AC in Incandescent Bulb Flasher For Crossings

Great idea! I think I would be interested if they became available

Michael,

Fantastic!

I've also been searching and testing solutions for a sound to be included in the module as well. We will see how that goes.

Is this similar to Lionel's part No. 610-2760-300 PCB which was  installed into the base of the No. 6-12760 highway flasher?  I purchased a few of these and wired them in directly below my 154's.

@GregR posted:

Is this similar to Lionel's part No. 610-2760-300 PCB which was  installed into the base of the No. 6-12760 highway flasher?  I purchased a few of these and wired them in directly below my 154's.

Greg,

This is functionally the same.  Lionel chose to take a different route on design and it allows the mounting underneath to be possible.

You would probably need to wire mine under the layout, but functionally, they do the same thing.

It should be pretty easy to build these to fit inside the base of the signals I would imagine.

I would be interested, especially if they could fit under the base of the postwar American Flyer crossing signal.

My thinking is that $20 each might be a bit high, though.

Here's a design I have saved, this would probably be pretty easy to knock out a PCB for.

Lionel made 2 circuit boards that fit into the base of the signal. The left flashes LED's the right, bulbs.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Here's a design I have saved, this would probably be pretty easy to knock out a PCB for.

GRJ circuit is about as simple as it gets, though I suppose someone will chime in with "But wait, I can do this with a (name microchip) and 5 lines of code and a wall wart."

Ok, I'm really cheap. Here's what I cobbled together under my layout. I have 14VAC coming out of my 153IR. One set of leads goes to the 610-2760-300 PCB which is taped to the underside of my layout. From there, wire go straight to the 154. That gives me my flashing lights.

Next is sound. Tapping into the same 14VAC coming from the 153IR, I convert it down to something like 5VDC and feed it into a cheap made-in-China sound recording card (pictured below). About $3 with free shipping on Ebay. I recorded a real grade crossing sound onto the board and set it in "loop" mode. I taped it to the underside of the layout too. Finally, I connected in a speaker that I salvaged from some old toy. There's my sound.

Results in video below.

@rrman posted:

GRJ circuit is about as simple as it gets, though I suppose someone will chime in with "But wait, I can do this with a (name microchip) and 5 lines of code and a wall wart."

I actually thought about suggesting doing it with a PIC and a couple of FET's, but decided against it.

@GregR posted:

... a cheap made-in-China sound recording card (pictured below). About $3 with free shipping on Ebay. I recorded a real grade crossing sound onto the board and set it in "loop" mode. I taped it to the underside of the layout too. Finally, I connected in a speaker that I salvaged from some old toy. There's my sound.

...

Wow, and that free shipping is apparently from a US seller which probably means you don't have to wait weeks!

BTW, it wasn't clear in your video but when you put it in the "Loop" mode is the looping seamless?  Or do you hear a slight gap or hiccup or whatever when it starts again?  And did you have to experiment making several recordings to get the looping "just right"?

GregR,  I had a hard time hearing the sound and wondered if it was actually much louder to get over the sound of a passing train?  As caveat, I am partially deaf especially at higher frequencies so please excuse if everyone with "20/20" ears hears it perfectly.

As aside somewhat off topic but related, many years ago I had a chance to buy five sound boards and built a unit with four Noma station announcements plus a Marx one (Marx's was interesting sounding...).  I could switch between any one and a button press played that announcement once.  I bring it out when there is an open house and place speaker below the MTH station.   BTW, my favorite Noma announcement is Pennsylvania (maybe because I grew up in Pittsburgh?), played it to death, and can still recite announcement verbatim (and still have station with original mechanism to boot.)

@stan2004 posted:

Wow, and that free shipping is apparently from a US seller which probably means you don't have to wait weeks!

BTW, it wasn't clear in your video but when you put it in the "Loop" mode is the looping seamless?  Or do you hear a slight gap or hiccup or whatever when it starts again?  And did you have to experiment making several recordings to get the looping "just right"?

After a couple of tries, my recording was pretty decent. The loop mode does have a slight hiccup every 20 seconds, but it's barely noticable. By 20 seconds, my train has usually passed the crossing anyway.  Yes,  I could clean up the sound file, but it doesn't bother me. I suppose if I were really troubled by lack of realism, I wouldn't have a 154 signal in the first place since it measures a ridiculous 70'-0" tall in O scale.

@rrman posted:

GregR,  I had a hard time hearing the sound and wondered if it was actually much louder to get over the sound of a passing train?  As caveat, I am partially deaf especially at higher frequencies so please excuse if everyone with "20/20" ears hears it perfectly.

As aside somewhat off topic but related, many years ago I had a chance to buy five sound boards and built a unit with four Noma station announcements plus a Marx one (Marx's was interesting sounding...).  I could switch between any one and a button press played that announcement once.  I bring it out when there is an open house and place speaker below the MTH station.   BTW, my favorite Noma announcement is Pennsylvania (maybe because I grew up in Pittsburgh?), played it to death, and can still recite announcement verbatim (and still have station with original mechanism to boot.)

I am sorry you coudn't hear it in my video, but those bells are as loud as ****, even with trains running. Most of the time, I have the connector unplugged because it just gets too annoying.

I found this OGR thread from 2017 where you were entertaining the idea of using an MP3 module for the sound (and possibly even for flashing light timing).  What is your current thinking on sound?  GregR's comment above suggests some kind of volume control (or I suppose basic on/off) might be a nice touch.  If the crossing is active for a few seconds, then no big deal.  But listening to minutes of clanging if the train is stopped on the crossing would drive anyone batty!

To that end, if you are still considering the MP3 route, instead of a volume control perhaps something as simple as a minutes-long bell sound that starts out loud for 20 seconds or whatever and then slowly fades to a background level.  Then back to full volume on the next activation.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I actually thought about suggesting doing it with a PIC and a couple of FET's, but decided against it.

More practically, it could be done with a 555 timer, one resistor and one capacitor, plus the bridge and cap in the power supply. So you could get rid of one capacitor entirely, replace one 1000 uF with a small 10uf or so, and eliminate one resistor.  The output of the 555 is rated 200 mA, just like the 2N3904. The 16V rating of the 555 should not be an issue seeing that we are dealing with 14 volt bulbs anyway. So the flasher proper would go from 6 parts to 3, and smaller parts at that.

Just moving the design from 1968 to 1973.....

@PLCProf posted:

More practically, it could be done with a 555 timer, one resistor and one capacitor, plus the bridge and cap in the power supply. So you could get rid of one capacitor entirely, replace one 1000 uF with a small 10uf or so, and eliminate one resistor.  The output of the 555 is rated 200 mA, just like the 2N3904. The 16V rating of the 555 should not be an issue seeing that we are dealing with 14 volt bulbs anyway. So the flasher proper would go from 6 parts to 3, and smaller parts at that.

Just moving the design from 1968 to 1973.....

Sure, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.   Besides, with the FET outputs, I could handle amps.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Sure, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.   Besides, with the FET outputs, I could handle amps.

Ah yes, a miniature flasher for a 1:1 scale crossing signal.

NOW I understand.