Ok electronics gurus, I I were to put these in a structure, what would I need to do to light them up? Can I hook them right into the dcc bus or will they need a separate power source? Next question, how do I hook these up?
Well theoretically you wouldn't have to have a separate source but agree that is by far the best and easiest to do. You could power from rails and pass through a full bridge rectifier, then to a 12V regulator (or buck converter) then to the lamp and would work fine but a 12V wall wart is lots easier and given "electronics is a foreign language" by far your best option
Thanks, I think I will go with the Walmart and try to add a SPST switch. (I think that’s is the correct one).
Couple of things... 1: That’s a bulb type shade, and with a Walthers logo, probably 3-7 times more expensive than it needs to be. There are sellers on eBay (I’ve personally used we_honest - both china and us accounts) with LED based shades in HO for 4-5 bucks for 10 of them. They also look nicer and will last longer than the wheat bulb ones... by a factor of 1000. (You can see mine in the Bachmann steam whistle warehouse upgrade I did) 2: what voltage is your DCC system? Mine IS 12v actually. You don’t need a rectifier for bulbs or LEDs, you do need a resistor to power from the rails. That’s led or bulb. I have a 3mm LED with just a 1000 ohm resistor as a track power indicator, inside an old atlas track bumper, for example. 3: if this is your first lighting project, now is a good time to decide on YOUR standard. by that I mean not just things like voltage but also connectors. I use JST 1.25 connectors for everything that runs on my 3v lighting bus, for example. Anything running off my 12v bus has a different size connector. Can’t make a mistake that way. 4: if you do go LED and you will be doing many additional lights, you may want to consider an LED hub. I have two of the wehonest hubs ($15) and they can run 20+ LEDs with a power supply as low as 5v 1amp (phone charger FYI) and can accept DC or AC (DCC) input. I hope this has helped.
Unless you really enjoy replacing bulbs inside structures when (not if) they burn out, I'd strongly suggest going with LEDs. As Richard M mentions, we_honest has them at a good price. You could also buy shades and LEDs separately and combine them. For power, one of the most economic ways is a DC -DC "buckdown" converter. They take a wide range of DC input and you adjust the output to suit your need. A board with an LCD readout runs about $10 and can run a large number of LEDs.
