magnet either under a bridge or just inside a tunnel entrance/exit. I have done it, placed a latching reed switch into the carriage lighting system and glued a magnet just inside a tunnel portal - works well. The one advantage with this system (if you run DCC) is you do not need to have your carriage lights on all of the time.

[Topcat2018]

Attached is a concept for coach lighting switched on and off optically. Power is collected from the track and fed through a bridge rectifier to convert AC to DC in the case of DCC operation and to fix the polarity of the voltage in case of analogue (DC) operation. A CMOS set/reset flip-flop (latch) has its inputs connected to phototransistors, one of which has a red filter in front of it and the other a green filter. A bi-colour LED buried in the track causes the flip-flop to be set when it produces green light, switching on the coach lighting when the coach passes over it, and reset when the LED produces red light, switching off the coach lighting.

If the system is DC then a backup battery will be required as power to the track is not always available. This can be a small rechargeable battery or two CR2032 lithium coin cells, which have a capacity up to 240mAh for a quality make.

A further refinement to extend battery life when using lithium coin cells would be to have auto power off if track power is off for a certain period. The CMOS latch draws negligible power and with the lights off the lithium batteries will last for well over a year.

Additional note. Since a red filter may not be 100% efficient at blocking green light, and vice versa, a better solution might be to have one infra-red LED and one infra-red phototransistor/photodiode that incorporates a visible light filter, and one LED towards the blue end of the spectrum and one phototransistor with a blue filter. I will do some experiments with both options (when I can get around to it).

[Ulrich-346353]

Hello,

Does this system of dimmable lighting work on the Märklin AC H0 system?

[What About The Bee]

Hello Topcat

May I suggest a flip flop?

Instead of red / green filters, sensitivities & etc, simply change the state of the coach lights when your sensor sees enough light (threshold).

You turn on the trigger light buried in the track when you want to change the state of the coach lights. Leave the trigger light off if you are satisfied.

Just a thought

Bee

[Topcat2018]

@Ulrich-346353

Hi Ulrich, there are lots of replies on this post. Who are you actually addressing with this question? If you want to attract the attention of a particular person just put an @ symbol at the head of your reply, like I have done. If you are referring to my diagram, this circuit would just switch the lights on and off, not dim them.

@ What About The Bee

I've moved on from that original idea. Also The problem with using a single LED to trigger a flip-flop is that as soon as the flip-flop is set it will be reset again, unless you introduce some sort of feedback delay from one side of the flip-flop to the other. I've also gone away from the idea of burying LEDs in the track as you would need them at multiple locations or being your train to a particular location.

I've also gone away from the idea of one circuit per coach. My current idea is based on some conductive magnetic couplings I have built. A rechargeable NimH battery would be mounted in a brake van or brake composite along with the control circuit and power would be fed to the LEDs in every coach via the couplings.

The control circuit would work as follows. The lights would only come on when:

1. There was power to the track. This would also charge the battery
2. The coach was moving, detected by vibration sensor. (the lights would stay on for a while after the train stopped)
3. It was dark (detected by a photodiode). This is optional if you don't mind having the lights on when it is light.

[What About The Bee]

Hi TopCat

The magnetic couplings transmitting power from coach to coach is clearly a winner.*

This eliminates all the control circuitry needed on a per coach basis. This also eliminates all the drag associated with pickups on a per coach basis.

In your brake van, mount a 6 pin decoder. Battery or capacitor bank backed if you desire. A set of track pickups.

Viola! Complete control over the lights. Low drag. Low cost for one decoder.

Bee

*Possibly modeled as hoses or cables, dependent on era.