Subway track spark simulation

Im sorry for the constant posts but I decided to try again with 2 set ups, one WITH the diode and one WITH OUT the diode. The one with the diode would NOT light up but the one with OUT the diode would light up. Although this was done with by connecting directly to the rail that getting common surge. When I tried senging to the other rail still would not work, so really no sparking. Did I get a bunch of bad diodes or something?

The model of the diode (1N4007) does not matter for this application.  Any 1N400x will work.

This is very curious to me and undoubtedly very frustrating to you!  So if I understand correctly, you have the following scenario:

It's hard to believe the diode went go bad or that you got a bad batch.

However, I recall a batch of LEDs I got (surplus) many years ago that were actually "backwards" with the flat-edge corresponding to the "+" polarity.

So if you simply reverse an LED in the circuit WITH the diode and the diode band as indicated, does it light up?

It's good you're getting a voltmeter...not just for this but since you have several other LED projects on deck...

The purpose of the 1N400x diode is to insure the LED only sees voltage of the correct polarity.  So the LED lights up when it sees around 3V of one polarity.  OTOH the LED can (will) be damaged if it sees voltage in the other polarity.

So while it proved fruitful to remove the diode, I strongly advise against operating it in this configuration.  As you have done, the correct path is to take the track out of the equation and simply get the ducks in a row with lighting up the LED(s) with the just the diode and resistors.

If you happen to have a battery-pack or can cobble together 2 AA or 2 AAA batteries, this makes for a 3V DC source which you can directly apply to your white LED(s).  The LED should light up only in one direction.  If you apply the 3V battery "backwards" to the LED it will not light up and this low of a "reverse" voltage will not damage the LED.  This will also confirm that the "flat" side of the LED is indeed the "-" side (or not).

And to satisfy my curiosity, take a close look at your LED.  Is the larger of the two "elements" inside the LED connected to the flat-side lead as in this photo of a 3mm white LED? 

The capacitors used for flicker reduction in passenger cars are polarized with "+" and "-" connections. In basic terms this means the "+" connection should always be more positive than the "-" connection.  The diode, by only passing the correct polarity of the alternating input voltage to the capacitor, is absolutely required for this application.

As is hopefully clear from the picture earlier with the 2 red marker LEDs, diode, and capacitor, each of these components has a "polarity" associated with them and must be hooked up as indicated.  As with any device or component that stores energy, hooking it up backwards has the tendency to release that energy in violent fashion.

I can only imagine the drama of your exploding capacitor.  Yikes.  But I hope the explanation makes sense. 

I understand but it was in the correct polarity i checked although, It was probably because of the no diode. Have you ever tried a capacitor with out the diode?

Yes, it was because there was no diode.  To repeat, the diode is absolutely required for this application!  The diode insures only the correct polarity of voltage is applied to the capacitor.

Perhaps a source of confusion is there are polarized and non-polarized capacitors.  In general, it's the larger values that are the polarized type.  The capacitors used for flicker reduction are the polarized type. 

So the answer your question, sure, I use non-polarized capacitors without diodes all the time.  However, if the capacitor is polarized I always insure the voltage applied to the capacitor is of the correct polarity.  Diodes are probably the most practical way to do this.

Just got my voltimeter and was reading diagrams online, It turns on the grey strip part of the DIode, the "-" Charge is flowing through! so basically I have to put the Diode onto the "Negative" leg of the LED. Am I correct? I always thought it was 100% positive charge on other side of the diode

By convention, the arrows below show the direction of positive current.  With the diode band on the right as shown, current flows from left to right.  The diode blocks current from flowing right to left. 

When the LED is lit up, the current flows left to right.  By convention, the rounded side of the LED case is the "+" side and should be connected as shown.

You mentioned 3 LED applications for your subway.

1. Sparking.  Diode needed.  No capacitor needed.

2. Car red markers.  Diode needed.  Capacitor needed for flicker reduction.

3. Tunnel lighting.  Diode needed.  No capacitor needed.

See the photo earlier showing the 2 red marker LED with diode and capacitor.  Pay attention to the polarity of all the components that have a polarity or orientation.  The orientation should be well-marked for each component - the band on the diode, the "-" stripe on the capacitor, and the flat-side on the LED.

Dont forget replacing interior car lights also Which I would assume also requires capacitors. so as long as the Diode is hooked up to the capacitor correctly, it wont blow up right? regardless of how many times power is cut?

4. Interior car lighting.  Diode needed.  Capacitor needed for flicker reduction.

The number of times power is cut is not a problem.  You noted this yourself earlier but the capacitor's voltage rating must be able to work with the voltage levels at hand.

Note that for interior lighting you need to make some decisions about how many LEDs, the type of LEDs, etc.  There are many threads in the Electrical Forum about replacing bulbs with LEDs for interior lighting - too many options for me to suggest which is best for you.  You should be able to "share" the inductor, diode and capacitor between the interior LEDs and the marker LEDs.  Different resistors will be needed for the white interior LEDs vs. the red marker LEDs.  As discussed in the passenger car threads if constant-brightness (irrespective of track voltage) is important, the circuit(s) get a bit more complicated possibly requiring a couple extra components.

Im going to use the LED strip and probably get a voltage regulator, Along some where on the thread you posted here, Some one actually used a voltage regulatar on the first car, Then he linked them with a connector to the rest of the cars using LED strips, That I would like to test. Although I don't know where to get connecters that he used. Im gonna try to look for the picture. I may test the capacitors again soon, But this water near by and put the test train away from my face and ready to cut the power if it explodes again.

btw im using these capacitors http://www.ebay.com/itm/220768...id=p3984.m1439.l2649 

Ive got some good news.. The Capacitor worked! Did some rigorous testing like constantly cutting and increasing power and keeping power at maximum for about 1 hour and the capacitor was working! Also the subway "Sparking" Also worked! I put the inductor and Diode on this time with the capacitor. Funny thing is, Just that same day i read a topic about how capacitors can not be used with AC currents. But it told me that I have to use a bridge recitfier to make it work, But how come with just 1 diode it still works just fine? 

Always good to make forward progress!

Blanket statements like "capacitors can not be used with AC currents" can be misleading.  It depends on the type of capacitor.  In principle, "capacitance" as a physical concept has nothing to do with AC, DC or whatever.  But for manufacturers to produce practical capacitors, there are limitations which restrict their operation such as limited voltage range or polarized operation.

As for the single diode vs. the 4-diode bridge rectifier, a single diode only converts one "half" of the AC signal to DC.  A bridge converts both halves of the AC signal to DC.  So for "simple" low-current circuits like driving a couple LEDs, a single-diode works just fine.  Adding a capacitor after the diode (as you are doing) stores energy making it available during the half of the cycle that the diode is not providing energy.  The answer to the next question is "yes"; in general you need less capacitance if you use a bridge-rectifier than a single-diode since the bridge transfers energy to the load on both halves of the line cycle.  Or at least that should be your next question!  And the question after that is also "yes".  I recommend using a bridge-rectifier for the subway car interior lighting...and for your tunnel lighting as you will likely use dozens of LEDs.

So if I were to use more things, Like more LEDs or more power consumption, Then a bridge rectifier would be needed right?

Also, I just got a 12v LEDs roll. Instead of using the LM converter, what if I just use a resistor on the Poistive part of the strip?

Hm you bring up good topics! First, I read in the topic about "reverse AC" Does this mean that if i Put my train in reverse and it reverse the polarity to the LED lights in the train? 
Also, What about installing a speaker say on the last car of the train to make it play more realistic sound affects when its turning?  Is there a module that you can modify through your computer and it has a speaker built it so then when it gets power it constantly plays that tone? Hope the question is simple to understand, I was thinking about doing this!
Last question, Subway doors. I know MTH produced only about 2 subway modules with manual opening doors.  I remember watching a youtube video were some one put a motor in the train to make it automatic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa5SDb_B46c

Do you think you would know how to do this? If so How would you? This is an interesting project that I would like to try to attempt.

If I understand your question, the LED circuit "sees" the same track voltage whether it's running in fwd or reverse.  For example if you just turned your lighted cars around you would change directions but the LED circuit sees the same voltage since the center-rail and the outer-rail voltages have not changed.

Ahh.  I see you have a "noisy" mind (a good thing ).  There are dozens of after-market "sound" modules with speaker where you record your own sound.  These run in the $10-30 range.  The selection gets a smaller for ones where you load the sound via a computer.  But this latter approach is absolutely the way to go.  So this would probably warrant a separate discussion.  In short, what I'd do is use an MP3 player with speaker output.  These come and go on eBay for maybe $10-20.  Some use a USB "stick" others use an SD card, whatever.  So you use a sound editor on your PC and make as fancy a sound as you want using a freeware sound editor that can store as MP3.  Then shove the sound into the player.  Next task is how to trigger it.  I like your idea about turning.  So here I'd put a sensor (could be as simple as a magnet with some reed switches) that trip when the truck turns some number of degrees relative to the chassis.  That would turn on the sound module when the train is on a curve.

Yet another approach is to get a cheap FM transmitter (a few bucks on eBay) and a handheld FM radio with speaker.  Your FM transmitter constantly "broadcasts" the turning sound.  The FM radio in the desired car is turned on as above with some type of "turn" detector.  The advantage of this approach is a single transmitter can service multiple cars where each car only has a cheap FM radio installed.

But going back a bit, anything generating sound in a car would take more power than a few LEDs and hence this is why I recommend the bridge rectifier.  That is, you'd need, say, about 1 Watt of audio power to be heard above the wheel noise and other goings on from a subway consist.

Well, I haven't done subway doors but the video shows it can be done.  Of course there's the Lionel Acela with operating doors which might be a source of inspiration if you can get a look at its mechanism.  The youtube guy seems to deflect questions when specifically asked how he did it.  From what I can tell he uses a rack-and-pinion mechanism which I suspect (based on how he mounted it and its size relative to the task at hand) was hijacked from some other toy or whatever.

In my experience, the best thing is to start with doors that are manually operable in the first place.  If you have to carve up a solid molded door and fabricate sliding rails or runners or whatever, that would be too much.  Another thing going for you is the doors weigh nothing.  This means you can probably use a single mechanism to drive all the doors together.  A window curtain mechanism in miniature would probably work for the two door motion.  As I see it, the "electronics" side of it is easy.  The hard work is the mechanical side.

Oh, I just happened to notice the youtube guy seems to have a tether between his cars.  Perhaps he describes somewhere what this is for but I must have missed it.  Anyway he does mention the doors are controlled by remote control.  I don't know what he means by "remote control" but it's logical that it would be more cost effective to have a single remote control receiver that sends the appropriate signal to simultaneously open/close all the doors on all the cars (via the tether).

Likewise, if you go the tether route as you previously mentioned, you should be able to tap into the directional control signal in the lead powered unit.  So if your comment about putting the engine in reverse was in reference to turning on reversing lights in the last car, then a daisy-chained tether could be used to send this direction signal from the powered-unit to the final car.

Obviously a tether can support multiple wires so with some wiring "craftsmanship" and planning you could, for example, have most of the electronics in just one car.  This means a single bridge-rectifier, a single capacitor, etc..  Separate from the powered-unit, this means you could remove the rollers from any slave cars.  I don't know about subway operation but I find the audible noise (and mechanical drag) from passenger car power-pick-up rollers to be somewhat noisy bordering on annoying even a modest speeds (10-20 MPH).

Oh, and another pie-in-the-sky idea I just thought of is to generate audio sparking sounds synchronized to the LED flashes.  So many ideas, so little time...

You leave me asking more!
First, Do you any modules for the sound mod thing? Not sure what search up, I may go with the putting the sound into the MP3 module, but what is magnet with a reed switch? Do you know how it works?

Also, for the rack and pinion thing, Do you think I can find it on Ebay?

Wait! sorry just one last question! How would sound sensitive LEDs work? 

Thanks again!

I forgot to answer your question about the magnet and switch.  So here's a crude picture showing 2 ways to make a truck-turning detector.

You attach an "arm" to the screw holding the truck to the chassis.  This screw will rotate with the truck.  The top of photo shows a so-called slotted-photosensor.  It is shown on it's side and would be rotated for this application.  When the arm rotates into the slot, the sensor changes from on/off or off/on and this change would trigger the sound action.  If you think about it you only need one arm and one photosensor to detect when the truck rotates so-many degrees in either CW or CCW.   Photosensors like this are maybe $1.

In the bottom, there's a disc magnet and a reed switch.  These are like those used in security systems to detect when a door or window is open/closed.  When the magnet is near the switch, the switch is closed. So, for example, you could attach the magnet to the arm and fasten the reed switch to the chassis so that the switch is closed when the truck is straight.  As the truck turns in either direction, the magnet moves away from the switch and the switch opens.  This would trigger the sound action.

I can imagine even simpler detectors such as making the arm conductive and have it touch metal contacts when rotating however many degrees off-center.

Separately, I was flipping through this book about animating model railroads thinking I'd suggest it to you if you're trying to get started with some of these more complex animations (moving doors, sound modules, etc.).  The book covers all these topics as well as LEDs and such.  It doesn't discuss sliding car doors and it is getting a bit dated (2005); for example it discusses using a CD player (vs. an MP3 player) to play layout sounds.  So maybe if you could borrow it from a library or friend I think you'll find it interesting.

But what caught my eye was a table in the book showing rack-and-pinion components from Plastruct.  Click on the link for details. 

From what I can tell, each "rack" section is only 3-7/8" long but it looks like they can be snapped together end-to-end to make a longer rack. They sell the corresponding gears (pinion).  But these parts are only a few dollars each so seems reasonable.  It's hard to tell but the youtube guy may have actually used these parts.  If you go this route, I can assure you the mechanical design will be a bigger undertaking than the electronics.  That is, if you can make the mechanism and it turns out when all said and done that you now need a gearmotor slowly turning, say, 3 turns CW/CCW to open/close the doors, that will be a piece of cake (not to be confused with pie in the sky).

Sorry I haven't responded in a while, Finals week! But I got the pictures taken a few days ago.

I see, I was thinking about a module that looks like the LM09625 (If thats the name for DC-DC converter) and has a speaker some where on it. Not an actual MP3 player. 

The subway sets I have do have manual sliding opneing doors, After seeing everything you showed, im not sure If I really want to go for it anymore, these subway sets with the manual opening are very rare now, Released in 2002 and mth never reproduced them, And it was before MTH lost the right to the subway company MTA. So its worth even more. I actually replaced the battery on the lead car and all of the doors mechanism just poped out, and I can imagine its gonna be a pain for me to try to fix it. So I jsut left it. So now the powered car cant open its doors anymore and it slightly falls off. (The doors are all interconnected into one switch on the end of the car.) Actually, The set in the video I showed, Thats the set! It has manual opening doors, And is very rare now. So in order to avoid another mishap like with my powered car, ill just skip this project and think about other things that I can do.

This video provides a better of the mechanism 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1e7xt580hI

Hey Stan, I installed one of the LED strips but the rollers keep making long statis noises as it rolls on the track. Its very loud and gets annoying, Do you know whats making the sound? If I Cut the voltage in half around 11-13 volts The statis sound is gone but I most likely will operate the train sets in full voltage. I have the wires set up as Inductor->Diode->Capicitor (50v 220uf) then it goes to the led strips. 

Heres the video 

https://flic.kr/p/nsAD6F

I assume by "long statis noises" you mean what sounds like crackling. Since it only occurs when it rolls, it must be coming from the rolling contacts rather than the electrical components.  In a previous post you mentioned you'd be using a voltage regulator with the 12V LED strip.  If you only have Inductor->Diode->Capacitor, then  you are overdriving the LED strip at full voltage and it makes sense that the crackling/sparking would be proportional to the track voltage. 

What's amusing (to me anyway) is I believe you've unwittingly created the exact effect in the title of this thread!  OK, ignore my warped sense of humor and let's see how to resolve this.  To confirm the overdrive, try measuring the DC voltage (i.e., set your meter to DC Volts) across one of the 150 ohm resistors on the LED strip.  It can be any of the resistors on any of the 3-LED sections.  The resistor will probably be labeled 151 as shown in the photo.  It doesn't matter red or black meter leads, it's the voltage magnitude that's of interest.  This voltage will tell us the average current flowing into each LED section.  Voltage = Current x Resistance.  The nominal value for these LED strips is 20 mA per sections.  So if 20 mA on average is flowing through the 150 ohm resistor you should read 3.0 DC Volts.

In any event, without some kind of regulator or limiting device after the capacitor, I think you'll measure much more than 3V DC across any of the 150 ohm resistors.

As an aside, making AC voltage measurements on track voltage can be deceptive since many hobby-grade meters do not accurately measure the AC voltage from so-called chopped sinewave controllers.  Measuring the DC voltage as suggested is really where the rubber meets the road anyway and is the net result after issues of single-diode vs. bridge, size of capacitor, use of regulator, etc..

By the way, here is a greeting-card-style sound module with user-loadable sound-file input: bigDAWGS Greetings.

The subway cars you're talking about are the R-32 class, and from the photo you posted, appear to be the 'dealer appreciation set' with the graffiti that terminated the MTA's agreement with MTH.

The YouTube video of the mechanized doors may have been accomplished using an RC servo.

The difficulty with motorizing the R32 doors is getting controlled mechanical force to the door panels.  The way they were designed is to use a lever to move a rack containing the door panels on one side of each door opening, and small gears drive another rack in the opposite direction with the doors on the other side. The mechanism is subject to coming apart when lifting the body shells because the retaining plates keeping the gears in place is on friction-fit pins rather than being screwed down. If I recall correctly, the addition of open-able doors was a late addition to the feature set, and may not have been extensively planned out at the time the cars were announced. You can see that it was not repeated on other Premier-class subway cars (R-1, R-40)

The Lionel Acela uses slot-car motors equipped with long screw drives at each door panel to open and close them.

Before anyone mentions the Coors Light set, it should be mentioned that the feature isn't considered reliable beyond four cars from the locomotive. I added two extra cars to mine before the tail car came out, and only infrequently would any more than the first 4 cars respond to the door signals.

BTW, if you're looking to re-create NYCTA tunnel lighting, you should probably know that the prototype is using light bulbs (mostly compact-fluorescent, but the most recent installations may be using LED bulbs) that point down at the trackbed, with shields on the side facing oncoming traffic, so the lights don't glare in the faces of train operators. In this application, rather than the subminiature LED's in the photo linked a number of posts ago, a more conventional 3mm LED pointed down, with chopped-up silver-painted straws cut in half lengthwise glued to one side, would look closest to the real thing.

---PCJ

Interesting, Are 3mm sized incandescent bulbs available?
@stan, I used the DC meter on my multimeter, Im getting about 5.98-6.08 DC volts, I removed the capacitor and the sound has been greatly reduced, Still some "Spark" sounds but its only when its running really slow, But other then that the sound is gone, And Im getting a reading of only about 2.5volts now going to the LED lights.

Search eBay for "grain of wheat bulb" or "grain of rice bulb" and you'll find 3mm sized incandescents fairly cheap.  But I don't read Railride's comment as suggesting you use incandescent bulbs.  It might be useful to post a photo of the prototype tunnel lights but I'd think you could use wide-angle 3mm LEDs.

So if you're measuring 6V across the 150 ohm resistor then you're driving the LEDs at 6/150=0.04 Amps or 40 mA.  This is too much.  When you remove the capacitor, the voltage is only available half the time.  Well, depending on the capacitor value it's not half the voltage but in any event you're now seeing 2V or 2/150=0.013 or 13 mA. The current is now 1/3 and the actual brightness or light output (as measured in Lumens if you had a light meter) is also 1/3.  If you read the passenger car lighting threads you'll see that most guys settle of average LED current around 5-10 mA.

Without the capacitor you won't have flicker reduction. So to get flicker reduction and operate at full track voltage you'll need some kind of regulator or limiter.  Since I believe you want to also drive the red markers and/or reverse headlight on the tail car, I'd suggest going with a voltage regulating method as this generally makes it easier to add different LED lighting circuits.

I'd also take a look at your track and power pickup rollers to make sure they are clean.

The track That I was using is actually very Dirty, the MTH realtrax was hand me down from my friend, My LIonel fast track is much cleaner and ive never experinced this problem so I do believe that it should be much quiter on my lionel fastrack. I think I may just use it with out the capacitor to reduce size and and messyness, and I didnt experience that much of a flickering problem, cause Now i need to find way to put back on the interior, the "seats and floor" But the wires are now in the way. Should I Just drill holes through the interior to get the wires through?

If you've settled on the no-capacitor approach and if the single-diode brightness is acceptable for the track voltages you're using, then you can eliminate the inductor. Then all you really have is the diode.  I'd think you could place the diode up top near the LED strip and use whatever wiring method came with the car to get the power to the ceiling.  In other words, I don't think you should have to drill holes...but I'm not familiar with the interior layout of MTH subways...

Not any that I know of( probably grain-of-wheat size), but I never looked for any since any such constructs I might build would use LED's since they look closest to the  compact fluorescents being installed now.

---PCJ

Hm I guess, But mth trains uses small sized incadancent bulbs
@stan: I guess ill check it out again, Its because the train has an interior that goes ontop of the wiring, But I will check it out and see if i can work around it. Just one question, How come with a capacitor, it makes the voltage a whopping 6 volts but with out it greatly decreases to 2.5 volts? I though the capacitor just hold charge and makes a better "DC" connection.

Right.  Those LEDs will become DEDs (Dark-Emitting-Diodes) if you're reading 6V across the resistor.  OK, sorry for the crude graphics but see if this helps.

With the single-diode (no cap), the "bottom" half of the AC voltage is cut off.  Note that in doing so the LEDs no longer "see" the negative voltage which can damage them.  Without the cap, the LED brightness goes up and down like the waveform but the eye does not perceive these fast variations (though young people can see these).  For practical purposes you can use this average voltage (red line) as a proxy for what the eye sees.

With the cap, the voltage after the rectifier charges up to the peak voltage and it is now the cap's stored energy delivering the voltage to the LEDs.  As long as the voltage from the discharging cap exceeds the incoming diode voltage, it is the cap that supplies the energy.  At some point, the cap voltage drops to where the incoming diode voltage takes over.  The cap charges up again and everything repeats.  Note that the voltage to the LEDs is both higher AND smoother.  The average voltage (red line) is much higher than without the cap.  As to whether the average voltage (red line) is 1.5 times, 2 times, X times, more than without the cap depends on the cap's size.

With a smaller cap, the voltage still charges up to the peak but it discharges much more quickly as there is less energy stored.  So the average voltage to the LEDs is lower (pink line). 

I don't know about MTH subway car interior overhead lighting, but the standard incandescent bulbs used in PS2 engines are 6V and are about 3mm.  

Obviously the car lights must run on "full" track voltage so if they are using incandescent bulbs presumably they are, say, 18V bulbs or whatever.

If this is for the tunnel lighting, the wide-angle (>100 degree beam angle) 3mm LEDs shown above might work for more the "flood" lighting effect than the "spot" lighting you'd get from the standard 3mm LEDs shown on left (30 degree beam angle).

If the issue is modeling the fluorescent effect, then I'd think you'd have to go with LEDs as you get some choice in the color-temperature (warm, cool, etc.).  I don't think these tiny 3mm incandescent bulbs give much choice in color-temperature like you get buying household 120V bulbs.

Hey Stan, Hope everything has been good, Ive been modifying alot of LEDs and buzzers and what not ever since all of the new stuff that I learned. Now im planning on going to IC chips. Although they look complicated, Im pretty sure ill be able to get it down. Do you know anything about IC chips? Because im planning on actually buliding my own signal, Rather then paying almost $100 for lionels expensive system. I think its something logic relay system but I have no idea on how to set it up. Any help from any one would be appreciated, Thanks!

I'm not clear on what you're trying to build.  Do you have a Lionel part #? Is this something specific to subway signaling?  If this is a general electrical question I suggest posting in the Electrical Forum where there's a bigger audience of guys who assemble circuits from the component-level.  I'll look for your post and will respond if I can contribute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Rw7S2eFjs 

Something like this, Just simple signal system where if something runs over the sensor, it goes from red, after a 3 second delay it goes to yellow, then again 3 seconds it goes back to green

See the following:

ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/le...al-with-lionel-153ir

It goes around the block a couple times but bottom line is it shows an eBay red-yellow-green timer module for about $15 ready-to-go from a seller called "wehonest" who sells a lot of train signaling stuff.  The thread also shows a schematic and prototype with video of a DIY version using the 555 timer IC.  The parts for that are just a couple dollars.  In either case you need to decide what sensor method to use - whether it be isolated-outer-rail which trips when a wheel-axle crosses, or infrared beams, or magnet with reed-switch, or an off-the-shelf ITAD sensor.

I encourage you to respond to above thread if you're interested in either approach. There are several guys interested in this topic of lower-cost signaling methods and you'll get more ideas in the Electrical Forum.

Im getting invalid content when I click the thread. I could buy it on ebay, But I would much rather learn it on my own to save money and learn new things. im gonna use the IR approach for the signals

I must have messed something up.  Here's the click-able URL:

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...al-with-lionel-153ir

By "IR approach", do you mean with an ITAD, or with a roll-your-own IR LED, IR phototransistor, resistors, etc.., or ?