Lamps On Dining Car Tables

First off, do you run conventional or command?  If you run command, I'd wire them similar to how the 12V LED strips are wired, in groups of three in series with a small balancing resistor. I suspect this is the control board you were think of, it will light the LED's and also provide flicker-free intensity adjustment.

LED Lighting Regulator

I am running the MTH DCS system. How many LED's can this board handle? I have 10 tables per side in the dining car. A total of 20 lamps per car. After hooking up three lamps with a 100 ohm resister, do I continue on and make another three lamp hook up until all 20 are done? Then, hook up the + and - to the board, or do I have to use 1 board per three lamps?  I hope this makes sense.   

Yep, groups of three with a series resistor for each group.  You parallel the next group of three with a resistor with the previous group(s).  You only need one module for a car.  For the last group with only two LED's, you'll use a larger resistor, probably around 470 ohms to balance the light for the missing LED.

Would be great to see some photos of the lamps, the wiring, installed the cars, etc.  If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.  Might show us the way in the future.  Thx in advance.

I love that kind of detail work, there's the guy at York that does dining cars with place settings and candles, really cool!

Love the look of his dining cars. I bought a 80 ft. dining car kit (Walthers) about 6 months ago. I want to build it up and do the interior. Including candles like the guy at York. Whenever I have some spare time....?

Jay

Speak to the top lighting guy for trains in the world - Jack Pearce. His work is absolutely awesome. He has upgraded the lighting and interiors for several dining cars for me that include lit candles on the tables. If I get a chance later today or tomorrow, I will post a picture of one of them. He has also lit many of the vehicles on my layout. He is the gentleman John and Jay are referring to. He is also one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He and his wife Liz will be at the York Meet and have a booth in the Orange Hall. I am sure he will have one or two dining cars on display.

Pat

irish rifle posted:

Speak to the top lighting guy for trains in the world - Jack Pearce. His work is absolutely awesome. He has upgraded the lighting and interiors for several dining cars for me that include lit candles on the tables. If I get a chance later today or tomorrow, I will post a picture of one of them. He has also lit many of the vehicles on my layout. He is the gentleman John and Jay are referring to. He is also one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He and his wife Liz will be at the York Meet and have a booth in the Orange Hall. I am sure he will have one or two dining cars on display.

Pat

Does Jack Pearce have a website?

MikeH posted:

irish rifle posted:

Speak to the top lighting guy for trains in the world - Jack Pearce. His work is absolutely awesome. He has upgraded the lighting and interiors for several dining cars for me that include lit candles on the tables. If I get a chance later today or tomorrow, I will post a picture of one of them. He has also lit many of the vehicles on my layout. He is the gentleman John and Jay are referring to. He is also one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He and his wife Liz will be at the York Meet and have a booth in the Orange Hall. I am sure he will have one or two dining cars on display.

Pat

Does Jack Pearce have a website?

He does not.

Pat

TedW posted:

Would be great to see some photos of the lamps, the wiring, installed the cars, etc.  If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.  Might show us the way in the future.  Thx in advance.

Yes, photos would be great, if possible.  This sounds like a wonderful project.

Tomlinson Run Railroad

What table lamps are you using and where did you purchase them  ?  Thanks.  Sounds like something I would like to do.

Here are the Lamps that I bought. They are G-Guage, but they look great in the O Guage Dining cars. Found them on E bay. 

What gauge wire would I use for the common buss?  That is, after wiring three lamps,  together and all going on a common buss line to the board?  It has been a long time since I had to contemplate Electonic Theory?  Yikes, the cobwebs sure make it hard.  

Any size you like, probably the smaller the better.  For wiring passenger car lighting, I use #30 wire a lot of the time, plenty of capacity for LED lighting.

Those are cool.  Could they be painted for variety? Or tint the shade, maybe? 

True. I painted some of the bases Gold to go along with the decorations on the tables.  I learned that if I only put 10 lamps in each dining car, I can stagger them one on every other table, then on the other side the same thing only put the lamps. I works out that every space is filled only on opposite tables. Will send you a picture of the tables later on today. 

Here is the interior of the car with the lamps staggered.  

I love Jack Pierce.  He sells lighting replacement boards to go from incandescent to LED's.  Awesome!  They work great.  I purchased at York, one for all of my Illinois Central - City of Miami cars.  It dropped the amperage draw to next to nothing. The guy is a genius on lighting. 

A friend got a helicopter all decked out in lights.  He even put a motor in,  so the main prop moved.

I was going to have him do my Eastern Airlines DC 3.  But I never got around to bringing it to York.  I bet he would do bang up job.  The DC 3 is a Franklin Mint Model.  I even wanted him to put motors in the props. Maybe some time I will bring it to York and see what he can do.   I would love to have a couple of Strobes and interior passenger lighting as well as cockpit.  Landing lights and starboard and aft lighting.  Again, maybe some York, I will bring it.  

Enough of my rambling.  Jack, is a wonderful guy and his work is superb.  His wife is nice too.  

You are absolutely right about Jack Pierce  being a genius!  Over the years he has put lights in Cars, Trucks, Fire Engines, Ambulances, Wind Turbines, Police Vehicles & Helicopters!!!  The Main Rotor on my Helicopter revolves as well !!!  He sent me the Components & Flashing Light for the Wind Turbines & I installed them!!  I have over 30 Units he has done for me!’

Great Guy!!!

Fredstrains

Great, so how are you supposed to contact this guy?  Do we just need to be lucky enough to run into him at a train show?

MikeH posted:

Great, so how are you supposed to contact this guy?  Do we just need to be lucky enough to run into him at a train show?

Come to York, stroll down the aisles in the Orange Hall, you can't miss his booth.

My prior post contains two images of an MTH PRR dining car Jack Pearce lit for me.

Pat

I had Jack's phone number from a sheet he gave out at York, but misplaced it. Is he a member here? Someone going to York should put a bug in his ear.

Pat,

They look great. I wonder where he got the candles?

Are the candles actually leds of some kind?  I was thinking fiber optics might work out real well with the "stick" painted and the bare tip tapered.

 I have a bunch. I just never finished up the intended victim, the Jupiter II from Lost in Space.

I think Jack Pearce uses fiber for candles, at least some of them I saw at his booth appeared to be fiber based.

Back in 2013 - 14 my projects were the MTH passenger cars below are the links to the projects. Dinning car tables used fiber optics 1st one was candles second was with lamps.

Link 1 NYC cars

Link 2 PRR cars

Link 3 PRR Sleeper and Dinning car

Sorry had linked to the same page twice it is fixed now

ICRRE8 posted:

Here are the Lamps that I bought. They are G-Guage, but they look great in the O Guage Dining cars. Found them on E bay. 

But in O scale their 38" tall.          j

JohnActon posted:

ICRRE8 posted:

Here are the Lamps that I bought. They are G-Guage, but they look great in the O Guage Dining cars. Found them on E bay. 

But in O scale their 38" tall.          j

Those are for luxury seven course meals, so they will have plenty of burn time...

Ooops sorry I had linked to the same page twice in my post. They are fixed now.

NelsonW posted:

Ooops sorry I had linked to the same page twice in my post. They are fixed now.

Outstanding work!

briansilvermustang posted:

 

 

 

 

 

Now that’s a Major Award!!!!

Kit-bashing gone awry.          j

Kit-bashing at the Little House of Horrors.          j

Leg of Lamp.          j

It's not 38", anyway, only one foot.

John H posted:

It's not 38", anyway, only one foot.

The photo that ICRRE8 posted has a drawing showing the lamp is 20mm tall if that is not 38" in O scale it is not off by more than .5"     20 / 25.4  =  .7874  X  48  =  37.79"          j