Assistance with powering LED station lamps

[young37215]

A brighter start to the day in every sense of the word. Armed with an unused resistor I connected a single light, turned on the power and it illuminated. Flushed with success I followed the same approach, one at a time and now have 5 working lights. 

 

I can can only guess that there was an issue with some of the supplied resistors. The white lights are quite bright, if I understand comments correctly, if I used a 2k resistor I should get a dimmer light? If so is it as simple as returning to Ebay where they seem plentiful and buying a supply?

 

again thank you to those who have contributed to this thread 

 

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by young37215

[cliff park]

If you have enough 1K resistors simply wire two in series with each LED, or at least try that with one LED to  see if 2K is about right

[Brian]

Pleased to read you're progressing.

As for Lamp brightness, you can trial a number of resistors in series with each other rather than jumping in and ordering one specific Ohm value then finding out the lamps are still too bright!  As you have some 1K resistors, trial two connected together in series -  end of one to the end on another  the free ends connecting to the copper tape and the lamps wire as for the single resistor i.e. daisy chained together.  This will give 2K (2000 Ohm) for two resistors, add a third to the chain and that then makes it 3K (3000 Ohm) and so on until you reached the brightness desired.  Then you can order the nearest ohm value resistor available to the combination of series resistors total knowing that the one higher value resistor will then give the level of brightness desired  :-)  

[DCB]

I am a bit surprised that the electrics are on top of the platform rather than underneath.  Presumably there will be a thin card or plasticard covering over the resistor.   I have found significant scorch marks in card buildings where resistors have been buried in or against walls to operate LEDs so its something I avoid,   There could be an issue with brightness, generally if you can tell the LEDs are on in a brightly lit room the LEDs are too bright in darkness.    I optimise mine for darkness, but even that is a bit transitory as ones eyes become accustomed to the gloom, and also as the LEDs tend to get brighter as they warm up.  In the shed I get a few minutes of fairyland with station buildings, signal boxes and signals glowing as lighted passenger trains and looming goods with just a tail light pass. You can get both by adding an additional series resistor near the power supply  once you have optimised the light for bright conditions,  with a switch in parallel to give the full brightness by by passing the resistor. 

[BMS]

I promised to reply so here I am.

Agree with previous entries, so won't repeat except to repeat the "get a multimeter" and to suggest buying a range of resistors - much more cost effective than buying a few a time.

Good luck

[JohnR]

Is anyone else getting flashbacks to trying to get the Christmas Tree lights working in the old days, when you didnt know which bulb had blown?