Does anyone have an idea on how to wire an LED so that it randomly flickers - like someone watching TV with the lights off? Or a fireplace? Thanks in advance!
-John
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That would be tough to do. You will have to find something to trip the power somewhere enough, fast enough to stay ahead of the LED's natural speed.
My thought would be a old fashioned voltage wasting throttle if you can find one and adjust it until the LED barely functions.
Good luck!
Evan Designs has a random flashing LED that resembles an arc
welder
It might work
http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/ledlights1.html
Drop into a nearby Dollar store. I bought three flickering battery power tea lights for $1. They have a flickering LED LED, as well as a new CR2032 battery and the little switch is the exact match for the Lionel switches on most of their locomotives. Can't beat the price. I'm using the LED's for flickering firebox glow on the locomotives that just have a steady bulb in there, looks great! 
I can always use more CR2032 batteries, and the switches are in my junk box for upgrades and replacements.
Good post John. I have seen them from time to time and never thought of using them.
Ron
I've never seen the components anywhere near as cheap. I plan on stopping in next time I go by and getting some more.
When they were $1 each at Dollar Tree, I got one and took it apart. There's a photo and description of the dis-assembled unit on the JCS O-gauge archive here. If you want to replace the supplied LED (IIRC it was yellow) with a different color (e.g., white, blue) that might require more volts than a CR2032 can supply, or if you want to power it from track or accessory voltage this is the place to discuss how.
Back in the day, the standard way to get a flickering light was to drive a bulb with the speaker output of a transistor radio tuned to a talk-radio station. I suppose you could drive an LED this way, but with the price of flickering tea lights, it's hard to imagine why. I think I've seen them at Michaels craft store (don't forget the 40% off coupon from the Sunday paper!) but I don't think you can beat 3/$1.
I had this in my records but have never tried one.
http://www.enginehouseservices...ce-_-NGINEERING.html
Ron, the newbie.
Thanks! I'll pick up the tea lights and play with them some. Supplying 3V DC isn't a problem, although figuring out how to change the LED might be. :-)
-John
Most of the Lionel firebox glow bulbs are real incandescent bulbs in the older TMCC locomotives. You'll probably want a diode and a resistor for those. I wouldn't worry about the flickering from track connections, it just adds to the random flicker. 
Berkshire Junction has a campfire circuit board. What they don't advertise is that the board actually has 3 random outputs. They only sell it with one LED connected. If your application has room you can hook up red, yellow and orange LEDs.
