PS3 upgrade (Diesel Kit) Subway car

Don't subways have more than one car?  How does it control the interior lights of the other cars?  It seems the same mechanism/circuit can be used to add more lights to the car with the PS3 board.

I'd probably consider a simple electronic circuit to operate the additional lights.  I'm not sure if there is any control of interior lights on the non-powered cars, the older sets don't have them.  I haven't seen the PS/3 set in person.  I don't think there is any tether on these, so I don't see how the powered unit could directly control the other cars.

You could consider wiring the other lights with a small tether like the Miniatronics Micro-Mini connectors.  If you used the 4-pin ones, you could also add directional lighting to the tail car.

There is no tether, so lighting in the dummy cars is independent of the powered car.  I will probably add the additional lights powered off track voltage, since the powered car will be run in conventional mode.  That way I can have the board powered interior lights near the doors to simulate exit/entry lighting independent of car lighting.  That should be straight forward using a diode and resistors.

The outputs on the PS/3 boards are current limited for an LED, so adding multiple LED's isn't going to have to good result.

Like john says, create a separate circuit. Since its on a subway and I never seen a "dark subway car" on a moving passenger subway train,I would use led circuit from model train supply. Their circuits can work up to four led's per circuit [ you have to add them in yourself] power off the roller pick-ups.

Personally, I'd use the LED Lighting Regulator, but maybe I'm prejudiced in favor of that solution.   The Lighting Regulator will light pretty much any number of LED's for good lighting in any passenger sized car.

bruce benzie posted:

...Subway cars have the station stops, interesting, and have a different effect on interior lighting.  The interior lights turn on as the subway car approaches the station and go out on leaving the station.  The only thing I  do not like about that is this:  The interior light connector, pins 29/40 with yellow connector has only two led lights.  The subway car needs six.

The opto coupler will solve another problem, it totally isolates the PS/3 board from anything on the output side.  You can drive the opto coupler directly from the LED light circuit and do whatever you like to power the lights on the output side.

The opto link between the cars could be more problematic, I'd consider mounting them on the couplers a bit closer together than trying to go inches with cars that will be on curves and straights.  That's why I was thinking about tethers, no issues with optics.

Interior lights for Subways are track power in both PS-2 and PS-3.  You can run 4 LED of a circuit if you have some specific Number board lights you want lite.  The PS-3 subway use the same PS-3 board and the harness has sufficient outputs to match a factory Subway car, so what specifically is your shortfall?  G

The subway car was a proto 2, interior lights were track powered.  The ps3 Diesel kit, with subway software loaded runs the interior lights on during a station stop, off when running. There are two led interior lights on that pin out.  I am going to run six interior lights from track power and use the ps3 'interior lights' at the head and rear end of the car.  Too bad the subway software does not reconfigure the ditch lights and mars lights to be interior lights, that would have simplified the installation.  In subway mode, the ditch lights, mars lights and beacon light are off.  There is room to add the Hennings led controller.  The dummy cars behind the powered unit have interior lights track powered, on all the time.

That is because they are not interior lights, they are number board or subway specific ID Lights.  Your thinking Interior lights, but that is not he function for a Subway.  If you have a factory one, look at the lights and how they change in operation.  Some even have red or green lens.  Why not just leave the interior lights alone and on track power as they were originally configured.  G

Thanks, George.  Did not think of that for the 'interior lights'  Will use them as  arrival or other lights.

The existing track powered lights are very fragile and 3 of them have broken housings.  Will place the led strips on both sides of the inner shell, near the top and use the led controller.  There is room for it.

bruce benzie posted:

Thanks, George.  Did not think of that for the 'interior lights'  Will use them as  arrival or other lights.

The existing track powered lights are very fragile and 3 of them have broken housings.  Will place the led strips on both sides of the inner shell, near the top and use the led controller.  There is room for it.

That is certainly a good idea.  G. 

stan2004 posted:

bruce benzie posted:

...Subway cars have the station stops, interesting, and have a different effect on interior lighting.  The interior lights turn on as the subway car approaches the station and go out on leaving the station.  The only thing I  do not like about that is this:  The interior light connector, pins 29/40 with yellow connector has only two led lights.  The subway car needs six.

I'm confused.  I thought you wanted more interior LED lights that have the special behavior you described above?  I was not aware the PS/3 diesel board had this feature.  Anyway, now you're saying you don't mind if the additional interior LEDs are simply powered all the time via track power...and the existing 2 LEDs with special behavior will be used as door lights? 

 

It appears you are comfortable messing around with small parts and wiring up LED circuits at the component level.  In which case my idea was to consider a 50 cent opto-coupler component to slave the additional LEDs to the existing circuitry.  The function of the opto-coupler would be like a relay...in that it "relays" or echoes the signal going to the existing LEDs.  This presents far less loading on the existing circuit than a relay coil or directly wiring in 4 more LEDs to the existing 2.

 

There are some i's to dot and t's to cross, but the same principle can be used to send an optical beam between cars to eliminate the need for a tether.  Like the main powered car you essentially have the same situation.  That is, you have track power available but want to slave the trailing cars' LEDs to the powered car's LEDs.  What you can do is put a 25 cent Infrared (IR) LED (invisible to the eye) on the powered car aiming thru a rear facing window or lens to the 2nd car.  A 25 cent IR detector can be placed in the 2nd car looking at the first car's IR LED.  That slaves its LEDs to the first car.  This is an opto-coupler that works across a few inches.  Then you repeat the circuit between the 2nd car and 3rd car, 3rd car and 4th car, etc.  Now, whatever the LEDs are doing in the first car will be repeated across all cars...no tether required.

 

If you don't want to tap at all into the existing PS/3 wiring, you can use a 25 cent visible-light photodetector or photocell (like in nite-lights) that you carefully aim at one of the existing interior LEDs.  This would then turn on power to the additional 4 LEDs whenever it detects light.

Stan/Guns..do you have a link to the opto coupler?

There are many flavors of opto couplers depending on what you're trying to do.  What exactly are you trying to do?

Don't know yet..more curious how they work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opto-isolator

The applications are all over the map.  The MTH tach with striped flywheel is an opto-coupler.  Lionel used an opto-coupler for their wireless drawbar between engine and tender.  The occupancy detection Lionel 153IR or MTH ITAD are essentially opto-couplers.  Chopped sinewave train controllers use an opto-coupler between the DC control circuit and the AC power circuit.

Thanks Stan..very informative.

I use several opto-couplers on the Super-Chuffer.  One isolates the chuff signal for direct connection to the RailSounds board and the other isolates the TMCC headlight signal from the digital circuitry on the board.  The TMCC DCDR motor control board uses opto-couplers between the input PWM signals and the motor drive triacs.  They're used in a ton of varied applications.