Questions about LED lighting and windows on K-Line/Lionel 21 inch aluminum cars

Pick up the clear, I have used it many times. Just use a straight edge and sharp blade to cut. Use the glue in the pic I have include. It goes on white and dries crystal clear

You can get clear plastic, the thinner the better, and cut to fit. I used auto window tint from Auto Zone to make them tinted. They look awesome when the LED lights are on. I custom painted my fleet of K-Line Superliner as shown including the tinted windows.  There are different shades of tint you can choose from. This is 35% tint.

Re: mounting LED strips
Yes, you can stick them right on the ceiling ridge (K-line 21" Hi-level Coach).  Some have suggested adding some hot glue on the ends of the strips as extra insurance.

You will want to add an adjustable current limiter.  In this installation, I had to crank the current way down to 2.66ma per 3-LED section.  There were 10 sections  (30 LEDs) so the total current was 26.6ma for the car. (these are 12v LED strips).  You may want to estimate the total length of LED strips needed, and test that length right off the reel with your battery and with your power supply to assess the brightness.

Bob

For the LED strips look to Amazon 28v roll. You cut to size solder to the strip and pull the backing stick to room. Never had one come off, to regulation needed.

@ThatGuy posted:

For the LED strips look to Amazon 28v roll. You cut to size solder to the strip and pull the backing stick to room. Never had one come off, to regulation needed.

They're 24V strips.

With the bare strip, you don't get intensity adjustment or flicker resistance.

I haven't done this but was thinking of doing what you are talking about.  Found something like this at Walmart.  Since Menards is a forum sponsor I am including this link.  If they are like the ones I have they are powered by USB.  I would cut-off USB connector and wire to battery.  Neat thing is the remote allows you to dim remotely and change color.  I don't want actual colors, but allows you to change white color to different K values.

https://www.menards.com/main/l...07041795-c-14318.htm

Just a thought.

My write-up on converting the K-Line 18" cars to LED strip lighting can be found here:  K-Line Streamline Cars LED Strip Lighting Conversion - General | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)  21" cars are similar.  There are additional posts for the baggage, RPO, and observation cars.  The battery in the baggage car is an interesting idea, more reliable than capacitors for bridging gaps and such, as well as providing regulation for constant intensity.  Connecting tethers between car ends seems like an awful lot of work, though.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

They're 24V strips.

With the bare strip, you don't get intensity adjustment or flicker resistance.

The ones I use are 28 volt. If I need them dimmer drop a resistor in, as for flicker clean tracks and wheels takes care of that.

Thanks for all that replied with information and links.  Since I run 2 rail and straight DC I don't think the 24 or 28 V strips would work well in my application.  I'm going to stick with the 5V ones at least to start with.

The baggage car is in work but the plan is to use a full wave bridge and capacitor and diode OR that with the batteries.  The diode OR feeds an adjustable DC/DC buck converter to drop the voltage to 5V and possibly lower if the lights are too bright.  When the track voltage exceeds 7 volts, in addition to powering the lights it will also provide power to a trickle charger to recharge the batteries.

The cars are daisy chained with a polarized miniature 2 pin connector.  At this point I don't foresee switching the passenger cars in and out on this train so the tether won't present an issue.   I'm using the scale city designs vestibules and the connectors are tucked into those so you don't see them.

I'm going to cut thin plastic for the windows and will look into the tinting at Autozone.

Once I finish the first car I'll post a picture.

Thanks again and if anyone else has suggestions please post them.

When I upgrade a passenger car I just leave off the window strips.  They look good on the layout.

Carl

Tom D.; For a 21” car you will probably want from 27 to 30 leds. 5V strip led uses a separate resistor for each led; not a series of 3 leds with one resistor like 12V strip. This is a significant difference. So using 2.7 to 3 ma per led your total load per car could be from 75 to 90ma; not 25 to 30ma. That’s a total of up to 540ma for 6 cars. That’s a substantial battery load.

You will need an adjustable buck converter as you said to adjust the lighting output in the 3.5 to 4 volt range to get the light level to your liking. And something like a 4 pack of A-A batteries (6V) for supply. (You might get away with a 3 pack of batteries (4,5V) depending on your converter) How are you planning to regulate the battery charge rate when running on track power? What is typical track DC voltage when running? The  4 battery pack will need about 6.5V when charging.

Rod

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

They're 24V strips.

With the bare strip, you don't get intensity adjustment or flicker resistance.

BTW the originals I used are 24 v but the last 5 sets came as 28v…….

Odd value 28 volts, but I do see some.

@Rod Stewart posted:

Tom D.; For a 21” car you will probably want from 27 to 30 leds. 5V strip led uses a separate resistor for each led; not a series of 3 leds with one resistor like 12V strip. This is a significant difference. So using 2.7 to 3 ma per led your total load per car could be from 75 to 90ma; not 25 to 30ma. That’s a total of up to 540ma for 6 cars. That’s a substantial battery load.

You will need an adjustable buck converter as you said to adjust the lighting output in the 3.5 to 4 volt range to get the light level to your liking. And something like a 4 pack of A-A batteries (6V) for supply. (You might get away with a 3 pack of batteries (4,5V) depending on your converter) How are you planning to regulate the battery charge rate when running on track power? What is typical track DC voltage when running? The  4 battery pack will need about 6.5V when charging.

Rod

On my first test car I have 29 LEDs and I'm running them at 60 mA per strip.  I have a coach, two Pullmans, a diner and an observation in the train plus the baggage but it is very dimly illuminated.  So it's 5 cars for a total of 300 mA which I agree is a pretty decent load.  I'm using four 1.5 volt 2500 mA/hour batteries to power it.

My typical track voltage is 8 to 10 volts so I think that will be enough to charge the batteries when the train is moving.  In the baggage car I have wheel pick ups connected to a full wave bridge and capacitor.  That feeds the diode OR with the batteries and a 200 mA current source with voltage limit which was about 6.2 volts.  So if my track voltage is 7 volts or more the LEDs should run off track power.

The diode OR output feeds the adjustable buck converter and I was figuring 3.5 to 4 volts as you mentioned.

I have a few concerns, the biggest one is is voltage loss through the miniature connectors.  I'm hoping to test it pretty soon at least on the first couple cars.

Thank you for your help.

Tom D.; yah that 2ma per led must be quite dim. I run 12V lighting strips at about 3ma per led threesome; looks about right to me. Personal choice!

Your battery pack, is that 4 x D cells, or C cells? That’s a good load for a “baggage” car, good place to put it. For your tether cords you could likely use JST PH2 connectors, they will handle 300ma easy and they are easy to work with. I don’t think you will see much loss in a set of say 6 or 7 cars.

My battery backup lighting boards use a rechargeable 9V battery in each car for car lighting and the track power charges it while simultaneously lighting the leds. Same idea as your setup, but I use track AC and one per car instead of cars daisy chained. Flicker is non-existant and the car lighting extinguiishes about 10 to 20 seconds after power shutdown. Battery stays charged indefinitely and operation is seamless. No user intervention needed.

So we are on the same page, but slightly different approach! All good.

Rod

@Rod Stewart posted:

Tom D.; yah that 2ma per led must be quite dim. I run 12V lighting strips at about 3ma per led threesome; looks about right to me. Personal choice!

Your battery pack, is that 4 x D cells, or C cells? That’s a good load for a “baggage” car, good place to put it. For your tether cords you could likely use JST PH2 connectors, they will handle 300ma easy and they are easy to work with. I don’t think you will see much loss in a set of say 6 or 7 cars.

My battery backup lighting boards use a rechargeable 9V battery in each car for car lighting and the track power charges it while simultaneously lighting the leds. Same idea as your setup, but I use track AC and one per car instead of cars daisy chained. Flicker is non-existant and the car lighting extinguiishes about 10 to 20 seconds after power shutdown. Battery stays charged indefinitely and operation is seamless. No user intervention needed.

So we are on the same page, but slightly different approach! All good.

Rod

2mA is a starting point, and will likley be too low as you mention.  I expect I'll have to adjust the buck converter output higher when I test it with the first completed car.  Hopefully that's pretty soon.  I'm getting close.

I am using the JST PH2 connectors.

The baggage car houses 4 AA rechargeable NiMH batteries.  

I'll post pictures of the initial test.

Looking forward to seeing your test Tom!

Rod

FWIW, at a few hundred milliamps at most for the inter-car connections, you can use almost any of the small connectors without fear of voltage drop issues.

Still making adjustments to the lighting level; this video and the pictures are at approximately 3mA per LED.  The Frisco Baggage car has the batteries and the DC/DC buck converter set to 2.9 volts.  When the track voltage is greater than 6V, the buck converter runs off the track voltage.  The first car in the video is a Lionel Pullman that has it's own lighting, it is not powered from the baggage car.

Still a work in progress.

I had a lot of good comments on this so far so if you have suggestions or comments (good or bad) please post them.

I like your chosen level of lighting.  It is dimmer than most models we see, but I think it is much more true to prototype.  

Bob

Tom, nice work. That 3ma looks about right to my eye; pretty close to the lighting level I use!

Rod