DOES ANYONE MAKE O GAUGE CLASSIFICATION LAMPS W? AN LED INSIDE THEM? ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED THANKS BEERTRAIN
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AFAIK Tomar makes only markers with LEDs installed. For class lights you have to add your own but the specific LED is readily available from the same manufacturer or from an electronics supply like Digikey. They are 2mm ceramic LEDs made by Lumex. I know you can get the housings from Lionel and Precision Scale, I suspect MTH as well.
Pete
Tomar kit.
3 millimeter bi-directional bi-color LED's Drill a hole in the shell, a 3 millimeter LED will fit with no other adaptation.
Diagram and led kits were from TAS (Train America Studios) at the time.
A little more difficult, rear of unit.
For the classification lights on diesels, I typically use the 2mm post LED's, slightly smaller to be more in scale. Of course, they come in all colors as well as bi-color so you can do any lighting scheme you like.
Kind of related to this topic; I seem to recall a wiring diagram that showed how to have front and back classification LED's that alternately lit up depending on engine direction, powered by the reversing +/- polarity power being fed to the can motor. Can't seem to find this info now, anyone have a copy or a link to the thread?
What would be even better would be 2 color LED's that switched from red to green, and back, depending on direction of travel. Anyone know how this could be done, simply, using motor polarity? Would the above TAS schematic work with power from a can motor, maybe with a diode in each wire to control which set of LED's lights up?
Rod
Here's a schematic of when I did lighting like this, I used the directional headlights and not the motor voltage. Motor voltage is only there when you're moving, the headlight is there all the time. You need common anode three-wire LED's for this scheme, but it works very well.
Click on the graphic for a full sized image.
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Thanks John, that looks like an interesting setup. Got to study it a little!
Rod
Rod, it was sort of a test example to see how much could be crammed into the BEEP. The little guy is pretty full!