What would be the best way to supply constant lighting to a passenger car? Also, has anyone tried to use an IHC heavyweight interior with a shorter Athearn heavyweight car? Suggestions would be appreciated. ------------------ The Southern Serves The South!
There are constant lighting circuits available but at a price. The constant lighting systems require wheel pickups to get the power which is just a high frequency signal that is overlaid on the track power. The motor doesn't sense it but the lights do. Another easy way if its HO or larger is to use batteries. There are great tiny lightbulbs available that work on 1.5 V. A simple on off switch has to be hidden underneath somewhere. ------------------ Robin member #35 Proud to be a foundation member of NARA , #2 Maberly and Tayside
This is a littl arcane, but if you can get a set of insulated trucks for your car, you can get an inexpensive circuit from Microtronics. or if you are running DCC just wire them up direct to the insulated trucks with a dropping resistor. Hope this helps. ------------------ When in doubt, empty your magazine. Member #33
If your layout is small enough, you could run an extension cord! Well how about a small candle? Kerosene lamp? OK I'll go back to my cave. (Snicker, chuckle, guphaw) ------------------ Watash #982 "See you in the Pit"
So Watash, haven't you wanted to have constant lighting on your pike? Surely there must be a Watash way to do it other than to get us laughing. You are such a knowlegable guy that we depend on you now. ------------------ Robin member #35 Proud to be a foundation member of NARA , #2 Maberly and Tayside
I did experiment with it using little grain of wheat bulbs at 1.5v left on the rails by blocking the reostat to not shut off. Most of the engines wouldn't start until 3 to 5 volts, but it wasn't that big a thing to me, so I never persued it. It did work, but only with the dimmer on the room lights very low. It got pretty hard to find brass wheels for passenger cars too, so I just didn't go any more. I had three old time Pullmans lighted, two bulbs each, all in series. One of the EE's at work wired them so at 12 volts, the bulbs still only got 1.5v. Resistors I think. I mounted a PCB micro switch under the car body to turn them off when just sitting on a siding. I do think this is a place where DCC is probably better if you want lights. ------------------ Watash #982 "See you in the Pit"
One of the many reasonsthat I got DCC is that passenger cars are lit even when the train is not moving -- impossible with normal DC without batteries. Speaking of batteries, in MR a few years back was a circuit for charging a NiCd battery (N or AAA) while the train was running. The circuit would light a limited number of 1.5V bulbs. This made lights work without the train power (until the battery runs down, or the train starts, which charges the battery). You could also use a power regulator chip, there are fixed ones for +/- 5V and +/-12V and a variable one that can go as low as 1.3V. These are Radio Shack items (and of course any other electronics supply). I have used both of the above at times in the past, but was happy to discard in favor of DCC. In all the above cases, the wheels must pick up track power (with contacts, isolated wheels, etc.). You could tap the track power once (even at the engine) and have connectors between cars to distribute the power.
