LED passenger car lighting

Here is one solution, if you don't mind a little soldering.

Here is another, if you can match your bulb.

HEY John,                                                                                                     Thanks for the rapid response.                                            If you have used the  " one solution " , is there a not too complicated soldering job to the boards needed.  I have experience soldering wires together or to tracks but I've never tried anything with boards .

If it is something I think I can get done what kind of LEDs would you suggest ?    I looked over the bulbs in " Here is another "  and I'm  about as confused as any novice can be.

Is ' Gunrunnerjohn associated with Hennings?

Some of the cabooses I have do have LEDs for marker lights I think.  The Railking passenger cars just have two plug in incandescents each.

John is indeed associated with Hennings, as JW&A. The soldering involves attaching the track pickup wires to the "AC in" holes on the board and  wires to the light strip on DC out. He also has a no soldering kit that includes the light strips. There are thousands of strip light rolls on the favorite site; look for 3528 warm white non waterproof 12v strip light.

There may not be led replacement bulbs for the push in style; I have replaced all mine with the strips.

There are many threads on doing passenger car lighting with the strips and various regulator solutions, both home-rolled and off-the-shelf solutions.  I came up with the LED lighting regulator board to make the job of LED lighting a passenger car easy.

 LED Lighting Regulator

The module gives you DCS compatibility, flicker free operation, adjustable intensity, and of course, low power operation.  You can get 5 meter reels of LED's in amber, warm white, or bright white, for $3-4 from a host of places.  One reel will do eleven 18" passenger cars or ten 21" passenger cars.  Obviously, shorter cars work as well, you just get more cars from one reel of LED's.

As mentioned, I also packaged a solder-free kit, obviously it costs more for each car as I had to do the packaging.

 Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit

For anyone that can do basic soldering, the modules are a much more cost effective solution.

John - can I use the module on 18V DC from LionChief walwarts?  

What's the dimensions on the module?  I couldn't find it on the site.

The board is 1 1/16" by 1/2". by 3/4" high. You can bend a tab to get the height to about 5/8". I have hidden them in the vestibule or bathroom of cars.

OK  GRJ , 

If I would get 3 of your lighting kits I would be able to get at least 6 passenger cars lit for now.  I could get the other ones done later. 

The small size of your modules seem like this is the most efficient system to get into the small areas of these cars using track power.

How do I order these from you ?

Old Newbie posted:

John - can I use the module on 18V DC from LionChief walwarts?  

Sure, it runs on AC or DC up to around 22 volts.

Dallas Joseph posted:

OK  GRJ , 

If I would get 3 of your lighting kits I would be able to get at least 6 passenger cars lit for now.  I could get the other ones done later. 

The small size of your modules seem like this is the most efficient system to get into the small areas of these cars using track power.

How do I order these from you ?

 JWA Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit

John H posted:

The board is 1 1/16" by 1/2". by 3/4" high. You can bend a tab to get the height to about 5/8". I have hidden them in the vestibule or bathroom of cars.

Most of the time, I stick it on the roof of the car with the tab bent over.  Unless you hold the car upside down, you can't see it.  If there is a location like vestibule or bathroom with no windows, I put it there.

Are there bathrooms with windows?

You bet, lots of my passenger cars have a window in the bathrooms.

Hey JH, 

There are indeed windows in the bathrooms.     With a little playing around with some translucent wax paper or similar product in the bathroom windows , I think it would only be appropriate to have the shades pulled down.  🤓🤤

These modules with LED lighting are the best method to light your cars available!! There is literally no electrical draw for LEDs, plus they look so much better--- no comparison in my opinion!! John's modules are very easy to install, plus they are straight forward to use. 

HEY  Jeff and JH and GJR

Thank you very much for the positive reinforcement  for my somewhat confused direction .....especially with this issue.

I just called Hennings and melted my plastic a wee bit for three LED kits to travel to central Pa.  🏍

The use of Scotch Brand Magic Mending tape is an easy way to produce a frosted window, or otherwise defuse the light.

Eric 

Here's a video of my cars- I custom painted these K-Line Superliners in Phase VI with all LED lighting and tinted windows- I used auto tint cling film from an auto parts store to tint these at 40%. I am very pleased with using LEDs for sure.. and while you have the cars apart, add some additional passengers-

A beautiful train, Jeff.

LED strips are so much better than bulbs:  no flicker; no hot spots; long-life; and virtually zero current load, especially compared to OEM PW trains which are most of my conversions.

What are people using to mount the board to roof?  I was thinking a few dabs of clear silicone, something removable.

thx, Don

I used contact cement to mount them-- I tried other things but nothing else was working correctly- it works perfect! Also use it to attach the LED strips to the roof- 

I stick them with the adhesive backing, then I use a few spots of CA Adhesive to make sure they don't come loose.  I haven't had a problem with any of them.

One caution, you have to make sure you're well ventilated using CA Adhesive and it's totally dry before closing up the cars so you don't fog the windows.  As long as I follow my simple rules, it's worked out well.

JEFF ,                                                                                                                 I too have used a contact like cement.    From Walthers and many others (  Hobbylinc  etc.,, )  it's called GOO  ( UPC - 16374 - 00185 ). It sometimes gets  a little stringy but it's great at setting pieces in place.                                  As far as your other post Jeff about the people being installed before closing the car up........WELL.....I've felt that the cars  with a dozen or so  passeangers looked realistic.       Mine were filled like the collegiate were heading to Spring Break.  I have to keep the revenue at a high level for THIS RR.

GRJ ,                                                                                                                   Love that  CA Adhesive.  I've used a  Super Thin type for some porous surfaces that are hard to get a good bond with . I've done refurbishing on plaster of Paris church statues when the damaged surface of the plaster is exposed and it's impossible to get paint to stick to it. After letting some CA soak in I reapply and then the pieces can be bonded or the surface is ready for repainting.  Fixed everything from flake board furniture hinge areas  to permanently bonding wooden chair legs in this manner.

I definitely hear your advice about ventilation though   GRJ.  If you ever use the Super Thin , be careful too .......that stuff flows faster than water.                    

I actually keep both the true liquid and the gel CA on hand.  I have Loctite 380 Black Max as well, it's great for filling gaps, and it dries black.  It's really strong, I use that occasionally for brass repairs where soldering would mean I'd have to do some painting.  The Black Max blends right in and really grips.

I have Walther's Goo, but I find it's a bit too difficult to control for fine work, so I don't use it nearly as often as I might otherwise.

Dmestan, 

        Using the last few posts should help you with the glue.

As far as the silicone being used , I'm not so sure.     

When working with motorcycle and auto circuits I was always told to keep most silicone glues away from the wiring .  Not sure if it had anything to do with corrosion with that ammonia smelling carrier or not.

Have fun with the lighting.😉

OH  BOY  JOHN ,                                                                                        at one time I remember asking you if you were an MIT Grad .  And now you sound like quite the adhesive specialist.  This hobby sure does encompass a very large scientific expertise base.  Pretty much like running a real railroad I guess , with less area involved . (  ?  )

Always stay well ventilated of course , we want to keep you around for a long time .  🗿    🗿  🗿 🗿🗿🗿

Just a guy that has tried a lot of adhesives and settled on the ones that work for me.

GRJ ,                                                                                                               Am I right in guessing that the AC wire connections on the solderless module for the passenger cars doesn't need to have a designated positive or ground hook up from the track ?   🤔

Correct, they have no polarity.  Obviously, the DC outputs do have polarity.  Note that there is no "common ground" between the AC and DC, so anything wired on the DC side must not be grounded to the chassis.  This isn't really a problem, but just something to be aware of.

Thank you John..............now I'll  get to work.

This module setup is really great.   It will easily fit into  the bathroom area after I get the scotch tape on the window.

I tried to make them small and still have all the features I was after.

 I have used replacement LED bulbs and just plugged them in to my 12VAC outside landscape lighting.  After 5 years they are still burning brightly without a single failure. These direct plug in LED lights may work on the passenger cars but not sure if they could handle the voltage spikes.  I'll have to try them and if they are too bright a bit of amber bulb dye applied gives them a golden glow.

HEY  JOHN ,                                                                                                  really nice LED system to work with.                                  I have the inexpensive Railking Pennsy Madison cars if you know what they are like   , with the two incandescent bulb holders. 

I actually soldered the AC wires to the car system instead of using those handy connectors , put the the module  in the  bathroom where I had a seated lady in a chair  ( not the throne ) .  Plenty of room .

I used the two bulb holders to hold a board 1/8 " × 3/16 " which was about two inches less than the interior of the car.  I then lightly coated the bottom and top of that board with that GOO.  I removed the paper on the adhesive backing and applied the LED strip . The nice thing I was able to do was to position one of the LEDs in each of the rear red marker light body holes .  The lights were the old fashion caboose lights like I have on some of the inexpensive Lionel cabooses  which I had painted to look a little better .  The incandescent lighting did little to show that there was any light in those.  This light system made it very easy to finally get to see some light from the markers.    I had lowered the bodies on the trucks to look a little better , so now you can see the tail of the train in the dark.   Progress .

I can do 5 more cars from the 3 kits I received.  I'll have to order enough as time goes by for the other 8 cars .

What a nice efficient way to install an LED up grade. 

KUDOS  BIG  JOHN 👍       THANKS

Hey Dennis,                                                                                               i like doing the amber dye.   I have a little 0-6-0 RAILKING  switcher that I did that to on the head light and tender rear light.  With a couple of coats it gave a nice look to the interior of the cab.

I didn't use the small  regulator screw on GRJ's LED module.  I left it alone and the light is fairly bright but I did use the whole strip of LEDs which I believe can be used for a larger passenger car.  Mine are the inexpensive ,shorter RK Madison's. 

The light is a brighter white but it really works out well with all the other types and colors on the layout. It sort of says  "  HEY, I'm a passenger car full of people not a building or rail signal  "   I don't know,  it just looks OK to me.

I couldn't give any info on spikes from the rail causing problems on the passenger cars .  The locomotive pieces I have are almost all Proto3 with LED lighting and I haven't  had any issues with that after about 3 years running them.

Sounds like you are having a ball with your rail experiences. Mine is just a private , one room deal.

Enjoy.

Glad they're working out for you.  If you're OK with soldering, consider buying the regulators and a reel of LED's, it's about half the price to do the cars.

I did see the less expensive modules on the site but I didn't see the same light strip nor the correct size wire to do the install to and from the module.

You can get reels of 12V LED lights on Amazon or ebay.  I get about 16 feet on Amazon for about $10.  John has a less expensive source.  I use leftover wire that came with DZ-1000 switch machines.

The wire can be, quite literally, any size.  I frequently use #30 wire-wrap wire to wire LED lighting, it's easy to hide and is more than sufficient to carry 30-40 milliamps of current.  The 5 meter LED strips can be had in any color temperature, typically for less than $5.

John - Your complete kit with LED strip is sold out at Henning's Trains.  I bought the last one Saturday night, it shipped today - great service!  I bought 2 regulators only, plan to use the complete kit as a pattern.  

I can fix the out of stock situation.