[Trains West]

I have run the streamline cars with dcc at 18.6 volts with the only problem being that they draw just over 1/4 amp each .....

I too think that if you are running more then 1 or 2 cars that going to LED lights is best and just converted my first car......

my main worry is that with 13 lighted cars I use almost 4 amps to just run the lights and in going to LED the current has droped to like .01 amps per car ....

 

[Trains West]

I have two of those full size usa cars ....

I will have to pull one out and see

at a amp and a half per car and the loco draw it will be a short train to stay under 8 amps ......

thanks for the heads up

 

[Trains West]

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 10/04/2008 10:30 PM
Will be working on mine tomorrow, finally got my RPO car and will check amp draw, I could have made a mistake in my memory.... but there's a heck of a lot of lights in those things!

In any case, the current builds up quick in a long train...

Regards, Greg
 
 
 
 
 
wondering what you saw ???
 
also I am guessing you are going to run a votage regulator circuit and leds in parallel off of that ? are you going to add a cap to keep the light from flickering as the car runs ?
 
on my car I am running the leds in series ......... I did this becouse I found that they draw less power and with 6 in line I can just run a full wave bridge a dioide and a big cap to have flicker free lights and only draw 10 milliamps
 
the drawback of course is that if one led goes the whole car goes dark .........

 

[Trains West]

ya I am not sure what happened to my post ...... not quite used to this board yet

the cap I used is a 4700uf radio shack 272-1022 ........ and I am not sure it is big enough to worry about in rush and there is no decoder hooked to it ..... the power is stright form the track

it could be a problem when I have a string of these cars .... but I would think that a stanard full wave bridge would slow it down some just becouse the responce time is lower then a Schottky bridge.....

plus if I add a resistor it will up the draw and lower the voltage I have to run the led's

I like the led string you listed ......... I made my own and super glued it to a strip of plastic that I mounted to the T at the top of the car ..... this lets me slide the whole thing out the one end of the car ......

 

[Trains West]

by the looks of it you and I have about the same amount of light ....... but your setup with more leds then mine is a lot more even light........ though in my car I went from 3 bulbs to 6 very bright led's so it still looks better then it did

I would guess the the strips you use have built in droping resistors to make 3 led's work at 12 volts .........


if the 3m tape does not hold just super glue your strip in three or four spots along the roof .....


I am still thinking about the inrush thing ...... two ohms is nothing ....... do you not think that from the track to the wheel to the power pickup bushing to the wire into the bridge that I would have a least that ?


and though it is just one car my rramp meter does not even know the car is there even when I first turn the booster on to power the track ...........

 

[Trains West]

so if that is the inrush resister then where is the check dioide to keep the saved power from going to the track



and also I do not whant you to think I do not respect the point you are making .......

in fact adding the inrush dioide helped on a sound system that I added to a box car and I am not sure I would have tryed that if it was not for this discussion........

I am just not sure I need it on the led light circut but on the next car I will make up a power board with the reisistor and see if it changes anything ..........

 

[Trains West]

I do not know how I got it in my head that I needed the extra dioide ...... but you are right it is not needed for the lights....

I did see where you said just a few ohms and I also understand how many more cars will change what the station sees and a short ..... I do get that .....

the 250 ohm resistor was to help stop noise I was getting from the decoder to the sound card not on the lights here .......

I have no resistors here that are that low (nothing under 250) but will get some tomorrow and swap one in for the dioide and see what happens to the lights .......

I am also working on a bigger test in that I am building 10 cars worth of light kits and I am going to hook them all up to see what I get in draw ..... just weighting on a few parts .....