Passenger Car Lighting Experiment

That yellow looks very "traditional", kinda nice!

 

Maybe I'll catch up with you at York this time, now that I know where you'll be hiding.  Hope this York's a good one for you!

 

Ed

John,

 

I've started looking at these Neopixel Digital LED strips by Adafruit:

 

http://www.adafruit.com/products/1376

 

But I haven't read enough to see if they can really be used in a passenger car.

 

I got a really nice small solder sucker from them a while back, great price and service!

Much better, John!  Gets rid of that tanning bed ambiance.  The difference can be important if you're modeling a pre-fluorescent era.  I tone down the warm white LED's with yellow or red Sharpie's.

 

Bruce

 

 

 

Every York is a good one.   I'll look forward to seeing you there.  I'll also be at the OGR dinner and Legacy breakfast.

 

 

You could probably use the three-color strips, I have a bunch of those.  I haven't done that yet, the plain yellow ones worked out really well, and obviously very simple to install.

 

 

Thanks, I figured it was time I actually did a car with them to see what they looked like.

 

 

Originally Posted by ogaugeguy:

They are all warm-white.  All the kits I've made have been with the 3528 warm white LED strips.  I've actually had a couple of requests for the cool white, but not enough to justify making kits up.

 

The yellow is a new experiment.  I think these might be popular, they really do have a totally different look from the warm white strips.  For older prototypes, they look more "real".

 

The LED controller modules work with any strip, they're all the same.  Obviously, when I do cars, I just use the modules and cut the strips to fit as needed.

 

John,

I like the yellow better; less "clinical" looking.  If I had to pick one, I'd pick the yellow.

 

I'll probably have several cars to be converted once we move and unpack.

Ron

Looks great John.   

I like it.... fits in great with the heavy weights especially.

Looks just right for the period cars.  

Those look really nice.  I am not a fan of LED's because of the "clinical" look of the white as others have described.  Any chance of a closer up side view so that we could see into the car itself?

 

Also, where is Henning's Trsins set up at York?  I would love to see these in person and would also like to meet you.

 

Thanks for posting,

Don

I illuminated my pre-1920 brick factory with amber LEDs. It gave off the perfect tone, as I wanted to simulate kerosene lighting in the building. 

Gunrunner John,

 

Looking forward to seeing you at York with these models.

 

K

I use red and yellow felt tip markers as well. You can tint to suit.

 

Warm white:

Warm White with red tint. Coating is very thin.

 

 

Pete

Henning's Trains is at I8-10 & H8-10, about in the center of the Orange Hall.  I'll be there on and off both days.  I even have a little surprise in store for our display.

 

Guns,

   Both look great, I do have one question for ya, sense the new LED bulbs are now available, and easy to change out with the old stuff, I use them most of the time.

You re-engineer with the full mini string, with all the rework why.  I know the new LED bulbs are a might expensive, but they do work great.

PCRR/DAve

John, am wondering which might be more prototypical for the kerosene lighting used in wood-sided passenger cars of the 1880's - 1920's - amber or yellow? Also how does dimming those yellow LEDs affect the hue they cast? Are both cars you're showing at full brightness, half, what setting?

As I previously noted, looking forward to seeing what color LED strips MTH uses in their elegant soon to be released reissued Premiere 64' wood-sided passenger cars? 

 

BTW, John,in your cars, do you separate each group of three LEDs with a  space between them much as the overhead light fixtures were spaced in those period passenger cars or do you run a continuous LED strip from one end of the car to its opposite end?

The LED replacement bulbs suffer from the same issue as the stock bulbs, that being light hotspots in most installations.  Also, the replacement bulbs don't cure the flickering, another thing that I detest.

 

 

It's hard to say what would be better, the amber or yellow.  I suspect either would look better than the white.  I don't separate the LED's, I run a continuous strip.  There's nothing to say you couldn't separate them into groups, it would just take more effort.  You just need to cut them at the 3-LED boundary and extend the connection with wires to the next LED group.

I might add John has replaced all my passenger cars (streamline and heavyweight). Not sure if it's is the up to date version, but it is still better than the old bulbs. You can see the better distribution of light in the coaches. Good work John, enjoy York. Can't wait to have my new layout up and running to enjoy them. As of now all is packed away since March.      Regards, Fred in New Hope

                                                    

Thanks Fred.   What you have is the Warm White, the yellow is something I just got around to trying.  I like the warm white for more modern stuff, but stuff like Heavyweights and Woodside passenger cars would probably look better with the yellow.  I also like my passenger car lighting turned down more than many, my picture with the warm white above is too bright.  I just did that because I'll be in the Orange Hall with those, and the lights would wash out the effects if it was much lower in intensity.

 

 

 

Guns,

   I agree some flickering does happen, same as the originals, cause I am a retro kind of runner, it's fine with me.  So far no hot spot with the new LED bulbs, if it happens I will let you know.  

PCRR/Dave

Hot spots as in brighter areas, not temperature.

 

Hi John,

I installed your light kit in my Polar Express Heavyweight cars and they made a dramatic improvement with regard to hue of the light and NO MORE FLICKERING!!  The kits are a great product.

 

I have the GGD Hi-Level cars, they are GREAT but the lights are stunningly horrible! It is a sacrilege that Scott would install such a poor lighting strip.  The lights are huge and protrude into the cabin area, they illuminate an intense blue and only 2/3 of the car is light, which in this case may not be terrible given the quality of light.

 

I was planning on purchasing your original kit from Hennings.  Would you agree that strip (color) would be the best choice for the era of the Hi-Level cars?

 

thanks

kevin

 

Reanimating the corpse of Nikola Tesla with a ZW, perchance? 

 

Bruce

 

 

Kevin, IMO the newer cars look better with the warm white, but I like the yellow now that I see it in the Heavyweight.  I'm glad I finally got around to trying it.

A teleport machine?  Time travel? 

 

Hey John,

Do you sell the strips from the 20100 Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit separately?  Since the EL Cap cars already have LEDs, I think all I would need to buy would be your strips...is that right?

 

thanks!

Kevin just buy a roll from Amazon or EBay in warm white. Dirt cheap for the whole roll.

do a search with this "5M 16FT 3528 SMD 300 leds Strip Flexible LED light 60 LED"

 

you should have plenty to choose from.

Finally perfected your new flux capacitor?

Kevin you'll have to look at the GGD LED strips in the El Cap cars. The components are built into the strip I think. So you will have to disect and solder anyway, if you want to just add new LED strips. Those components are also set up for the few larger LEDs on that strip, so who knows how dim or bright it will be with new strips.

If I was going to redo the LEDs in mine, I would just put in a control module from GRJ, so I had the adjustability along with full length LED strips. Just sayin man..... if you're gonna open those bad boys up and put better lighting in them... go all out.

If you're willing to do a little soldering, follow the above advice and just buy the 5 meter rolls, that will do ten to twelve cars.  When I do these, I use my lighting power module and cut myself a piece of LED strip.  A few solder connections and I'm done.  The MTH Premier cars take about ten minutes each to upgrade the lighting.  It takes me far longer to add the passengers.

I agree with above advice. If you have the GGD board shown below, I don't think there's anything practical to salvage from it.  The on-board "electronics" on the GGD board do not provide flicker protection or constant (plus adjustable) brightness.  I've seen activity for the GGD board on the Buy-Sell forum which is another reason to leave them intact.

 

As suggested, I'd use the electronics (what GRJ is calling the lighting power module) from the Henning's Train LED lighting module kit.

 

If you want to use the LED reels, you can just buy the regulator modules rather than the full kit, you save significant money and end up with the same result. The difference is you have to do a little soldering.

 

20110 LED Lighting Regulator, 2 Pcs

 

Plan on having more of the regulator-only kits at this York?

 

---PCJ

Very nice - definitely fits the period better than the regular white ones.  I'll try to keep this in mind for mine one day....

Lots of them.  I'm packing more in case we run out.

 

WRT yellow/amber vs. warm-white keep in mind what you're looking at; is it the reflection of the LEDs off the seats/walls/fixtures of a detailed interior...or the un-reflected (direct) color of the LEDs themselves such as, say, through frosted silouhette-style windows.

 

In Engineer-Joe's pic from this Electrical thread, note the yellow in the end-of-car vestibule compartments even though the car uses a warm-white LED strip.

 

So it seems a detailed interior with dark wooden benches/seats and drab or dark period clothing on passenger figures could be a factor in choosing LED color.  So this could be a your-mileage-may-vary situation.  In any event, credit goes to GRJ for undertaking this experiment!

 

Also, I noticed that you too can try this at home for not much money!  Less than $1 on eBay free shipping (351536107391) gets you a 1 meter strip of yellow LEDs - suitable for 2 or 3 cars.

 

 

Nice find Stan, I think I'll order some more reels.

 

thanks for the great info and advice!