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This was discussed previously, and I figured I'd take a stab at making a small lighting controller for passenger car LED lighting.

 

The module features an adjustable constant current source from around 5ma to around 45ma.  This will allow you to vary the lighting in a typical 15" to 21" passenger car from very low to practically sunlight using the 12V LED self-adhesive strips.  There is a small pot to adjust the current.  The module also has a 22uh choke for DCS compatibility.

 

The size is 1" x 1/2" and about 1" high with the capacitor.  The capacitor can be mounted to lay flat to the side of the module if that suits the installation better.

 

 

P1030292

P1030293

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Originally Posted by rex desilets:

Total electronical ignoramus here.

If I wanted to use DC (either from track or battery) how would you modify this device?

John answered this a few posts above:

 

"The board will take AC or DC up to around 20 volts and work properly.  It uses a bridge rectifier on the input, so polarity reversals will not affect it's output."

I would have tried a Super-Chuffer board, but my layout is all modern diesels, no steam. I am surprised you didn't get much interest though. 

 

This is the off season too, might be a lot more interest this fall/winter? Even the OGR forum is pretty quiet the last few weeks, not near the number of postings as there was just a few weeks ago.

 

It also seems to me like there are many more questions about LED lighting around here (you probably know better than I do, as you always end up trying to help most of the folks with the questions).

 

I don't have any passenger stuff either, all freight, but I bet I could find a place or two or three for some lighting boards.

Originally Posted by hmb:
Originally Posted by rex desilets:

Total electronical ignoramus here.

If I wanted to use DC (either from track or battery) how would you modify this device?

John answered this a few posts above:

 

"The board will take AC or DC up to around 20 volts and work properly.  It uses a bridge rectifier on the input, so polarity reversals will not affect it's output."

By DC do you mean command-control with 16-18V DC on the track?

 

If you mean conventional DC control I don't think there's enough track voltage to drive the 12V LED strips.  Even with battery operation you'd need, say, 15V or more which may be inconvenient if you already have your electrics in-place.  If such is the case, I suggest modifying the LED strips to operate at a lower voltage.  The standard strips have 3 LEDs per 2 inch section.  You can quickly modify the strip so there's 2 LEDs per 2 inches or even 1 LED per 2 inches.  That would lower the strip voltage requirement to 9V and 6V respectively.  GRJ's circuit should operate just fine providing adjustable brightness AND handling the DC polarity reversals for direction change.  There are some considerations that should be discussed if this is indeed what you mean by DC operation.

 

Here's a re-cycled photo from another thread showing LED strips running with 1 LED per 2" section.   I was showing methods to bypass or remove LEDs which lowers the operating voltage of the LED strips.  Your mileage may vary but IMO even with only 1 LED per 2" section you can achieve fairly uniform-smooth lighting in a passenger car.  Note that while this thread is focusing on the electronics, the real star of the show are these LED strips.  There's nothing magical about having 3 LEDs per 2" section!

 

one-led

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I'll be proceeding cautiously on spending a lot of money to bring this out, the sales of my last project were somewhat disappointing, and I though there was a lot of enthusiasm for that one as well.

John, I will be buying some, just have to wait a bit until I address some other stuff previously committed to before hand.

I'd buy them for each of my cars and cabooses, as long as they work for conventional and command.  Can you also them to add LED headlights and marker lamps to locomotives?

 

As for your chuffer board, I plan on buying some, but I need to get some TMCC conversion done first and even before that I need to get a work area together.

While these will work for almost any environment, there is a basic restriction.  The input voltage has to be a couple of volts higher than the voltage required by the LED's at the output.  If you have a single white LED, or even two or three in parallel, the circuit will work with as little as 4-5 volts AC on the input.  For the LED strips that typically require around 10 volts for the level I normally run them at, you'll need 8-9 volts AC on the input in order to light the LED's.

Originally Posted by PSU1980:

Laidoffick,

 

Been following your videos, do you have the plan for your layout that you could share?

 

PSU1980 you don't have an email address in your profile. You can see the track plan in the build thread, half way down Page 1....

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...sary-hd-video?page=1

 

If you have any questions, please email me directly, as we don't want to Hi-Jack GRJ's thread on his new lighting circuit

 

Sorry John

Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
If you have a single white LED, or even two or three in parallel, the circuit will work with as little as 4-5 volts AC on the input.

A bit of nit-picking but to your earlier point about dissipation, if you have 3 parallel whites set at 45mA (max) or 15mA each, wouldn't the drop to ~3V tax the regulator?  As you know for chopped-sine power supplies the voltage available to charge up the cap before the regulator is pushing 20V even a low track voltages.

For the LED strips that typically require around 10 volts for the level I normally run them at, you'll need 8-9 volts AC on the input in order to light the LED's.

Reminds me of that discussion about how certain Lionel smoke units work "better" with chopped-sine supplies than the pure-sine supplies.  I think you have a similar situation here where the peak voltage from chopped-sine supplies would provide the extra voltage to run the 12V LED strips at a lower track voltage than a pure-sine supplies.

You're right about power dissipation, I was only suggesting that if the input voltage was too low to support the series connection.  Like you say, to minimize the power dissipation, it's best to keep the input/output voltage differential as low as possible.

 

At low currents, you're right again, the peak voltage of the AC waveform does charge the cap up to more than the RMS value.

 

Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
Would have loved buying a few of these units, John, but problems I have is my tmcc conversions have puffer smoke units while those fewe fan driven steamers of mine are either Lionel conventional or of MTH PS units.

That is the Super-Chuffer, it was posted in several areas.  There was a lot of interest in the threads, just not a lot of actual sales.

 

New SUPER-CHUFFER, Smoke & Lighting Board

 

My New Super Chuffer Board Demo

 

 

Super Chuffer Board

 

GRJ,

You, like Lee never stop amazing me with your forward thinking.  I have actually been loading a shopping cart at mouser to get moving on a few locomotives that need LEDs.  As I'm medicated (legally, due to chronic pain syndrome), concentration and hand to eye coordination has gone right out the window.

Your board would help me in a big way and clear @ 6 engines off of my work bench.  I would be more then comfortable pre-ordering at least 10 boards (+ shipping) from you whenever you think you are close to moving forward on this.  Once the locomotives are done, I would need a couple dozen more for passenger cars also.  If you do pre-orders and fall short, I'd add to my order.

As often as I've read threads on LED lighting, I know there are many forum members that would probably be interested enough to pre-order as well.   You've done the difficult part, the least we could do to show our appreciation and support is by helping you get this financed.  There is no reason for you to take a hit, let alone two hits just because you are trying to be helpful.

Just my 2-3 cents.

Thanx again for looking out for us, I truly appreciate your time and effort very much.

Richard 

Yes, I'd like to see this too! Especially how the larger size configured board will fit a MTH Railking 60' Baby Madison coach (semi-scale cars from a 30-2591A set with full interiors populated with seated figures and also MTH Premiere Woodsided passenger cars with full interiors and people.)
 
Originally Posted by Volphin:

John, do you have any images of these boards test fitted into passenger cars?

 

 

I'm still working to get them to that price point.  On the bright side, I think I've found a Chinese board house that will help, pricing wise, but I have to order 500 boards!   I'm not sure I'm ready to make that large a committment.

 

Trying to actually make quantities is harder than I had imagined.  Turns out the designing part is the easy part!

 

Yikes, 500 is a LOT! I understand your thoughts about ordering that many. Not sure I have seen that many posts about the subject. On the brighter side, I think a lot of folks have multiple passenger cars. 

 

Years ago when I was young and ambitious I had an idea for something that required some brass parts. Same kind of deal, only I think it was like 10,000 before the price came down enough to try and make a go of it. Anyway the cost was more than I had to my name at the time. Would have had to sell the house, car and cat. I chickened out.

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