Coach Lighting

[JohnR]

Does anyone have any feedback on the best coach lighting to go for? I'm looking for something that has that combination of quality and low price! Ideally with a battery, rather than being track powered. Ease of installation too is a consideration. Seems you can pay anywhere from £3 to £23 for a single coach.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations? 

[d00m]

You could buy 5V led strip (usually comes in meter or half meter lengths and can be cut to length every 3rd led) available from amazon - various suppliers.  I use this with a homebrew stay alive circuit powered from the track but as they are only 5v, you could run them off button cell batteries.

l always choose warm white.

 

[Yardman]

2 hours ago, JohnR said:

Does anyone have any feedback on the best coach lighting to go for? I'm looking for something that has that combination of quality and low price! Ideally with a battery, rather than being track powered. Ease of installation too is a consideration. Seems you can pay anywhere from £3 to £23 for a single coach.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations? 

Yes Make your own, its not that difficult and much better and cheaper. Here's some I did earlier.

[tgunter]

I used the battery kits from https://www.layouts4u.net/coach-lighting-tail-lights/battery-coach-lighting-kits-and-tail-lights/ and was pleased with the effect. Not too difficult to install either.

[Il Grifone]

19 hours ago, d00m said:

You could buy 5V led strip (usually comes in meter or half meter lengths and can be cut to length every 3rd led) available from amazon - various suppliers.  I use this with a homebrew stay alive circuit powered from the track but as they are only 5v, you could run them off button cell batteries.

l always choose warm white.

 

 

They have some (1.3m with a USB plug) in Poundland (usual disclaimer) at the moment They are rather bright however. Maybe a lower voltage than five or some sort of filter. I bought them for train lighting but have still to experiment. They also have the button cells at 8 for a pound (10 year shelf life claimed, which is good as they make a (nasty, corrosive) mess if they leak.)

 

I have worked out some circuitry, but this too is in the experimental stage....

[The Johnster]

Haven't done this but have it in mind for a future project.  I do not 'do' dcc, and my plan is to have battery powered lights aboard each lit coach on a circuit within that coach to avoid 'flicker' and to enable the lights to remain on when the stock is isolated on electrically dead track.  Real steam age coach lighting was pretty dim and very warm in cast, and the Thompson suburbans in the photo are far too brightly lit IMHO.  The bulbs were 25watters powered by the 24v supply from the coach battery, intended as reading lights and barely sufficient for that.  Early dmu lighting was a little better, but not much, and in smoking compartments tar built up on the shades and made matters worse.  

 

More modern stock, anything built or refurbished post about 1964, uses flouresecent lighting with a colder cast, and noticeably brighter.  

[d00m]

On 21/10/2019 at 10:00, Il Grifone said:

 

They have some (1.3m with a USB plug) in Poundland (usual disclaimer) at the moment They are rather bright however. Maybe a lower voltage than five or some sort of filter. I bought them for train lighting but have still to experiment. They also have the button cells at 8 for a pound (10 year shelf life claimed, which is good as they make a (nasty, corrosive) mess if they leak.)

 

I have worked out some circuitry, but this too is in the experimental stage....

 

I have not seen them... I shall look out for them.  Current price for 1 meter is £5.99 and  2m  is £7.99 on Amazon. 

 

If they are too bright, put a resistor between the power source and the strip. The higher resistance, the dimmer the light output.

If the colour is too bright and you want a more 'yellow' colour, Sharpies are your friend they are very effective!

 

My solution to flicker is a simple circuit using a bridge rectifier, 5v1 zenner diode, a couple of resistors and a 5v5 dual layer or super capacitor rated at anything between 0.47 to 2.5 F. On DC you can stop at a signal or station and the lights stay on. the higher the capacitance, the longer they stay on.

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by d00m
add info

[Il Grifone]

Why didn't I think of Sharpies? I was thinking of some sort of filter as I said These would do the  job just fine.

 

I bought another strip of LEDs today, but found out at checkout they are actually £2 (their usually trick of clearly marking the shelves £1 and then hanging things on a hook above with the different price rather less than obvious). However, to be fair, £2 for 1.3m is still good value. They are marked "Mood Lighting Effect", but, as I said, very bright.

 

I've a couple of 0.5F capacitors somewhere recovered from dead VCRs. (They used to power the memory circuits for the tuning etc. At the minimal current drain they would retain this for ages.) I'm not too sure how they'd stand the current for several LEDs and are quite expensive to buy, so I'll use the batteries.

 

The real steam age lighting was really dim. (Clifton Down station still had gas lighting in the fifties. The coach bulbs were 24V and used a peculiar socket to discourage passengers from taking them home. (The effect of connecting a 24V bulb to the mains would have been spectacular!)

Back then, Trix Twin lighted coaches used two 14V 75mA bulbs to illuminate a coach with the inside all white to reflect the light. At a couple of watts per coach in 1:80 scale, they were far brighter than the real thing. These could also solve the constant lighting problem, by using one side of the Twin system, though usually I expect they ran in parallel with the traction circuit to allow two trains to run. Trix transformers were rated at 3A to supply all this lot. (They make good door stops - just joking! but they do have T.R.S. mains cable!)

[NittenDormer]

On 20/10/2019 at 15:21, Yardman said:

Yes Make your own, its not that difficult and much better and cheaper. Here's some I did earlier.

 

I quite fancy giving this a go, can you explain the circuitry? And if battery powered, how do you access for turning on/off?

 

[Yardman]

9 hours ago, NittenDormer said:

I quite fancy giving this a go, can you explain the circuitry? And if battery powered, how do you access for turning on/off?

 

For a start mine aren't battery powered, it's harder to find space for a battery and switch, multiple LED's do start to draw a bit of power. Mine are DCC powered operated by function only decoders, the coaches operate in sets so I can turn all the lights in a set on or off with a single command. The accompanying picture should explain it. I use small SMD (Surface Mount Device) LED's Usually one to a compartment, wired in series sets of three with a current limiting resistor. The picture shows a DMU power car which only required three LED's and one resistor. Marker lights and route indicators required others. This was all driven from the loco sound decoder. The trailer car is similar, but used a Function only decoder with pickups on both bogies. Remember LED's are polarity conscious so install them the right way round.

One thing to note. The coach interiors need to be painted to prevent light leaking through the plastic. I give mine a coat of black then a coat of an appropriate interior colour. The interior colour has a bearing on the light colour so experiment. I use “Warm White” which I think most represents incandescent lamps. “White” looks more like modern strip lights and “Yellow” more like oil or gas lamps.