NEW Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit & LED Regulator

I am working on a little project to make myself a Christmas Tree Lot "accessory".  My goal is that it would operate using the fixed 14VAC off a Z1000 block and is controlled by my DCS AIU.  So it would operate like any other Lionel or MTH simple accessory.  I have bought this string of LED's from Evan Design,

http://www.modeltrainsoftware....ed-light-string.html

which operates on 3VDC and I think draws about an amp or less.  I was looking at building my own small regulator board but if this LEDCCLR would do the job, all the better.

John, can you tell me if your device would be a fit for my application?

Thanks very much,

Bill

Per the Evans website they sell a 3V DC, 1 Amp adapter for use with the LED string which they say runs up to 50 LEDs.  This suggests 20 mA (0.02 Amp) per LED.   If you bought the 12-LED string, that's about 240 mA...or the 26-LED string, that's about 520 mA.

If you were considering building a regulator yourself I assume soldering and working with small components is in your comfort zone...and you also have a voltmeter.  That said, I'd take a look at an eBay voltage regulator module whether it be one that goes AC-to-DC, or one that is DC-to-DC to which you add a diode(s) to perform AC-to-DC conversion.  Here's thread from earlier today which shows the general idea (about $3 all-in, free-shipping from Asia).

https://ogrforum.com/t...26#57742617953569326

In general you can get assembled voltage converter modules that will do exactly what you want for much less than you can buy the individual components!  If you don't "do" eBay, the  components/modules can be purchased from US suppliers.

NH Bill posted:

John, can you tell me if your device would be a fit for my application?

From the description, I'd say my lighting regulator isn't a good fit.  What you need is a higher current solution, all the lights appear to be in parallel if they take 3V.  I don't think a battery is all that good a choice either, I suspect a couple of AA cells won't last long with that load.  I think Stan is on the right track, the AC-DC module would do the trick.

Thanks Stan and John.  I'm going to follow up on these suggestions.  The lumber jack thread was an informative read.  Sounds like I should be able to find something on Ebay that does the trick.  Thanks again, Bill.

Here's a couple other OGR threads showing additional photos/options on using these insanely (low) priced eBay modules to generate 3V DC.  The 2nd thread is even for your Evans Christmas lights though he's starting from a DC supply.

https://ogrforum.com/t...age-ac-dc-conversion

https://ogrforum.com/topic/christmas-lights

There are many configurations or variants of these modules.  So if in the back of your mind you're planning to expand your DC lighting, mate your tree farm with an animated Santa's village, or power other accessories requiring DC...  plan twice, solder once!

Hello all... just got a set of these led lights and I'm confused on how these solderless bean connectors work. I stripped the wires but how do I get them to stay in place in the bean connector? 

Thanks!

Stuff the stripped wires into the bean connector and then crush it with a pair of pliers, job done.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Stuff the stripped wires into the bean connector and then crush it with a pair of pliers, job done.

Saweet!!!! Thanks for the super fast reply!

Just wondering; so if I am reading correctly the LED constant current lighting regulator will do up to 45 ma??

So if I were wanting to light the roll of LED  lights shown in the photo below think it is a 5 meter long roll, according to what is shown on the power pack I am using about a half amp at 9 volts which is more then enough light for the cars less might be better. And at 12 volts lights are blinding! uses almost 1.5 amps?

These LED light strips are fairly cheap for a role you just have to cut to length required and solder the contacts. 

So LED constant current lighting regulator comes as a 2 pack at the top of the this post. Is it correct especially at 9 volts or less that each regulator I would be within the range to light half of the roll of the LED lights as pictured?

I run trains for long periods at several shows each year and my preference would be to have 1 car with pickup rollers with one LED regulator installed and jumper plugs between the other passenger cars to distribute the regulated power between cars. This saves the extra drag on the 3rd rail pickup rollers and wear on the rollers when running all day for a weekend.  I do not need many lights per car to light up the passengers. So perhaps one regulator per train if not to long?

Your roll looks longer than 1 meter.  How many sections of 3 LEDs would each car have? Is each section 5 cm (distance between scissor cut symbols)?

Yes think you are right I did not roll it all out perhaps 5 meters been a while since I picked it up. yes 5 cm between cuts.

OK.  So let's say it's 5m.  Then since each section of 3-LEDs is 5cm you have 100 sections (300 total LEDs).

At 12V DC you are drawing about 1.5 Amps or 0.015 Amps (15 mA) per section.

At 9V DC you are drawing about 0.5 Amps or about 0.005 Amps (5 mA) per section.

The constant-current regulator board can deliver 45 mA MAX.  If you are saying 5 mA per section is bright enough, the board can drive 9 sections (27 LEDs) or 45 cm of lighting strip if each section is 5 cm.  So depending on how long each car is, you can do the math so to speak... 

It's been my experience that I get nice lighting intensity of 18" cars with about 25ma from the regulator module.  If that worked out for you, you could do two cars with one module.  I don't see you doing 5 meters of LED strip with one module, I tried it and the individual LED's are very dim.

kj356 posted:

J...So LED constant current lighting regulator comes as a 2 pack at the top of the this post. Is it correct especially at 9 volts or less that each regulator I would be within the range to light half of the roll of the LED lights as pictured?

So if you are now asking about 2.5 meters, that's 50 sections.  As your experiment showed, at 9V each section is drawing about 5 mA.  50 sections would be 250 mA.   That's several times the 45 mA MAX output of the regulator module.

I can see the benefits of your idea but if you want to go further I suggest looking into another regulator.  It won't be plug-and-play like the constant-current module but it sounds like wiring, soldering and such are within your comfort zone.  There have been several lighting threads about using low-cost $1 voltage regulator modules from eBay plus a few loose parts like a bridge rectifier, capacitor, and DCS inductor (if needed).   There are reasons the voltage-regulator approach (vs. current-regulator) might be better suited for your application with multiple cars.  So as not to hijack the theme of this thread, you might want to start a new thread. 

Very old thread, sorry if this should go somewhere else instead of reviving it:

I have the kits that came in today from Henning’s. My cars all have two rollers, can I just solder a connection from the second roller to the power connection in the kit? (Directions say to pick an end of the car for connection to track power). I want to have power from both locations for travel over switches etc.

The two rollers should be connected together.  If not, that's the first step, then just connect that power to the module.

Thanks a lot! Makes sense!

Sorry, one more thing. In hindsight, I really like the color of the LEDs on the Polar Express boards, but definitely want to add the benefit of the better capacitor from the kits.

1. Are these available separately or recommended parts?

2. Are you familiar with the PE circuit board? I’m assuming they’re pretty generic… what’s the best way to solder directly to the installed board? Or is this not that simple? Definitely still learning the electronics side of this. Sorry! Thanks for the help!

Since I don't know what is on the PE lighting board, I can't really offer any concrete suggestion.

I have used bright white, warm white, amber, and yellow LED strips for various installations with my regulators, surely one of them will do the trick here.

Hoping there’s a way to use the board or capacitor from the lighting kits that I got and maintain the current PE boards/lights.

As always, appreciate all the help and expertise!

First off, if you want to use the existing LED bars, why not use them as they were designed, they already take track voltage?  As far as the pictures, there's no way I can make a recommendation without knowing exactly how the circuit is designed, however the pictures don't tell me that.  I see a capacitor, presumably to reduce flicker, what is it they don't do that you would like?

The PE’s capacitors seem to be near useless, and the ones in the kits are amazing. Just hoping to get the performance of the kit and still retain the brightness/color of the original board. Wasn’t sure if there was an easy way to mate the two or if it’s better to hunt down a different LED strip for the kit that is closer to the warm color.

You can get the 12V strips in a variety of colors.  If you really want to graft that strip to the regulator, you can sent one of them to me and I can see if that's easily possible.  Send me an email to my profile address and we'll arrange something if that's the way you want to go.