MTH passenger car LED upgrade

Why do it that way?

FWIW, I was not overwhelmed with what MTH did for the lighting.  They have no flicker resistance for their LED's, something that I would have thought would be a basic requirement.  It's pretty trivial to add the capacitor to solve that problem.  Another point is there are only a handful of LED's in the strip, so you still get hotspots in the lighting.

For Madison cars, I used yellow LED strips and my lighting regulators, it made a great looking combo.  The lights that MTH used in my Woodside cars are too "white" for the period, and I had to add capacitors so the lights didn't flicker.

The LED strips are only a few dollars for a 5 meter roll, that does about 12-12 18" cars.  You'd end up with less cost and better lighting this way.

John, I just sent you an email. 

It turns out MTH does not make an LED conversion kit for the older cars. 

Not directly.  Since those take manual wiring anyway, I just hand wire those and tap into the end of the strip to power them.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Why do it that way?

FWIW, I was not overwhelmed with what MTH did for the lighting.  They have no flicker resistance for their LED's, something that I would have thought would be a basic requirement.  It's pretty trivial to add the capacitor to solve that problem.  Another point is there are only a handful of LED's in the strip, so you still get hotspots in the lighting.

For Madison cars, I used yellow LED strips and my lighting regulators, it made a great looking combo.  The lights that MTH used in my Woodside cars are too "white" for the period, and I had to add capacitors so the lights didn't flicker.

The LED strips are only a few dollars for a 5 meter roll, that does about 12-12 18" cars.  You'd end up with less cost and better lighting this way.

John I am curious to know which lights you have used.  I installed ones described as warm whit at 3100K but after the install there were bright white.  Inside of passenger car looked like daylight fluorescent or LED lighting in a commercial application.

I am thinking the 2700 would be better for the Madison style cars for a warmer look?

I bought yellow strips, they're about 2200 in appearance based on the colors in this chart, just slightly cooler than the 2,000 bulb, but not nearly like the 3,000 bulb.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Not directly.  Since those take manual wiring anyway, I just hand wire those and tap into the end of the strip to power them.

What does this mean?

I guess I was answering your email regarding how to do markers or drumheads. 

I tap into one of the power drops on the LED strip and hand-wire the markers and/or drumhead with a suitable resistor.  Since they're doubtless going to be different voltage rating than the LED's on the strip, you have to pick a resistor suitable for the job anyway.

Here's one example from the RailKing Reading Crusader observation car.  For this car, the wiring was all in the ceiling panel, made it kinda' convenient.  You can see the markers and the taillight wired in series with a resistor to one of the set of pads on the LED strip.  The module on the other end is my LED Lighting module.  In order to make it convenient to take the roof off, I put a connector in it and a matching connector on the track power feed in the lower body.

Drumheads would be done exactly the same way as far as the wiring.

BlueComet400 posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Not directly.  Since those take manual wiring anyway, I just hand wire those and tap into the end of the strip to power them.

What does this mean?

Hi my friend,

So what he means is that it will not be a plug and play type upgrade so it is no different if MTH offered it or anyone for that matter.

I have to admit that I made my own boards with a design GRJ posted on another thread. Its really just a Full-wave Bridge Rectifier to change AC/DC, a Capacitor to clean the output DC and then a vReg to regulate the Voltage, after that its mostly just resistors to adjust for brightness of the led's. I even added a POT to make it even more adjustable. I think in total I spent like $15 on parts and it was a great project to finish.

It was fairy easy, very inexpensive, and quite fun if you like to solder. Here is a picture of his wiring and of my finished boards (they aren't pretty but they work like a charm).

I hope this helps!

Danial, I also add a 22uh choke for DCS compatibility as I don't want my modules killing the DCS signal.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Danial, I also add a 22uh choke for DCS compatibility as I don't want my modules killing the DCS signal.

GRJ,

You are correct, you can see that in your schematic. I used them as well in my interpretation of your design.

Let me formally thank you for the design as without it my PE passenger cars would still look more like the new Hogwarts car Lionel is coming out with with the scary flashing lights 🤣🤣🤣

Thanks again!!

Glad it worked out for you, I much prefer nice even lighting with no flicker as well.

That's a serious capacitor you used, almost taller than the car!

🤣🤣🤣

You are a funny guy my friend. I got a lot of the parts for that prototype from old part I found I work. Old PC PSU'S are gold mines for parts lol but as you can see it fit. Not to mention that I could have laid it flat but the brain must have farted at that moment.

Also just realized my undies are now part of the forum 😳😳😳

Thanks!