[Del Tapparo]

I know this has been discussed in the past, but I can't find anything.

Some of you have talked about various colors of yellow/white LEDs that look more like an incandescent lamp when illuminated, as opposed to the typical ultra bright white LEDs or the pure yellow LEDs. Where can I get some? I need replacements for my front/rear headlamps in my LGB switcher.

 

[jimtyp]

I bought some LEDs from Caboose Hobbies called "Sunny yellow".

 

[altterrain]

Plain old yellow LEDs from RadioShack look pretty good -

-Brian

 

[K27_463]

Del: google Richmond controls. They have two colors of gold white LED and they are model Railroaders. Not the lowest cost, but the product is good and looks far better than the white or blue/white stuff normally found. it is also possible to make a bright white LED look pretty good with TAmiya yellow transparent paint. Since bright white LED have a bluish cast, adding yellow is sort of the reverse of the ancient TIDE detergent commercials wherein they added a bluing agent to make your yellow laundry look WHITE.

 

[Jerry Barnes]

I"ve used the keyholder LED's that you get at discount stores. GOt mine at the Dollar store. Jerry

 

[Paul Burch]

Also Miniatronics yelo-glo. 3mm or 5mm. Just play with the current limiting resistor values a little and you can come up with a very good headlight.

 

[Del Tapparo]

Thanks for the input guys. Sounds like the Miniatronics YeloGlo is what I want. I spent most of the day looking for alternate sources for the part. I certainly leaned a lot about LEDs in the process.

"Warm White" LEDs have a Kelvin Color temperature of around 3300K to 3500K. I think for our purposes (headlamps), it is desirable to have a "water clear" lense, as oppossed to a diffused lense, which shows some color when not lit. It is nice to have the widest viewing angle possible, so the headlamp can be seen other than straight on. There are variouis intensity levels: standard, Ultra-bright, super-bright. I think we need the ultra bright range (around 2500 mcd). I don't know what the specs of the Miniatronics LEDs are, but I suspect they are similar to what I just described. I'm going to buy a few different LEDs and experiment.

 

[Paul Burch]

Del,
I have been ordering my yelo glo leds direct from Walthers. It has been the quickest way to get them. Two days if you use priority mail. You can order in 10 packs. I also like the Miniatronics bright white leds for modern diesels,no blue tint. Their yelo glo leds have what looks like a small yellow reflector at the back of the led. Other than that I would suspect that they are the same bright whit led. I used the yelo glo's in a couple LGB Mikado conversions. Just kept increasing the resistor value until they had the "right" look. Can't remember what I ended up with but its going to vary anyway depending on input voltage. I use 14.4v batteries with Airwire.

 

[SteveC]

Del

The following is one of the best sites that I've run across on the Internet for really small LED's and using them in model railroading. Take your time in looking around there is a heck of a lot of infor mation there. Hope you find this of use to you.

Ngineering - Lighting Products