Colour light signal fade.

[uax6]

Having got a full sized Metro-Vic General Railway Signal (I call it a Metro-vic hernia, as I almost had one just lifting the case!) two aspect distant in the garden (think 1:1 scale Econ-Berko colour light!) which I have fitted LEDs into instead of bulbs, this actually is an interesting idea. I'm not really happy with the 'snapped' aspect change, so if someone is happy to guess what size cap and resistor I need to put in parallel with the feed to each aspect I'm happy to have a play to see what happens.....

 

Andy G

 

Pictures of it start near the bottom of this page:

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by uax6

[RailWest]

I do wonder whether (a) it will really be worth the effort, (b) will anyone actually notice it and (c) will they even notice that they do not fade if you don't do that? I suspect most people probably think little more than that signals change from one colour to another - and that's it.

 

But then, I know what it's like if you know that they don't when they ought to - it tends to get annoying......:-)

[beast66606]

13 minutes ago, RailWest said:

I do wonder whether (a) it will really be worth the effort, (b) will anyone actually notice it and (c) will they even notice that they do not fade if you don't do that? I suspect most people probably think little more than that signals change from one colour to another - and that's it.

 

But then, I know what it's like if you know that they don't when they ought to - it tends to get annoying......:-)

 

On Widnes the feathers cleared 0.75s before the main aspect, not sure anyone ever noticed - but I did

[Enterprisingwestern]

39 minutes ago, RailWest said:

I do wonder whether (a) it will really be worth the effort, (b) will anyone actually notice it and (c) will they even notice that they do not fade if you don't do that? I suspect most people probably think little more than that signals change from one colour to another - and that's it.

 

But then, I know what it's like if you know that they don't when they ought to - it tends to get annoying......:-)

 

I think (a) is the most relevant observation at the mo!

 

Mike.

[Edwin_m]

57 minutes ago, uax6 said:

Having got a full sized Metro-Vic General Railway Signal (I call it a Metro-vic hernia, as I almost had one just lifting the case!) two aspect distant in the garden (think 1:1 scale Econ-Berko colour light!) which I have fitted LEDs into instead of bulbs, this actually is an interesting idea. I'm not really happy with the 'snapped' aspect change, so if someone is happy to guess what size cap and resistor I need to put in parallel with the feed to each aspect I'm happy to have a play to see what happens.....

 

Andy G

 

Pictures of it start near the bottom of this page:

 

After wondering why you need this for a searchlight I've read the thread and realized the signal in question isn't one.  The complication is that small LEDs like on models can get by with just a resistor, but LEDs used for lighting have their own driver circuits within the lamp and I'd guess this one does that too.  So you may just find that inserting resistance and capacitance to create a rising and falling voltage it just snaps on at whatever minimum voltage the circuit functions at, and snaps off on the way down when there aren't enough volts for the circuit to operate.