Lionel slide-base lamps

You might tin (solder) the leads of the lamp (after it is in the faulty base) to increase the contact pressure.

cjack posted:

You might tin (solder) the leads of the lamp (after it is in the faulty base) to increase the contact pressure.

That's a good idea.

Many times Lionel's manufactures' hot glue the bulb and base to the socket. I have found the black base lamps are looser than the older white base bulbs. Different bulb manufactures. The black base are slightly smaller the white ones.

So, all the slide based lamps are "supposed" to be physically interchangeable? 

I think some of the worst ones are the floodlight towers, lots of times even if they stay put there is almost no electrical contact.

When I was purchasing bulbs in bulk, I would just buy the bare bulbs and reuse the original plastic bases.

Have you thought about changing to LEDs? I changed my floodlight tower to LEDs using the old bases from the original bulbs. I am not planning on relamping those ever again, they should outlast me by a quite a long time.

The LEDs had small enough leads that they fit right in the old bases and provided a good tight fit in the socket. So far (a couple of years) they have worked great. Of course you have to change the power source. I am sure you already knew that, but others may not.

rtr12 posted:

Have you thought about changing to LEDs? I changed my floodlight tower to LEDs using the old bases from the original bulbs. I am not planning on relamping those ever again, they should outlast me by a quite a long time.

The LEDs had small enough leads that they fit right in the old bases and provided a good tight fit in the socket. So far (a couple of years) they have worked great. Of course you have to change the power source. I am sure you already knew that, but others may not.

In the specific case of the floodlight towers I have actually purchased the LEDs to do as you suggest, but haven't done it yet. Yesterday, however, I had a couple slide-base lamps burn out in illuminated cabooses. The whole thing is designed to work with the edgewise light pattern you get from an incandescent and it would take a lot of rework to duplicate the effect with an LED. All I wanted to do was replace the bulb. I did install diodes so the lamps will better tolerate the 18v constant track supply.

Just bugs me when "interchangeable" parts aren't.

Yes, a caboose is a different animal. I have a couple from MTH that I have not yet looked at, but have heard may have similar lights to these. Not sure what I will do there either, but they are in the plans to convert to LEDs someday? Maybe one of GRJ's passenger car lighting boards? 

You should be good with the floodlight LEDs. My floodlight is Lionel. My LED leads were definitely larger than the old bulbs wires, but I got them in there alright with a little finesse. Just be careful and they should work fine (but with a little tighter fit in the socket). 

I understand your frustration about the 'direct replacement' parts. Seems almost everything is somehow slightly different these days.

rtr12 posted:

You should be good with the floodlight LEDs. My floodlight is Lionel. My LED leads were definitely larger than the old bulbs wires, but I got them in there alright with a little finesse. Just be careful and they should work fine (but with a little tighter fit in the socket). 

 

Just out of curiosity, when you did the floodlight tower, did you put all the LEDs in parallel like the original bulbs? My towers have two U-shaped metal strips that serve as contacts for the lamps. I was thinking about pulling those out and wiring the LEDs in two series groups of four each.

Or were your towers wired differently?

I only have the 2 bulb models scattered about the yard. I think the bulbs are the same as the larger ones. I just looked them up and Lionel calls them yard lights. I probably should have looked before calling them flood lights. They look just like the larger ones, but have only 2 bulbs instead of the 8 like you have. I believe they were originally wired in parallel and I left them the same when I changed them. I used a 7805 regulator (had some already) in a typical application circuit from the data sheet or from the internet somewhere. 

If you can get to the internal wiring to change it (and it sounds like you can with the U shaped metal strips) I don't see a problem with what you are planning. I can't get to mine, but there are only two lights in each item anyway. You are way ahead of me in the electronics area though and know the ins and outs of all this stuff. I try to keep up with some of the easier stuff I see here on the forum posted by you, GRJ, Stan, Dale H, Dale M and others and I struggle with that at times. You all get into stuff that's way over my head, but I enjoy trying to follow along anyway, even though I don't understand it all.