I'd like to be able to have some building lights turn on and after a while some turn off, etc. randomly to the viewer but likely to have them all preset (predetermined). In other words, once power is turned on, I'm trying to have lights in different buildings go on and off to simulate people hitting light switches and to add a little to the layout. Any thoughts? Thank you, Terry
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This thing isnt cheap, but its basically a large programmable Woodland Scenics Just Plug hub.
How many independent circuits do you want to animate?
Are the lights/circuits already in place and if so what are they? For example, bulbs powered by 14V Accessory AC? LEDs in a 4.5V DC Menards/Lemax building? Etc.
Are you comfortable working at the electronic component level - soldering small components? Or are you after off-the-shelf plug-and-play?
I would just purchase some of the relay timer boards you get on the bay for around $7 each and set them to run continuous. You can set them to stagger coming on and then repeat lets say every 5 minutes. I have a bunch of them for my amusement rides so they are not running all the time and they start and stop like the real rides do. I have a couple extras you can have if you want to give it a try. My email is in my profile. JP
Do a search on eBay for a Chinese seller called "Wehonest". Among their many products, they sell boards with many connections specifically designed to randomize building lights on a train layout. If they are out of stock, you won't see the product listed. But eventually they will put it back up. Unfortunately, wehonest sells ten thousand items and it is tedious to search for anything specific. I looked for this and I couldn't find it easily. Maybe you'll have more luck.
Don Merz
Thank you everyone. I'm going to start with help from JPLoco and go from there. Much appreciated! Terry
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