Another great tutorial indeed! Didn't know how easy it was to add it! Interesting problem with the roof, sort of looks like and X-ray! Sure you will get that sorted.. £1 a coach is not half bad indeed! Looking forward to seeing more of your experiments with it!
Hi Kevin after watching your video I went on to ebay to check out the LED strips the first one was an auction for a 5m strip there was 41 seconds to go so after a very read at the description I put a bid on for £4.96 and to my surprise I won it for £2.21 couldn't believe I got it so cheap and its a UK seller as well so thanks for that mate.
Great video Kevin and thank you for sharing it, you've really got me exited about lighting up coaches, and on the cheap. But you hang on to those springs ok, spent my lunchtime with our electronics engineer and tomorrow I hope to have a cheap solution to the flickering, he's bringing in the components we need and we'll do some testing, if it works then hopefully, and I'm sure it will, the cost of lighting a coach will be around £2, and that will include the lighting staying constant over points and and dirty spots on the track :) Cheers Mark
Cool, that's something added to my information repository for the future, deffo going to get some of that strip LED roll stuff, be really useful for my buildings when I get started on them - I never knew such stuff existed! Cheers
Hi Ringo yes just as you say brilliant stuff different whites and also colours did all the lighting on my houses and station and canopy and engine shed as well cheers Kevin
Hi Kevin, a big surprise when the light went through the roof. That is annoying. A bit like when you have to paint the inside of a resin cast building to keep it from looking like it has pyroclastic walls and roof. I too like those LED strips. I got a bag of them a while ago and they are almost used up now. Good tutorial about the rolling stock lighting. Rob
Hi Rob thanks very much the strip leds are fantastic so many options with them and cheap as well took 3 coats of paint to stop the light bleeding through cheers Kevin
Hi John thanks very much for your kind comments ,I do enjoy making the videos and it is a great way of keeping a record of what I have done over the years and showing where it started from cheers Kevin
Hi. You might want to consider a rectifier since the leds are dc. The jittering can be avoided by the rectifier and a capacitor. Everard junction did a vid of exactly this, although he used standard leds and not strips. I do mine as you do but with rectifier and capacitor 2200uF, the lights dim slowly when contact lost. I had to add black tape on the inside of the roof, also lima! LOL
Hi Robert thanks for the info did see everad vid but thought I would like the easier option but will give your suggestion a go and think will need a bigger resistor to dim the lights a bit more cheers For the information ....Kevin
Hi Kevin, nice work again, but another reason I'm jealous of you modern day modellers! Back when I had my layout, you couldn't get parcels coaches (is that a violin you can hear playing?), despite them being, as you know, a regular add on to passenger services as well as forming their own dedicated parcels trains. I'm very envious of the range of stuff that's available these days!
Hi Mick very true we are spoilt now on what is around and if not we can make it just started last weekend the o Gauge Western lots of fiddly painting on cab detail vid up at the weekend cheers Kevin
I buy all my lights from China. You can't beat the price. I noticed the spring is a tad loose around the axle. I would put a piece or two of copper wire length wise to tighten the gap. Solder it on the spring at each end. You could have made them yourself. Take an axle and wrap a wire around it. Just a suggestion. Great how to. Scott
I think trying to tighten the gap would end up acting as a wheel brake. There are so many turns of copper on that axle that there is always going to be some sort of contact.
struck2soon That is true if you put too large a wire but if you add one that touches all the time. Also with time the wire would form to the axle. I realize the number of turns is to always have contact but the contact is not firm enough to keep the lights from blinking. The only other solution would be to add a capacitor to it, so the lights would have enough power stored and would not blink. The capacitor probably the way to go, now that I think about it more. Scott
Looks like you have cracked it with the last coach Kevin , its a lot cheaper way that the way I did mine ...maybe a soft yellow LED would be better ?? ..Dave
Hi Andy thanks for the comments I think will give it a try quite a few have mentioned it , if it works will still be a cheap way to light a coach cheers Kevin
Thanks for this Kevin, easy to understand, I think the problem with lighting in coaches generally is too bright. Think of yourself sitting in the coach, you wouldn't have that much light penetrating the outside. Generally these new lighting systems look great, but are either the wrong shade for the period or too bright and need adjusting. The issue is at what voltage the LED with come on
hi Vaughan thanks for the comments this is work in progress need to try out some different resistor values to dull it down some more but all part of the joy of experimenting , problems were made to get over them cheers Kevin
Painting the inside roof black acrylic with a brush should crack it Kevin. I'd also paint the red wire black where it is visible inside the coach too, just in case you catch a glimpse of it through a window at any time. Cost effective way to do it. Regarding the coiled wires not giving 100% contact - could you put a slight bend in them across their length so they are always pushing on the axle? If you know what I mean? Laurie
Hi Laurie thanks did paint the inside it took 3 coats of black to stop it will paint the wire !! as for the spring I think if you do bend it it will give to much resistance and on a large rake will cause problems think I will go with a capacitor cheers Kevin
Hi Kevin thanks for that video I've been waiting for someone to do a how to on it could I ask are those led OK with the track power being 15v instead of 12 many thanks matt
Hi Matthew thanks for the comment they seem fine have had a single strip in my signal box for 3 years without a resistor in line and still working have put a resistor in line in the coaches to dim the lights about 640 ohm but will go bigger cheers Kevin
Hi Kevin, just saw your great vid. Planning to do exactly the same as you. Do you have the eBay link where you got the strip LEDs from, please. Great suggestions from the rest re. rectifier and capacitor to smooth out the AC to DC problem. Jim
Hi yes did make a difference but could do with a stay alive unit , have not done any more with it since but no doubt will get to it one day cheers Kevin
Could you supply a link for these LED's? I have a ridiculous number of coaches to light up so every penny i can save along the way is being put towards new stock. Al
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5M-300-LED-Strip-Light-3528-5050-5630-SMD-12V-LED-Flexible-Light-Waterproof-/151563603317?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item2349e50d75try this one loads on ebay cheers Kevin
