Recently purchased three extended vision cabooses to update my fleet that were cheap and on consignment. All three are Atlas and looking at them before disassembly and paint stripping I noticed that one was a little lighter than the other two and then I noticed the rear light. Carefully opening it I discovered what appeared to be a flasher circuit and a switch mounted under the caboose for on/off. Looks to neat to be home built, maybe home assembly though. I took the long dead batteries out and hooked up a temp power supply and a very nice flasher. In fact I caught the flash with the camera. Any idea who made this and are they still available? Bit of an overkill on the mounting with those big honking screws. I would have used MT coupler screws to mount.
My thought too. Most flasher circuits are a little tighter organized than that, although it looks less cobbled together than some. Those big honkin' screws may be doubling for what little weight you have in it. Good find though with the flasher! If you'd like a second one or third, there are several out there. I'm modifying some from Evan Designs to become HO FREDs with the LED on a plug a seperate unit and a bunch of flashing circuits in each car. The bundles are pretty small and would fit in your N scale caboose.
A little better shot with some stuff out of the way. And another side view. I know why the weight is out. The weight is rather big for a caboose and with the whole thing sitting on that weight the battery box would not have cleared the caboose roof. However a thinner weight and no issue. The board just doesn't look like a home brew and everything else is commercially made so I am wondering if this was a kit offered by someone.
As a postscript to the above post I have found that the circuit works on anything from 3 volts to 9 volts which makes me wonder about track power. I am not a big fan of battery powered anything in train cars. Taking cars apart and changing batteries equals wear and tear on cars. And unless you buy in bulk they are about $5.75 a set of three. That adds up based on number of cars and over time. Much bigger fan of track power for my lighting needs. I may end up removing this circuit and using it for something else maybe powered by one of my solar power conversions in the harbor area or seaplane base.
Richmond makes small flasher units that fit inside lots of things, all running from track power. You can even use DCC to control them in some cases.
I would agree with the tear this out idea. Using batteries, as is, it seems more like a novelty. You'll just end up wasting time and money. I'd rather go with something much better such as Richmond Controls.
And with a simple set of truck pickups and I have enough laying around will be the better way to go for my more modern cabooses. Agreed. Sometimes it helps to air things out here when I am setting on the fence. Since I found that playing around with this it will work on a variety of voltages up to 9 volts I may just break out another solar cell and storage battery and wire this to it leaving the switch in place. Then I may end up adding a flashing light to either the control tower for the seaplane hangar or maybe a radio antennae. Since the below pictured hangar is slated to be installed on a narrow island that will house the harbor the solar cell assembly can be mounted on the layout edge for accessibility and the wires ran up the side elevator shaft.
Completyelt and totally off topic, but could I see more on this Seaplane hangar? Kinda want one for a module I've taked myself out of building again.
Hopefully this link will take you to one of my photo sub albums on projects. http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/910/page/4 Photos taken during construction are on about three pages around this one. The hangar is totally freelanced although I did research seaplane hangars built before and during WW2 for ideas. One of the photos show the planes around the finished hangar and it was built to accommodate the largest plane there and tallest tail assembly. The three engine flying boat does not have wheels but was guided onto a trailer and then towed out of the water. My smaller aircraft also don't have wheels and so I built trailers for them so that was also a factor in designing the doors.
