battery passenger car lighting?

1838 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by lownote, Jan 5, 2008

lownote

Discussion Starter · Jan 5, 2008

I recently got a set of Bachmann Jackson and Sharp coaches. They have track powered lighting, but I'm not all that happy with it. It's very bright and the power is drawn from brass tabs that press against the wheel flanges. It works but it adds drag and noise. If I'd known this was how they picked up power I'd have thought twice about ordering them. But my wife and I are modifying the cars anyway to fit our fictitious local line

I'm thinking I could just convert the lights to battery powered LEDs. That way I could just remove the track power tabs, but still have lighting. I searched the archive and found some info but not much. I don't know much about electronics. How hard would it be to put, say, three amber colored LEDs in each car, powered by some AA batteries? They'd last forever

These are dumb questions--what battery type do I want? What resistor values on the LEDs?

Hey, I could put a solar sensor in each car, have te come on automatically at sunset....

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jebouck

· #2 · Jan 5, 2008

If you know the LED's parameters;

go here to find the resistors you need.

http://ledcalc.com/

These guys supply resistors with their LEDs:

http://www.miniatronics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT

jb

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sheepdog

· #3 · Jan 5, 2008

Run down to your local big box store and latch onto one of those Christmas LED sets. If you can find one. /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/sad.gif

Here is a link..... I hope....

http://archive.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50490

Craig

Edit: Oh crap... Now I have to go lookup the code to turn it into a link....

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Torby

· #4 · Jan 5, 2008

I have LED's and batteries mounted in the top of my coaches, but I discovered something better.

Hurry to Menards and grab as many "18 LED Micro Light Sets" as you can find in their Christmas Clearance (3 bucks each). These have 18 bright white LED's each and a little battery holder. My sierra coaches have 9 windows per side, so I'm putting 2 of these little LED's on the roof over each window. I got 4 boxes 'cause I have 4 coaches.

2 of these LEDS in series run nicely from 4 AA cells.

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lownote

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jan 5, 2008

Thanks everyone. No Menards near me, but I'll try Lowes and Home Despot. With the help of the advice andlinks here I think I've figured out how to do it

But I'n nio sure how many LEDs to use. Have to just experiment

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