MTH Amtrak Superliner LED Upgrade in Pictures

Nice, I have 11 cars I need to do yet. The incandescent bulbs trip the breaker on my 180 bricks when I run smoke 

Yep, I have eight of these, and I'll be doing them all. 

Here's the before and after shots.

Before, 4 bulbs on top, two on the bottom.

After, 24 LED's on top, 15 on the bottom.  The lighting is very even all the way across.  I see one little thing I'd like to fix.  The stairway from the lower level isn't really lit, I'll have to stick an LED above it to illuminate it.  Should be a very easy fix.

They look good 

That stairwell is a lawsuit waiting to happen!!

Nice job, as usual, GRJ!

Looking excellent; thanks for the step-by-step "how to", including the connectors.

How many "passengers" will each car receive?

I'll have to light the starway, can't feed the lawyers too much, they get greedy!

I'll probably give them a few downstairs and 15-20 upstairs.  The full dome I have will probably get more.

GRJ,  I did mine last year with your LED module regulators.   They truly reduced the voltage drop on my double tracked overhead layout.  I have four Superliners and six other Amtak passenger cars.  Also, I just installed four analog lights from those passenger cars in a Burger King model I'm working on for the table layout.

Hopefully, you can see that these modules can be adjusted for intensity.  The second pic may show this variation better.

The very far from finished Burger doodle, lit with those leftover Amtrak passenger car lights.

Jerry

Very nice John! They make a big difference. 

great post for reference on your product! The trouble with this is once I started, it seems there's no end! I still have more to do. I quit when I got to some G scale cabooses and never did the conversion of those, and the rest of the fleet of cars.

I have a bunch of cars I haven't done, I just want to use these next weekend, so I figured I better get cracking!   I figure if I don't use my product, people may start to doubt it's a good idea.

Looking good, John.  I still have 5 UP passenger cars to convert yet. 3 of them are vista domes which take a little longer to do due to the 2 levels.  I also have 7 ARR passenger cars I would like to convert.   I’ll need to buy another roll of LEDs and a few more of the regulator modules.   I had put the recently purchased  2 ARR cars on the track to see if they had LED lighting.  They still had incandescent bulbs which produced an orange light.

Larry

Some of the dome cars are tricky, I end up using #30 wirewrap wire in either black, white, or clear to sneak up to the dome to drive the lights.  In extreme cases, I have at least four different small LED strip segments, all wired with the fine wire to get the job done.  As it happens, other than the fact that there's no place to run the track power under the floor, these SuperLiner cars are very easy.  I had a K-Line dome car with no place to put lights on the dome, so I did floor lighting on that one, it actually worked out really nice.

In all cases, I try to install the lighting so that you can completely separate the various parts of the car for maintenance, it really drives me nuts when I open a passenger car and I have spaghetti wiring stringing between the parts!  

I also get the same reaction when I open an upgraded locomotive and the shell is wired permanently to the chassis.  What in the world were the people thinking???

Looks great. This is inspiring me to get cracking on LED passenger car conversions. I have a several sets that I've been waiting to do.

Some cars are very easy, lots of the MTH Premier cars are really easy.  Others, like many K-Line cars, are a giant PITA.  However, once you've been around the block a few times, they tend to fall into place.   I find the MTH Railking cars to be more difficult than the Premier cars, many of the RK cars cut corners on how they were wired.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Some cars are very easy, lots of the MTH Premier cars are really easy.  Others, like many K-Line cars, are a giant PITA.  However, once you've been around the block a few times, they tend to fall into place.   I find the MTH Railking cars to be more difficult than the Premier cars, many of the RK cars cut corners on how they were wired.

John,

I've 3-4 sets of the old Lionel 027-style passenger cars that I want to convert. To be exact, they are modern remakes in the conventional classics series. I pulled the roofs off and it looks like they should be fairly easy to do.

Btw, I am probably going to pick up a handful of your conversion kits from Henning's.  

Most cars are easy to do, there are just some "stinkers" in the crowd.

John,

Just to be clear before I start, is the pair of red/black wires on the bottom right of the first photo spliced to the track pickup roller and to the connector that mates with the mating connector shown in the second photo.?

A little hard to see clearly in photo 1.

Thanks,

joe

John, Great Post of "How To" LED lighting, one comment, the 1st photo of the chassis in the upper right the (2) white connectors are laying on top of each other, which it took me a second zoomed in look to see clearly, if they were seperated in the picture may have been clearer separation. Also I know you have listed where to buy the MTH (2mm JST-PH) connectors male and female, and the Molex 2.5 connectors, I just can't seem to find where I stashed the info in my memory banks, could you post this info again

Thanks Dean 

I found the female connector at Allied Electronics. It's a Molex part no. 22-03-5025 at $0.06 each.  Can't seem to find the Molex male complementary connector though. Any help appreciated.   Joe

Rigatoni Express Railroad posted:

I found the female connector at Allied Electronics. It's a Molex part no. 22-03-5025 at $0.06 each.  Can't seem to find the Molex male complementary connector though. Any help appreciated.   Joe

Joe, Have you tried another supplier like DigiKey? They usually have everything.

So how's your wireless rolling stock project coming along?  

The idea being the passenger car lighting can be slaved to one of the engine's light circuits.  Then I could turn the Superliner door brake lights on and off under command control when the train reaches the station.  You don't want to open the doors unless the brakes are set!  Otherwise that's another lawsuit. 

I don't recommend trying this at home...but here's how it was done:

http://www.jcstudiosinc.com/Superliner-Marker-Lights

Stan, thanks for an excellent tutorial on techniques for adapting LED's to applications not obvious to me.

Rigatoni Express Railroad posted:

Just to be clear before I start, is the pair of red/black wires on the bottom right of the first photo spliced to the track pickup roller and to the connector that mates with the mating connector shown in the second photo.?

A little hard to see clearly in photo 1.

You do know that you can zoom in by clicking on the picture, right? FWIW, the colors actually change on the opposite ends. Not cool I know, but I had a reason. I wanted the wire to lay flat so I could tack it down neatly. Truthfully, for the rest of them I'll probably use all black wire, no real reason for colors there.

Rigatoni Express Railroad posted:

I found the female connector at Allied Electronics. It's a Molex part no. 22-03-5025 at $0.06 each.  Can't seem to find the Molex male complementary connector though. Any help appreciated.   Joe

JST-PH, Header (male) 455-1704-ND, housing 455-1165-ND, Pins 455-2148-1-ND, all Digikey Numbers.  Molex header (male) WM18886-ND, housing WM18873-ND, Pins W9661CT-ND, all Digikey numbers.  I use the Engineer PA-09 crimp tool for all of the connectors.

stan2004 posted:

So how's your wireless rolling stock project coming along?  

The idea being the passenger car lighting can be slaved to one of the engine's light circuits.  Then I could turn the Superliner door brake lights on and off under command control when the train reaches the station.  You don't want to open the doors unless the brakes are set!  Otherwise that's another lawsuit. 

Super cool Stan, but I don't think that will happen on this iteration.   If I did that, I'd probably consider pickups on a wheel and just have it red unless you stopped for several seconds.  Dirt simple module, probably something like a retriggerable 555 circuit, and just let the wheel sensor trigger it.

The trick is, to have the door open when it goes green!

I'm sure they look very fine with your upgrade, just as my Pennsy and NYC cars look which you upgraded so nicely!

That's the effect we're going for.

stan2004 posted:

So how's your wireless rolling stock project coming along?  

The idea being the passenger car lighting can be slaved to one of the engine's light circuits.  Then I could turn the Superliner door brake lights on and off under command control when the train reaches the station.  You don't want to open the doors unless the brakes are set!  Otherwise that's another lawsuit. 

I don't recommend trying this at home...but here's how it was done:

http://www.jcstudiosinc.com/Superliner-Marker-Lights

Stan, what size are the surface mount LED's you used; do you have a p/n; a vendor?

They look like they could be used for a variety of lighting applications in passenger cars.

Stan, where do you get your fiber optic from? I went looking a few weeks back and never ordered. I saw some tea candle lights and other items using fiber that seemed like a better deal than ordering the fiber optic itself. Most everything seemed to be sold out at Christmas time. I had hoped to find some at the cheap stores, but no luck.

Pingman posted:

 

Stan, what size are the surface mount LED's you used; do you have a p/n; a vendor?

Those look like 0603 (0.06" x 0.03") and they are lighting up 1mm (0.04") end-glow fiber cable.  These are available in all colors for pennies a piece on eBay - search "0603 amber LED" or "0603 green LED" for example.  You will need good eyesight and a steady hand to solder wires to the tiny pads/contacts.  30 gauge or smaller wires!  

It appears the additional search phrase "pre-wired" will pull up LEDs that have thin wires attached but the cost goes up substantially.

Engineer-Joe posted:

Stan, where do you get your fiber optic from? 

Mail order.  I don't remember exact source since I got my life-time supply many years ago.  Basically, you buy it by the foot in diameters 0.25mm, 0.5mm, 0.75mm, 1.0mm, 1.5mm, 2.0mm, etc..  I'm thinking like 10 cents/ft to 25 cents/ft depending on diameter but you may get stuck buying a 100 ft spool or whatever.  I just looked on eBay and it appears you can buy just 1 meter lengths in your choice of diameter.  For train lighting you typically want "end glow" fiber - so you drive one end of the fiber with an LED, and the light comes out the other end with minimal loss of brightness.  More popular for architectural or decorative purposes is "side glow" fiber where you drive one end of the fiber with an LED but the light comes out all along the length of the fiber.  You probably want the "end glow" type.

You might find a decorative lamp or light gadget that has bundled fiber with dozens or hundreds of strands of fiber that splay out to a "thousand points of light".  

If you don't need the flexibility/bend-a-bility of cable, you can usually find clear acrylic transparent rod at most hobby shops.  They usually come in 1 ft lengths in various diameters for maybe $1 or so.  These behave like end-glow fiber - so illuminate on one end and most of the light comes out the other end.

Bless you Stan for the LED info; and twice bless you for the "pre-wired" tip--no way my "hands of stone" solder to those LED's.  It will be enough of a challenge just to grasp the wires attached to the LEDs.

Yes, Uncle John...I did see the larger view but my old eyes still could not tell if the black areas were tape used to splice the wires from the roller pickup or, if it was just some wire hold down method. I'll guess that it is a place where wires were spliced.

Thanks,  Joe

Sorry, yes, that's heatshrink, I don't use crappy electrical tape in my upgrades.   I spliced in the extra wires to go to the regulator module as the wires that were there go to the connectors to join the two pickups.  Other than the extra wire for the jumper between the two with the connectors, I didn't need any extra wire for the job, just used what was already in there.

I ran into an interesting issue with the dome car, the windows are wrap-around so you could see the side of the LED strip, I didn't like that look.  However, in looking at the spare parts, the obvious solution presented itself.  I just stripped everything out of one of the old bulb holders and cut away all the middle supports.  I screwed that back in, and it neatly covers the sides and still lets the LED's illuminate the interior of the car.

Thanks again Stan!

 I bought some tiny surface mount LEDs that are so small I couldn't work with them. I actually lost a couple when I sneezed and I turned my head! I broke one because of the too stiff wire I was testing with. I bought a few supplies to retry and I quit trying after that anyways. I have too many other projects waiting.

 So I would also recommend the pre-wire ones to make life easier. Unless you have good soldering and handling skills with tiny components. Someday I want to add step lights to my scratch built diesels. I have done a few with bigger regular LEDs. I think the tiny ones might be better for scale details.

Right.  If you need a low-profile LED, this typically forces you to a surface-mount (SMD) style LED.

Working with the SMD LEDs can be tedious.  In addition to buying pre-wired SMD LEDs, here's another idea.  The cheap LED strips of course use SMD LEDs and are available in all colors.  The individual LEDs are of course pre-mounted on a flexible printed-wire strip.  Nothing says you can't cut up the strip into "individual" LEDs which might make soldering wires a little easier.  The photo above was from a different topic but kind of illustrates the concept.  As shown in the top photo you can typically also scrape off the surface to expose the copper printed wires (traces) which is another solder attachment point.

And if your application requires a resistor, note that on LED strips, each segment-of-3 typically has 1 resistor as shown on the right side.  The resistor value may not be correct for your particular application but this type of resistor goes for a couple pennies each and can be swapped.

John, Thanks for the clarification for me. Appreciate the time.  Nice solution with the old strip too. I'll use that idea also.  Joe

MR_P posted:

 

...Looking for recomendations, thanks !

I recommend copying your post to a new thread.  Size and power issues with HO DC are sufficiently different than O AC as to cause confusion if continued here - in my opinion that is.

I have 5 K-line 21" Amtrak superliners.  On one of the cars the red marker lights on both sides of the car do not light. I have not yet investigated the problem.  They appear to be very small red colored bulbs.  If I convert the car to LED lighting, what size and shape LED might fit in the space now occupied by the bulbs.  Would I then be able to attach them to one of GRJ's lighting strip boards along with the white LED lighting strip?

Thank you,

Ron 

There are a variety of LED's that would be suitable, and you can certainly use the lighting board with those, they just require a little extra wiring.  This 2mm ceramic LED is what MTH and Lionel use for markers and class lights, they should fit almost anywhere.

Lumex SSL-LX203CIT

Thanks John,

I will check it out. Hopefully they will fit.

Ron

I've used 2mm post LED's in some K-Line cars, but I don't have those to look at to see if they're the same.

I just paint the inside part with Liquid Tape to prevent light leakage inside the coach.

John, great tip on the liquid tape trick!

Mike, I use Liquid Tape for many different LED installations, it's my most common use of the product.  It really blocks the light 100%, and it's easy to get into odd places.

John, I would have responded sooner, but I went back and was reading the thread from the beginning! What a great thread full of wonderful information! It will really give me something to look forward to when I start doing my Amtrack cars!

upguy posted:

...

If I convert the car to LED lighting, what size and shape LED might fit in the space now occupied by the bulbs.  Would I then be able to attach them to one of GRJ's lighting strip boards along with the white LED lighting strip?

I think you'll find a suitable LED no problem - as to the 2nd half of your question, the most common method of adding a pair of red marker LEDs to a lighting strip requires an external resistor.

So as illustrated above, you'd run a pair of wires off the end of the powered LED strip (driven by GRJ's module) and insert an external resistor in series with the 2 red LEDs.  If this is the wiring approach you're considering, one of us can find the relevant OGR threads or do an Advanced Search using the relevant terms.  It's just that there are variations on adding external LEDs to a lighting strip which affect the desired resistor value...something around 1K Ohms.

It's just that if you're ordering LEDs from DigiKey, minds as well order a handful of 5-cent resistors too since shipping is $4-5.

Thank you Stan, for the photo and description that helped me to confirm how to wire the Red LED's to the lighting strip.

Ron

John, what is the brand of liquid electrical tape you use?   I think it would certainly work better on those fine wire solder joints than shrink wrap.

Larry

I use the Gardner Bender Liquid Tape.  I actually use heatshrink anywhere it's possible, and I have some really fine 1/16" shrink tube that works on pretty much the smallest thing you'll be soldering.  Heatshink is better if you can use it, it's much more robust.  It also doesn't require you stop and wait 15-20 minutes for it to dry.

Thanks,  John.  I didn’t think about it having to dry.  I’ll have find some that small diameter heat shrink.

Larry

Just search for 1/16" or 1.5mm or 2mm heatshrink on eBay.

Thanks guys for the good information you are posting here may try this in some of the 3 rail passenger trains.

I happened to see and pickup at a store, 6 feet of LED peel and stick white LED lights roll with a battery pack taking 4 AA batteries for $15. Can be cut and spliced. Runs for 60 hours on a new set of batteries. Going to try this in a set of my O scale 2 rail passenger cars and remove the power pickup wipers from the wheels that are giving me a lot of drag, hopefully will allow me to pull it with my O scale steamer that now slips with the cars with wipers. Battery pack should fit in tender will add a switch within easy reach. 

Does tender have any other electronics?  If so, seems you could co-opt 4 x 1.5V = 6V DC of power and thereby skip the occasional battery replacement.  Or if electronics only in the engine, since you're running tethers from tender to/between passenger cars, one more more tether from engine to tender.

Stan, am I reading it right, that you use a 1k resistor from the led strip to the red led marker lights in series?

GRJ,  After upgrading my Kline, MTH and Lionel passenger cars with the OSH boards, I adapted one of the boards to run the tunnel lights in our mountain tunnel, it really helped having the ability to reduce the current with the trimmer pot, so these are very universal in running LED anywhere.

Ron_S posted:

Stan, am I reading it right, that you use a 1k resistor from the led strip to the red led marker lights in series?

Ron, I "tune" that resistor, depending on how bright I want the lights.  1K is usually a decent starting point for the side markers on the passenger car with two red LED's.

Ron_S posted:

GRJ,  After upgrading my Kline, MTH and Lionel passenger cars with the OSH boards, I adapted one of the boards to run the tunnel lights in our mountain tunnel, it really helped having the ability to reduce the current with the trimmer pot, so these are very universal in running LED anywhere.

Yep, I had to have a way to adjust the intensity of the LEDs for upgrades, I learned that after doing a number of cars.  That was high on the list when I did the lighting modules.

As GRJ says, you'll probably need to "tune" the value of the resistor.  1K is simply a starting point to get you in the ballpark.  Note that adding the red marker LEDs plus resistor off the end of the LED strip will siphon current from the white strip LEDs.  So if you already had a desired brightness on the interior lights, you'll need adjust upwards the control on GRJ's board.

Most guys probably don't have a stash of resistors lying around to "tune" the marker brightness.  That is, you might just have purchased a pack of 10 or 100 1K resistors.  Note that for experimenting, you can simply put 2 1K resistors in series to get 2K (which will about half the marker brightness), or put 2 1K resistors in parallel to get 500 (which will about double the marker brightness).

Or, if you see more DIY in your future, why not get a resistor assortment for less than a penny per resistor (free shipping from Asia) which includes 1K and other values - one of which will surely be suitable for the matter at hand.

But back to the red LEDs.  

Another reason you'll need to tune the resistor is there is a substantial difference in brightness (for a given current) between red LEDs.  I've found the ceramic stem type (bottom of photo) that GRJ mentioned earlier is a good performer but kind of spendy (over $1 each?).  As the photo shows, there are options though hard to suggest a specific component without seeing the mounting or space constraints of the particular passenger car. 

I'd think some cars might even accommodate the widely-available 3mm style for less than a penny per LED

I totally agree with Stan, the resistor assortment is very useful if you don't have a lot of parts around.  I actually bought the surface mount equivalent kit in several sizes for when I'm working on a new design and just need a specific resistor value.  I still have a huge bag of thru-hole resistors from years ago, so I have those covered.

I only use the ceramic LED's when nothing else will fit, many times I can use a 2mm post LED for those applications.  I keep plenty of these on hand in various colors, as well as bi-color and blinking styles.

stan2004 posted:

But back to the red LEDs.  

 

Another reason you'll need to tune the resistor is there is a substantial difference in brightness (for a given current) between red LEDs.  I've found the ceramic stem type (bottom of photo) that GRJ mentioned earlier is a good performer but kind of spendy (over $1 each?).  As the photo shows, there are options though hard to suggest a specific component without seeing the mounting or space constraints of the particular passenger car. 

I'd think some cars might even accommodate the widely-available 3mm style for less than a penny per LED

 

 

Thanks for the item numbers, more items to add to my Digi-Key favorites list.

Thanks, the LED red markers I want to update are in one of my Kline business cars, knowing 1k is a ballpark value,

I can reconnect them, trying it without a resistor would light the red led but nothing on the led strip. 

I learn every step of the way. 

Ron_S posted:

...trying it without a resistor would light the red led but nothing on the led strip. 

Right.  Without a resistor, the marker LEDs would siphon ALL the current from GRJ's board and hence extinguish the LED strip.  Adding external resistance limits how much the marker LEDs steal from the strip.  Going the other way, if you add too much external resistance - say, 10K or more, the marker LEDs steal very little...but be unusably dim.

MaxSouthoz an OGR member sent me this gizmo from Australia a couple years ago.  Is kinda handy to quickly determine the resistor value you want.  It’s a shame there is no manufacture name so a source could be found.  @MaxSouthOz may be able to help if he’s still around.

eBay: 233206374091 for $18.90 shipped.  It's a decade box, so you can get any value you like in .1 ohm steps to 10k.

You can also get similar things for capacitors.

John,

A few years back you posted the circuit below using  the CL2N3 current limiter with the LED strip lighting instead of the LM317 circuit.  Are there any advantages/disadvantages of one circuit over the other?  Can the dimmer also be used with the CL2N3?

Thanks,

Ron

Great thread, thanks to the contributors.

upguy posted:

A few years back you posted the circuit below using  the CL2N3 current limiter with the LED strip lighting instead of the LM317 circuit.  Are there any advantages/disadvantages of one circuit over the other?  Can the dimmer also be used with the CL2N3?

Ron, that was my original method of upgrading the cars, the CL2 puts out a fixed 20ma and is non-adjustable.  The lighting module was my way of rolling all the desirable attributes into one PCB, low power, flicker free operation, DCS compatibility, and intensity adjustment.

Thanks  John for all of your help and information. I have learned a lot and always look forward to these posts.

Ron