Atlas Amtrak Pass car LEDs

I agree with GRJ. 

For the amount of fiddling you'll need to do to modify the stock board, you can build your own for about a $1 in parts (or buy the assembled Hennings module) and get smoother and adjustable lighting using the 12V LED strips.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

I took all the LEDs off their board and put in my complete circuit in parallel with their board. I left theirs' in so that the car's end lights could still work. Of course I hear snap. I see the end lights flash fro a mili-second and they go out? My new board's not getting power? So I trace around the circuit as there's a tiny amount of current? It seems that one truck is not passing current and the other works? So I mess with their connection and fix that. Mean time I've already pulled out the rest of their board.

 To make things worse, I was depending on seeing the small blue LED light on my new board. Well it doesn't work. The board does get and pass power though. So I finish putting the car together without end lights for now. I need to add people anyways.

 To make matters worse, another car I already converted snapped and it's stock board went out with the bigger cap added.

 So I turned these new LED strips down to 10.5 volts in as they were too harsh. I just want one car to work to get a basis for where I'm going with this!! Urrrgggg.

 I will now try to use Stan's method for lighting the end marker lights. Too much trouble to get the ends down to 4 volts I think to use theirs. I need to retain the switch to kill just the ends.

Are the end markers LED's?  You can tap them right off the LED strips at the end if you balance them right, no need for more circuitry.

Yeap, red though? They (2) are on a board at one end with resistors to each. Maybe I can put them in series, with a third clear one and resistor, to light up the hall?

I'm calling a time-out!

Joe, let us know exactly what electronics you're using now.  I understand you're trying to get one car running to establish a prototype for your others.  But I don't know where you are right now.  Your last pics seem to be with the 12V LED strips (the lighting looks smooth and uniform)?? 

I don't think you need to use the Atlas board at all if you've switched to an eBay voltage regulator module.  You may need to alter the resistor values for the marker LEDs.  I suspect they're wired for 4.4V DC from the Atlas board.  If you're using electronics that drives the 12V LED strips that means you have closer to 12V DC available to power the markers, hallway, etc. 

Yeap!

The only circuit in this car right now, is my circuit. I used a bridge, 220uf cap, 22mh choke, and that buck board from the other post. It feeds the 12 volt self stick strips, 7 sections.

I will take a picture of it on the next one.

  I added a polyfuse on the hot wire from one truck. If the car derails, the frame and the truck's sideframes are grounded together. It would be a big spark!

 I should probably start a whole new post???

maybe I could put that other small buck board in the circuit and reduce it's output to 4volts? it would only see 10-12 volts dc at it's input. I'm not sure what they would draw in a daisy chain like that?

OK.  So as I understand it, the eBay buck regulator module is putting out about 10.5V DC which generates a suitable brightness.  That said, it sounds like the first task is to convert their marker light circuit to operate at 10.5V instead of 4.4V.  Yes, I guess you could re-wire their circuit to put the LEDs in series but I'm guessing it might be easier to simply change the 2 resistors.  What value resistors did they use for their 4.4V circuit...and were the markers to a suitable brightness?

Then, since it sounds like a switch cuts power to the markers(?), then I wouldn't put the hallway LED in series with the markers or else the hallway would go out with the markers.  In other words just power the hallway LED separately.  A common 470 ohm resistor (1/4 or 1/2 Watt) is suitable to power a white hallway LED from 10.5V at the end of the LED strip.

No need for that 2nd buck board.  Upon reflection you don't need to change the 2 resistors on their marker board.  We can add a single resistor to drop the voltage from 10.5V to about 4.4V.  Again, show a photo or measure the value of the marker resistors.  Then we can calculate the resistor value to put between the output of the 12V LED strip (10.5V or so) and the input of the marker circuit board that presumably has 2 resistors on it to feed the 2 red LEDs.

OK. I will take a car apart in the morning. I remember seeing a resistor at each end marker light. They had funny symbols on them ? I think it was like llE or something? I will look again and measure them too.

 I only turn them on when it's the last car of the train.

I need to see if the real ones are lit up at the doorways too? I didn't see your first post about the single hallway LEDs.

 and their red markers are/were bright.

If the marker lights are red LEDs,install a 560 ohm or more 1/4 watt resistor in series to each one in series from one of the leads from the converter.. 

Dale H

Thank you, I will.

The original resistors are 331 ohms. Just as marked. I'm just not sure why the original on/off switch has three wires? I need to trace them to see where they go.

If a switch has 3 wires, it could be a make/break arrangement. It is hard to follow what you are doing. I don't know what the voltage input was to the board originally. The 330 ohm resistors are sized for a 5 volt input maybe. Red LEDs drop 2 volts,so 12 volts from a converter minus 2 volts for the LED drop divided by .02 is about 500 ohms. If there is a 12 volt input you need a little more resistance. You could put a 560 in series to the input,that should be enough. 

Dale H

Sorry, I'm posting as I go.

The switch is actually an on-on as expected with three wires. There's two positions that these end boards can be connected to, allowing for the same board to be used in different cars.

The original end board was getting 4.3 DC volts roughly if I remember correctly. It will now get 10.5 DC approx.

 BTW, that last snap noise came from this car. The choke just popped off the board. Cold solder joint?

I'd start the markers with a 470 ohm resistor in series with the board from the 10.5 VDC source to the connection that used to get 4.4 volts.  That should give you a decent brightness on the LED's.  I typically run the markers on must stuff on way less than the full 20ma rated power as that makes them way too bright.

So stock marker board powered from stock 4.4V regulator has each 330 resistor dropping about 2.4V.  So each 2V red LED is running at about 7 mA = 2.4V / 330.  That means board is drawing about 14 mA total at 4.4V.

If starting from 10.5V instead of 4.4V, to drop the voltage down to 4.4V with 14 mA current, that's a resistor of (10.5-4.4)V / 14mA = 435 ohms.  So as GRJ suggests just put a single 470 resistor (1/4W or 1/2W) in series with one of the red/black power wires going into the board.  No need to remove/alter those tiny surface mount 330 resistors.

Lighting the hallway or vestibule is interesting as it is walled off.  Hard to say if you can carve a large hole on the ceiling to run a longer LED strip into the compartment...and maybe get 2 LEDs in the compartment?

The low-profile, wide-angle white LEDs on the adhesive-backed strips are such a good deal at a few pennies a piece.  I don't know if this makes sense but I'd try to think of a way to use the LEDs as packaged on the strip in the vestibule.  Maybe you cut off the last 2 LEDs from the strip and jumper 2 wires from main LED strip.  This way you don't need a "new" resistor as you'd be using the surface mount resistor already on each 2" section-of-3 LEDs.

Cramming full 2" LED strip section (maybe sideways) would be the easiest - then jumper over the 10.5V from the end of the main strip.  This may be too "bright" for the tiny vestibule but easy to tint/shade the LEDs to dim them. 

Per previous post with some additional homework  it may be possible to cut a 2" section in the middle to only mount 1 or 2 LEDs in the vestibule.  The homework is to determine where to cut a 2" section in the middle at what contacts need to be jumpered over to make it electrically "whole" again.

Thanks Stan, That wall actually slides in and out. So altering it would be simple. However that stock marker board is on studs and maybe 1/4 or 3/8" high? I would be happy with just one LED in there. I thought of just using an Atlas one that I removed and the proper resistor to it. The car ends were not lit originally anyways. OR, I could slide the LED strip under the wall and see what fits.

 I cut the rest of the car's strip short as it's so bright. I didn't consider splitting it up and sliding part of it under that wall. The way the car's posts supports are, the strip could be cut into three sections and wired together. I just slapped it in there off center!

 So I will play with the next car a little more and decide what's easiest and best for lighting.

I just slid one LED from the strip under each end wall cut out and it works good. Set at 10 volts for the extra lights, nine looked better but didn't have that stunning look with the room lights on.

  I added a 560 ohm resistor inline to the end marker's board for safety. + It's what I had! I interrupted the - wire and sent it thru one side of the stock chassis switch. The end markers look good too. So I'm off to bed. I'll post pictures tomorrow. Ahh sugar, I forgot to take the inside pictures! Oh well, five more cars to do anyways.

 Hey Stan! How did you do that to the picture????????

Duh. I guess it should have been obvious that wall just slides out!  I think I understand what you said (pending your photos).  You slid out the wall to the vestibule and notched out a small rectangle allowing you to slide the main LED strip thru.  And there's enough length in the compartment for the last LED on the strip - and that 1 LED provides suitable brightness.

Using Windows Paint, it's just cut-and-paste of a photo of an LED strip onto your image:

Stan, I don't need to take an inside pic then. You nailed it!

I put the red wire from their end board onto the + of the end of the LED strip. I put a 560 ohm resistor at the - of the strip. I attached a wire to that and sent it to their switch. The return from the switch goes to the - on their board.

Here's what it looks like on the track: ( for some reason, the end door's windows look more yellow? they match the rest looking straight on).

Sounds like this project is close to being a wrap!

Looking good!

I wonder if that yellow is simply reflection off the yellow-ish masking they used on the plastic?  It appears that the underlying plastic is light beige but there's some kind of overcoat color sprayed on the ceiling.  The "sills" on the passenger windows seem to have that same yellow.

Yes, I can't fool U!

Another duh moment for me. My layout is at 36". My ceilings are 7' - the ductwork. So I'm looking down and seeing the bright lights and blue seats. The inside of the car has that deeper yellowish tinge.

 So here it is straight on. The camera is blinded slightly. I still forgot to pick up passengers!

  If I get enough practice and do it right, I'll tear into those Golden Gate aluminum NYC 20th Century Ltd cars!

I would delete these posts to clean up. A friend emailed me and said he was learning from them? Wow. I'm...uh...uh...  Well, I'd better finish then.

 I apologize for all this, to Atlas too. I like these cars and hope they will modify their board for flickering.

I tore car #3 back apart to re-modify my install. It allowed me to get inside pictures. If U take some small stiff wire and tin the ends with solder, U can just push them into the stock plug for the end red LEDs.

I bought radial caps (black buttons on the wall) that worked well on my G scale cars. For these cars it took some adapting. I'm not positive that the extra cap is necessary. I was told to use it, so I did.

if you add too many LEDs to the end compartments, or raise them up, you need to block off the red LED backs or they'll appear to be on!

To block light, I use Liquid Tape, great stuff for lighting upgrades.