Delay lights from coming on right away?

You can rectify the sound power and feed it to a small signal relay through a series resistor with a large capacitor across the coil.  This will delay the turn on of the capacitor until the cap charges sufficiently to pick the relay.  That would probably be the simplest way.

 

Well, you could calculate it, I just look for a low current relay in my junkbox and then empirically determine the delay with the cap by trial and error.

 

The capacitor would go right across the relay coil, the resistor goes in series with the power.  The values of the resistor and cap as well as the coil resistance of the relay all go into determining the time delay.  There's also the minimum operating voltage of the relay.

 

If you power the lights from the same power supply as the sound, when you cut off the sound, the lights will go out immediately, even though the capacitor holds the relay closed for a spell.

Dale, I'm missing why he needs more than one relay.  He's going to use a TMCC receiver to supply the power for the sounds, all he needs to do is delay the turn-on of the lights using a simple relay delay.  He'll have control of the on-off of the sound without using relays.

 

They are LEDs from Evan designs. They are already designed to work with ac or dc.

I think the output would be 16
volts.

I'm all for smaller and cheaper. I haven't figured out the exact delay I need but somewhere between 2-5 seconds.

My goal would be to use the mini commander to power the sound and lights when I hit the aux 1 key. As long as I have the key held, it will power the sound and lights. When I let go of the key. I would it all to turn off. It is very simple for me, except I want the lights to turn on with a slight delay.

If people can point me in the right direction I can assemble, but I don't understand all the parts.

Thank you Dale. I am trying to put this all into the car. A lionel hogwarts passenger car for reference.
It took me a couple times to read through but now I think I understand your method. The picture and words really help! Thank you.

I understand Johns to a point. In Johns method, I am thinking the resistor slows down the rate at which the capacitor charges. Does that then mean that relay will not fire until the capacitor is charged enough to power the relay?

Stan's I'm still lost on, but would like to know more.

This is great learning!

From what I read, he's just looking for a delayed turn-on for the lights.  When he removed the driving voltage, the sound and lights will both terminate at the same time.

 

If that is indeed the case, one simple relay delay is all that is needed.  Since there are Evan's designs LED's, they can be driven directly from the MiniCommander output through the delay relay contacts.  That would delay the turn-on of the lights, but they'd go off with the sound when the voltage is removed.

 

Easy-peasy.

Thanks again for the additional info Dale.

 

Looking to have the lights go to full on and off.  Already have the Evans LED's from a purchase last year.

 

I also timed the delay I need to be at about 2 seconds.

 

Also, agree it would be good to have more ideas (I am learning a lot from you experts!)

Yep, that is exactly what I'm looking for, a 2 second delay of the lights coming on.

Here's one that gives you about a 2 second delay before the LED's (assuming the Evan's LED modules) come on.  The LED's will go off as soon as the power is removed.  I just tested it with a 12V Axiom relay with a 10ma coil current.

 

 

These are the same? TIMER ICM102B

 

That looks like massive overkill for his issue!   Not to mention that it probably won't fit into the location.

Thanks John.  In this case the 1N4003 is  diode?  is that rectifying the power?
If the relay is 12v then I would want to reduce the output of my mini commander to 12?

Yep, you can set the voltage output of the MiniCommander ports to any voltage, just set it to 10-12 volts.  The parts are all pretty common parts, you can have them all for a few bucks from Digikey, and they charge minimal shipping on small orders.

Correct Dale, you might have to tinker with the value.  These values worked with the 12V relay with a 1000 ohm coil, it's rated at 10ma.

 

The relay should be off with no power, we're delaying the turn-on with the resistor and cap, which is the desired operation.  I didn't worry about the delayed turn-off as the power for the lights will be removed and they'll be off anyway.

 

The good ol' NE555, I thought of suggesting that.  I figured the relay was much more forgiving as to what kind of lighting you had and how much current you needed.  That solution would be more compact, the 4700uf cap is about the volume of all your parts.

 

BTW, did you mean Axicom (or Axiom) relay?  I was looking at DigiKey to get an idea of how relay cost to price out your approach.

 

My...what sharp eyes you have!  I'm surprised you didn't comment on the datecode of the 555 chip in the photo!   

Axicom is the correct name, I was doing it from memory, not looking at the relay.

 

I truthfully didn't notice the date code, but it's an antique!   FWIW, I have a lot of IC's older than that one in my parts boxes.  I've yet to dig one out that didn't work, even though sometimes I have to clean the discoloration off the leads.

 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12V...;hash=item2c7619f928

 

These are as close to "free" as you can get. Shipping is free, too.  They fit into small spaces.

wow, that does look cost effective.  the outputs on the minicommander are AC.  if I used a bridge rectifier would this board work then?

Art, it's not clear that he can get his desired operation with that one.  He also has to provide 12VDC, so he'll need a rectifier and capacitor at a minimum.

Right.

 

The typical 555 timer IC chip (as used on that eBay relay module) only operates up to 16V DC.  From the pictures of the Mini Commander it looks like they use triacs on its AC outputs.  So the peak voltage outputs well exceed 16V.   Even with a bridge/rectifier the capacitor will charge up above 16V DC and needs to be knocked down to 12V DC (or whatever) to safely operate the 555 chip.

 

In my hodge-podge of parts, one was a 12V regulator IC to address this very issue.  I am an advocate of those eBay relay modules but, in this particular case, by the time you assemble the external components to make it compatible with the Mini Commander's 16VAC output, you minds as well build the 555 circuit and skip the relay. 

 

And while using a 10 Amp relay (as on the eBay module) to switch a few milli-Amps of current to drive some LEDs, the relay coils used on those eBay modules draw a relatively large amount of current.

and I continue to learn.  Again thank you everyone!! 

So far I still like my simple circuit.  It may be "brute force", but I adhere to the KISS principle for stuff like this.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and help!  Learned a lot.  GRJ was able to help me out with parts and I did some assembly and built myself a successfull circuit board.  Even though I know it is simple, still feeling pretty good about it. It was only my 3rd simple circuit board and each one has been costructed and better thought out than the last. Soon you'll see a post from me about where the board went (hogwarts dementor car).