Fastrack Lighted Bumper Repair

Here is the LED for it.

Larry

It's usually a bad contact. Mostly where the led plugs into the bumper. Rarely where the power is conducted by the rails...but it can happen. Also, I believe only one outside rail is used for power return.

I have six of them and had to fiddle with 3 others before they finally worked.  Maybe not forever, but for now.  This last one is definitely dead.

$1.50 for one red LED?  And what's shipping?

If that's just a bare LED (no wires, connectors, etc.) you might consider buying a bag of 10 generic red LEDs for $1-$2 on eBay.  Can you post a photo of the guts in question?

Or, if you've a Radio Shack nearby, here is one that will replace the Lionel one...

http://www.radioshack.com/radi...=3mm+led&start=1

I'm also very tempted to rewire all of these for accessory vs. track power, if that makes a difference.  The other weak ones I got to work all involved crimping and tightening various places on the track.  Not a long-term solution, I think.

Buying larger quantities (LED, resistor, and diode?) and making them all more bullet-proof (if that's possible!) would be my preference.

I don't mind tinkering. 

Does anyone know if this would work?  The 3mm. To replace the LED/resistor pair.

http://www.mouser.com/new/king...right-resistor-LEDs/

I rewired all mine for ACC power and have had very little issues.  They still work, but if they don't light when I plug in the transformer after sitting a while, a quick flick with the finger and they light right up.

Any 3mm LED will work fine.  I have all the makings of an article to show my rebuild of the lighted bumper.  The issue is almost always the contact from the LED to the pot metal rails, it's a very lousy design!

The LED will only see about 8.1 VDC since it half wave rectifies the track voltage of say 18 VAC. So those will be a little low on voltage rating. However, I would just get some 3 mm red LEDs like this one...

http://www.mouser.com/ProductD...acIkGD5vItMYuA%3d%3d

It's pretty unlikely that you have a bad 1K resistor on the bottom of the bumper track. Have you measured it to see?

Another good online source is DigiKey which also has the LED cjack recommends for the same price.

http://www.digikey.com/product.../754-1710-ND/3084070

My experience is DigiKey tends to be cheaper on shipping of lightweight parts like LEDs if you choose the USPS First Class. If you're going to perform surgery anyway, I'd do what GRJ said in the other thread and add a protection diode.

FWIW, here's the guts of the MTH Realtrax lighted bumper.  Perhaps overkill but it has a  4-diode bridge to convert track AC to DC, 1.5K resistor, 3mm Red LED.

That is a bit of overkill Stan, I never looked closely at those.  It looks a lot more robust than the Lionel version.

Decades ago when my vision and brain worked better I swear I could "see" the flicker from a half-waved LED that didn't have a capacitor...especially when I turned by head.  I can't remember if it was noticeably different if the AC was chopped-sine vs. pure sine as might be encountered on a track-powered LED bumper.

I wonder if MTH actually considered the flicker issue and went with 4 diodes because of long-term reliability vs. 1 diode plus an electrolytic cap.

Hard to say, but it sure looks like overkill!

Thank you all for the responses... very helpful.

cjack - no, haven't measured it yet.  Will, though.  Spent most of my time jiggling all the other bumpers trying to figure-out what was loose to get them working.  Poor QC, for sure.

Could someone help with a diode part number from Mouser or Digikey?  Not too up on all this.  Just enough to be dangerous. 

The 1N4003 is a pretty universal diode that will work for most things.

After modifying 6 of these to work on accessory power I can agree with the many previous comments about the lack of QC on these things.  Gunrunnerjohn was spot on with his fix on the wiggly LED, but there were other issues with loose/poor connections on the underside that added to it.

But, they work better now... not perfect, but better.

Yeah, I have the wood bumpers, one came with out the wood backstop glued in place, even the wood bumpers have quality issues. Good luck on the the debugging and repair.

Gentlemen,

   I have a set of the FT wooden style bumpers, and several sets of the original Metal lighted tubular type, in the picture below on the elevated Pittsburgh trolley line, you can see which type I use all the time, they work all the time and do not burn up.  You can keep the wooden FT bumpers, although they look cool IMO they are nothing but junk.

PCRR/Dave

I modified a few of them by running a #30 wire-wrap wire from the LED down to the track connections.  I also connected the two rails together to give a better ground.  Those modes have made them work 100% for me.

I became so aggravated with 7 of those fastrack bumpers I gave up. I only wanted to have a light on my sidings so I could tell if I had switched power to any of them.

I ended up cutting all the parts out and installing a 5mm red LED light in the end of the bumper. It's the Evans 7-19V AC/DC/DCC  LEDs. There wired right to the track power.

So cosmetically it looks the same but I now have a dependable light when I switch power to any of the sidings. 

G13nn you did it the proper way I did it the being electrical challenged way . And by the way I have those resistors if you or John want them. 

Larry

I got tons of the resistors, I buy them by the 100's.   Thanks for the offer.

I'm good too, Larry, but thanks for the kind offer.

Gunrunnerjohn - thanks also to you for the fix description, and the help with diodes.

larry, how would one go about wiring the LED directly to track power ?