MTH RK buildings with 12 volt LED strips (and LEDs)

I have converted several more MTH buildings now to LEDs. The Chinese restaurant was done by swapping the bulbs out to individual LEDs and adding the control board to lower the power to DC approx. 3 volts.

I just did the Susie Q hat building with 12 volt LED strips. Using the board I can vary the voltage and the brightness to what I desire.

I thought there maybe someone looking at this with questions. None are posted. I will share what I did anyways for the future.

Here's the MTH Bus terminal building as a theater. It had just a few regular bulbs and the sign which I did not touch. The sign is just fed directly still and the rest is driven of the new board.

Joe, I just found this thread.  Good stuff and thanks for explaining your "how to".  I've added some LEDs (Evan Designs) to buildings but not replaced any as you have.

for some reason, some of these old single LEDs I have turn blue? I tested them and they were all warm white. I installed them, and one turned blue?

I also put them in the Chinese restaurant and the MTH train store buildings and a few of them were blue too. I had thrown these aside years ago after buying them. They were supposed to be super bright and warm white. Later versions from a different supplier were much better. I used them here to get some use out of them.

I've never heard of LED's changing colors like that, that's a new one on me!  I've used a ton of LED's over the years, and I've never had any change colors.

You've been pretty busy, Joe. Dave O'Connor switched most of our buildings over to LED strips some time ago. The buildings were drawing a lot of power, plus we'd lose bulbs since the buildings are lit constantly when the layout's on. The animated buildings were left alone. The LED's are brighter, draw a lot less power and don't generate heat. Winner overall.

I think the "blue" LED's may have been coated to cancel out that blue-white tint the "white" LED's get. If that coating breaks down the regular color would come through.

Hi, interested in where to get the boards, and if there is a tutorial on youtube of somewhere to go step by step....I am not electrically inclined but i will try stuff... also, anyone know where MTH got there Christmas lights they installed on there boxcars etc.

@bluedragon posted:

Hi, interested in where to get the boards, and if there is a tutorial on youtube of somewhere to go step by step....I am not electrically inclined but i will try stuff... also, anyone know where MTH got there Christmas lights they installed on there boxcars etc.

The boards come from ebay. They are DC to DC boards so I had to add the bridge rectifier. I use this same set-up in my passenger cars and that's what they were purchased for.

You can get AC to DC boards to make it easier for you. Make sure you turn the output power down and measure it before connecting to your LED lights!

Matt, I swapped the first building over and it took a little while. I did the next three buildings in the same amount of time. I got bored with football, and did one more. Today, I said what's left. The theater that I skipped over. So that went to the bench.

The theater, the Chinese restaurant, and the MTH train store, had boards inside for blinking lights. So I simply kept those boards as they were wired, and add my system to it. On the theater, I tried the sign on the output of my board and it did not light. So I rewired and moved it back to direct power. The wires inside look confusing because of that move.

I ran into these bluish LEDs years ago. I installed them into G scale engines and some had changed color. So they went into the pile until now. As I wired them, one changed in my hands! ???

I'd think you'd have to work to get them to do that!