It amazes me as to the increased popularity of these new little guys. I was just browsing another board and now the HO guys have discovered white LED's. Just think, a couple of months ago, people thought I wuz nuts! ------------------ Keep on Track'N Harold Riley www.phcomputing.com
Although I'm not in a hurry to replace all my yellow LED's, I do like the new white ones! Man they are bright! ------------------ RAILROADING-TO-THE-MAX, Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Style! Brent Tidaback, Member #234
Just got my Kato Snoot Nose with the white LED. Yes they are very bright and look good. There is, unfortunately, a bit too much blue tinge to the light. Perhaps the manufacturers will figure out a way to get rid of this. ------------------ Grant grantha@Canada.com CEO Wascana Sherwood Lines
I fully intend to replace ALL my headlight LED's with white ones, since acquiring my snoots. Already done two, by using the white ones from the rear of the snoots It has been mentioned elsewhere, but a very THIN coat of yellow paint will correct the blue tinge. ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery Alan's European Gallery Alan's British Steam Gallery
I would love to do all LEDs, but there are 2 things stopping me. #1) Price #2) Lighting effects on DCC don't work as well with LEDs That is about it Happy Railroading!! Dane N. Finally out of school! ------------------ TAMR2860-AKA BC Rail King TAMR2860@Canada.com for TAMR info. To send a general TRAIN! E-Mail send to BCRailKing@Canada.com AIM me at TAMR2860!
I have been using them for a while too, and discovered a few tricks. 1) Filters...use a Gel Wratten #85 filter to correct the color from bluish to incandescent white. 2) Use an extra 470 ohm resistor in series with the LED to drop the intensity instead of using rule 17 with DCC...they cause the transistor on the decoder to generate less heat too! 3) Sand the led lens flat on the front and the light will collimate to a more prototypical headlight. 4) You can use the LED at full brightness and it will illuminate numberboards you make from your inkjet printer, and they look fantastic!, just brush a little flat black paint inside the shell so it don't glow on you. 5) Drill small holes in the LED lens (not so far as to touch the chip)the size of your fiber optic cable class and ditch lights, and super glue the ends in the led. dab flat black on the over your new opticpus to seal the deal. Anymore tricks? Post them here! ------------------ Robert Ray The NP & UP N-Scale Railroad
Robert, how do you make number boards on an inkjet printer? i.e. what do you print them on? Printing on decal film does not work, and I would really love to do this, as making up number boards with those tiny individual decal numbers is a real pain BTW I will try your tip #5, much easier than trying to align the end of the fibre optic with the led! ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery Alan's European Gallery Alan's British Steam Gallery [This message has been edited by Alan (edited 17 June 2000).]
I just use paint shop pro to reduce the image size, making several reductions of various close sizes. I print on an HP 812C printer and use #96 brightness inkjet paper! What I end up with is a couple rows of the numbers I want, in several close sizes. I move the paper over a light bulb for a few minutes to dry the ink, then use an exacto and straight edge to cut strips of the numbers. when making the white numbers on black, I use a sharpe' marker to blacken the edges of the number board, hiding the white of the paper. Don't try to countersink the DOn't forget, plain old paper was the craftsmans favorite choice of construction material in days past, and is still a perfect medium for n-scale modelers today!
Thanks for the tip, will definitely give that a try! ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery Alan's European Gallery Alan's British Steam Gallery
Dane, you said the price and FX effects are preventing you from changing to white LED's. THe price is $2.77 for 10 or more & the MARS/Gyralite effect looks pretty good to me. I don't have any decoders with bulbs installed so I can't compare LED to bulbs. ------------------ Keep on Track'N Harold Riley www.phcomputing.com
