part 2:
The #55 drill bit is ideal for drilling out the marker lights.
The drill worked perfectly on drilling out the marker lights from cal scale.
I also was able to drill out the original marker lights on a GN mike (see picture). The marker lights have to be removed, first, before drilling them out. I found the small hobby drill press best for doing this. A resistance soldering set is also, probably a must to remove/re-solder small parts to keep other parts from falling off due to too much heat via conventional soldering methods. I also drilled a hole in the front fire box to route the wires. I'll be using the inside hole of the marker lights (see picture) so only the front and outside will have colored lights as there really is no room to drill a hole in the back or bottom of the marker light. I'll be spraying the LED's and wires with some clear lacquer thinner to seal the wires in case they touch the brass engine components, thus preventing any shorts.
The ready made LED's with attached wires from Richmond controls gives a nice yellow glow good for the headlights.
I also got some LED's from digikey that are a white light that I'll use for the marker lights since they will be colored, anyway. These have no wire leads. No one sells 30 gauge wire in reasonable lengths so I took apart one of my old open frame motors (they are good for something!). The LED's are extremely small so it took some time to solder the wires to the LED's. Flux and a very small pointed soldering iron is needed with only a split second touch to solder the wire to each side of the LED (I have ruined 2, so far but, since they were so cheap, I thought I'd try it). Some pointed, self closing needle nose tweezers were used to hold the LED. If I need more, I'll get more glow LED's with the wires already attached as, for only 3 bucks apiece with wires attached, it's worth it.
For the cab forward I used Tomar's caboose marker lights. These have a brass tube access from the back and worked best for the cab forwards, eliminated have to route wires through the cab front. I cut the top and bottom off the caboose marker lights so they match modern steam marker lights. The marker lights are too small to solder so I used thin CA to secure the marker lights to the cab front.
A hole was drilled in the boiler front to route all the wires.
In the picture, the cab forward has the yellow glow in the headlight and the white LED's in the marker lights.
I diverted from the previously attached instructions on providing the proper amount of current to the LED's. I found just 1.5 volts bridge across two diodes sufficient to light the LED's.
Sam
