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Lighting For Coaches?


Butler
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28 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

How do you pick up the current from the track - especially on 9mm gauge bogies? I have seen kits for 16.5mm gauge bogies but nothing for 9mm (other than the hopeless DCC Concepts axle springs that need you to take a wheel off the axle :( )

 

made some pickups from phosphor bronze strip to rub the backs of wheels stuck to bits of plastic card before superglued into place on 9mm

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Layouts4u warm white latching reed coach lighting kits with CR2032 coin battery under the coach.You can buy the LED strips in 300mm lengths,cutting and joining extra LEDs is easy,just solder across the copper pads.The other pic is of Layout4u station lamps.These are Hornby Dublo SD and Wrenn coaches.

 

                          Ray

20210227_231729.jpg

20210402_193703.jpg

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2 hours ago, WIMorrison said:

How do you pick up the current from the track - especially on 9mm gauge bogies? I have seen kits for 16.5mm gauge bogies but nothing for 9mm (other than the hopeless DCC Concepts axle springs that need you to take a wheel off the axle :( )

 

I have used Lima OO wheels which have one wheel live to the axle and one insulated with top hat pin point bearings for pick up for the last 15/20. years.  The pin point bearing is wired to the coach through the hollow bogie pivot.   One bogie per coach is positive and the other negative. 

Metal bogie frames make ths much easier, I use Hornby Dublo but you can use any.

I have also bridged the insulation on steel rim plastic centre wheels by sandwiching fine wire between axle and centre and centre and rim. Pin point contact is just about friction free and a wiper on the axle is pretty close to it.   Wheel back pickups can be horibly draggy unless the pick up is very thin and flexible, especially if you have loads of them.

 

To minimise flicker I use the largest capacitor I can find space for, together with a very small bridger rectifier and suitable diodes, no idea what value but they are blue. Basically if the LEDs don't blow with the controller turned right up and no loco its fine.  Then I have to use an old power hnngry metal body Triang powered loco so the lights are bright enough to see as the train proceeds down the garden at reasonable speed.  One LED per compartment or half a dozen in an Autocoach and it looks quite magical as the train splashes through the wind and rain viewed from the kitchen window en route to the shed.

 

My battery lighting never got to the latching relay era so was switch on with a switch in the corridor connection or underneath but used for brake van lighting and tail lamps the button cell batteries seemed to last for ever.    3032s are 8 for a quid from Poundland and every bit as good as the 3032s from motor factors at 3 quid a throw, they fit my Rover 25...

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11 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

 

I have used Lima OO wheels which have one wheel live to the axle and one insulated with top hat pin point bearings for pick up for the last 15/20. years.  The pin point bearing is wired to the coach through the hollow bogie pivot.   One bogie per coach is positive and the other negative. 

Metal bogie frames make ths much easier, I use Hornby Dublo but you can use any.

I have also bridged the insulation on steel rim plastic centre wheels by sandwiching fine wire between axle and centre and centre and rim. Pin point contact is just about friction free and a wiper on the axle is pretty close to it.   Wheel back pickups can be horibly draggy unless the pick up is very thin and flexible, especially if you have loads of them.

 

To minimise flicker I use the largest capacitor I can find space for, together with a very small bridger rectifier and suitable diodes, no idea what value but they are blue. Basically if the LEDs don't blow with the controller turned right up and no loco its fine.  Then I have to use an old power hnngry metal body Triang powered loco so the lights are bright enough to see as the train proceeds down the garden at reasonable speed.  One LED per compartment or half a dozen in an Autocoach and it looks quite magical as the train splashes through the wind and rain viewed from the kitchen window en route to the shed.

 

My battery lighting never got to the latching relay era so was switch on with a switch in the corridor connection or underneath but used for brake van lighting and tail lamps the button cell batteries seemed to last for ever.    3032s are 8 for a quid from Poundland and every bit as good as the 3032s from motor factors at 3 quid a throw, they fit my Rover 25...

 

Unfortunately, as I said in my post,  I use 9mm bogies and not 16.5mm therefore Lima and Hornby are not suitable, and 3032 batteries - they are rather large for my use :(

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4 hours ago, Butler said:

Hi

Do you mean 2032 batteries, not 3032, not familiar with them?

B

Yes sorry typo its 2032 batteries.   20mm dia, I guess 3.2mm thick. Car key fob batteries.  there are also thinner 20mm 2016 available.

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4 hours ago, Butler said:

Do you mean 2032 batteries, not 3032, not familiar with them?

 

10 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

Yes sorry typo its 2032 batteries.   20mm dia, I guess 3.2mm thick. Car key fob batteries.  there are also thinner 20mm 2016 available.

 

That's exactly how they got their "name" - diameter in mm - followed by thickness, this time in tenths of mm.

 

This system's been in use for decades. I remember seeing this in a Duracell data book - complete with dimensioned elevation drawings of all the battery types they produced at the time - early in 1984.

 

 

Huw.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 06/04/2021 at 22:04, WIMorrison said:

 the hopeless DCC Concepts axle springs that need you to take a wheel off the

On 06/04/2021 at 22:04, WIMorrison said:

the hopeless DCC Concepts axle springs that need you to take a wheel off the axle

 

No need to remove a wheel - just wind them on, albeit fiddly.

Less drag than wipers too.

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