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Wow,  I have the Illinois Central version I just got (after waiting a long time) and haven't noticed it.  Because it sits in the center of the car, I'm not sure if there is another place to move it to.  My seated passengers have a clear view out of the City of New Orleans except when they look across the aisle to the other side where that capacitor hangs to block their view.  Darn, I might have to reduce the price of those obstructed seats!  Then again, not sure if the vista seats were assigned or just for sightseeing?

..

I believe it is a 22uh 1/2 watt correct?

You want one rated at 100ma or more, wattage isn't normally a choke rating, except for eBay sellers.   I called up a range of them, and here's a suitable part from Digikey: https://www.digikey.com/en/pro...c/78F220J-RC/1305996

There must be some "conspiracy" with eBay Asia sellers where I can't find a good deal on 1/2W inductors any more.  I got my lifetime supply a few years back on eBay for a couple pennies each.

In any case, if you're willing to try aliexpress.com and wait, there's a seller there where you can get 22uH 1/2W inductors for 5-10 cents each in small quantity (free shipping from Asia):

22uh 50 pcs for less than 2 bucks

These are so-called 0410 sized (04mm diameter x 10mm length) packages which is just a tad larger than the DigiKey inductor that GRJ links.  If you're familiar with 1/2 Watt resistors, those too are about 0410 in size...duh.

These are what I use for rolling stock to be used with DCS  As the datasheet suggests, these support 410 mA of current so more than adequate for LED passenger car lighting.

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Last edited by stan2004

I will have to open it up and take pictures for us all to look it over and come up with an action plan. Thank you John for the link to the steps you previously took. I am hoping it will be an easy relocation for the capacitor. I will add the choke if MTH did not. I believe it is a 22uh 1/2 watt correct?

I don't have this version of car, but it sure looks like there's plenty of open-space on the lower level?  Keep this in mind if/when you open up the car and take photos.

That is, I think it goes without saying that a soldering iron will be hot and ready to effect a relocation.  Some MTH cars pass AC track voltage from the lower/chassis-level via spring-contacts to the upper/shell-level.  The AC-to-DC conversion is then done "upstairs" and hence the capacitor must reside upstairs since capacitors are DC devices.

But if the AC-to-DC conversion can be done downstairs where there's presumably more room, then the capacitor can be located downstairs and you can send DC over the spring-contacts between lower and upper level.  This is just idle speculation in the spirit of a forum discussion.  The idea is to take plenty of pictures as I'm sure there are many alternatives.

If for whatever reason the capacitor absolutely must reside on the ceiling...since the soldering iron is already on perhaps breaking up the capacitance into, say, 3 or 4 smaller capacitors in parallel would not be as visually obtrusive...

@stan2004 posted:

There must be some "conspiracy" with eBay Asia sellers where I can't find a good deal on 1/2W inductors any more.  I got my lifetime supply a few years back on eBay for a couple pennies each.

In any case, if you're willing to try aliexpress.com and wait, there's a seller there where you can get 22uH 1/2W inductors for 5-10 cents each in small quantity (free shipping from Asia):

eBay: 191964602221, $6 for 100, six cents each shipped.

___chokes2

Aliexpress, 500 1/4w with shipping $5.56, so a little over two cents.  These are smaller, but I suspect plenty of current handling for any LED lighting applications.

___chokes

eBay: 192872567052, $15.98, a little over three cents each.

___chokes3

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3 cents each is pretty good these days though I'm struggling to imagine how to manage a fleet of 500 passenger cars!   Anyway, I was lamenting about the good old days where there were countless listings from eBay Asia for 99 cents (free shipping).  You'd typically get 50 or 100 resistors, diodes, capacitors, or inductors...so a penny or two each.  It was like going to the Dollar Store!

Yep Stan, the good ol' days are gone, I see very few of those kinds of listings now.  I was thinking about that when I was digging out more 1N4007 diodes from my pack of 1,000 I bought years ago, still working my way through them.  I think I paid less than $4 for the diodes at the time, less than half a cent each.

I did get a recent bargain on eBay, and when I looked again, I see that they made a mistake in the listing, for a change in my favor.

I bought three of these, for a total of $4.80, I thought a pretty good deal.

When I go to the current listing, it obviously was a pretty good deal!  Now they're four times the price!

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Thank you all for the information and links! I did pickup some 1/4 watt chokes in preparation to work on passenger cars.

John, do those isolated converters work even if the input voltage is below the higher ratings specified, as I see most say input of 50v-250v

This one appears to work down to 55VAC.  I bought these for a power line project, so no worries about that, I'll have 120VAC to drive them.  I just wanted 5VDC from the power line in a small package, that was the object of the exercise.

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John, do those isolated converters work even if the input voltage is below the higher ratings specified, as I see most say input of 50v-250v

Is the reason you're asking because you're pondering if these inexpensive modules could be used in rolling stock to convert 18V AC track voltage to low-voltage DC for, wait for it...LED lighting in a passenger car? 

ac dc isolated converter

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No way that's going to happen Stan, I think with 55 VAC on the rails, you'd not have to worry about lighting the cars!

Actually I was looking at using the Accessory Output from my Z4000 ( 10VAC or 14VAC) to power Menards Buildings and other LED lights on the layout.

Same comment, 55 VAC is the minimum input voltage.

Last edited by gunrunnerjohn

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