Switch Heater Flames

I've never seen it done.  It would certainly be a unique feature.

As information, out here on the windy high plains, we have replaced all of the open-flame switch heaters with forced air heating units that blow heated air underneath the track to the switch points through duct work. It seems to work better in this windy environment, as the flame cannot be extinguished by wind.  I'm sure there are still plenty of open-flame switch heaters in service where trees actually grow naturally  and the wind is not so much of a factor, because they are actually better and quicker at melting ice.

You have an interesting idea.  I hope it works well for you.

Bobby,

Have you have any idea on the components you would use to mimic the flames?  I know there are some vendors that have "Flame" LEDs, but they are to large for that type of application.  Just curious to see if you found anything.

If not, you can always use an optical illusion.

James

IF I were doing it, I would mimik the "flickering Firebox" circuit found on Rowi Steamers. I would also use BLUE led's as they give out a good flicker.

I'm sure these could be made to work.

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/fire-led.html

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/flickering-led.html

NJCJOE posted:

I'm sure these could be made to work.

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/fire-led.html

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/flickering-led.html

Joe these are fantastic.  I may get some for myself.

James

ln looking at your photo it seems the challenge is to extend the flickering effect over a fairly long distance - maybe 6 inches or so.  If you use a single flickering LED I don't think you'll get the effect you want even if you could project the flickering across the entire 6 inches using side-glow fiber optic strands or whatever.

Here are multiple orange and blue flickering LEDs simulating the flames from the exhaust ports of a 1/48 scale P-51 engine.  Each LED is flickering slightly differently so you get "variety" across the 1" or so length of the exhaust pipes, 6-per side. 

But it would be quite an undertaking and expensive to assemble dozens of tiny flickering LEDs to make a 6 inch length of flickering.  Presumably you have space under the track sections to work with.  So you could use just a few flickering LEDs placed in a centralized location and then use a bundle of fiber-optic strands as used in lighting fixtures to distribute the flickering to both sides of the switch and across the full 6 inches.  It would clearly be a labor of love but I'm pretty sure no else will upstage you!

Stan2004,

Thanks for sharing the P51 exhaust flames and fiber optic idea. I will likely try this idea on my layout.

I was curious about this whole switch heater topic so I was reading up on it and found what I think your picture where it mentions one fuel source is natural-gas.

https://www.wired.com/2014/02/fire-on-tracks/

If that's the case I'd think there would be dozens of nozzles/ports along the length of the switch...so using fiber optic strands fed thru dozens of tiny holes drilled along the rail might even be prototypical so to speak!  If you aren't familiar with these strands, they are typically in metric diameters...probably 0.25mm or 0.5mm for what you're doing.  Very flexible as the photo shows.  I'm guess most economical to buy a cheap lighted effects kit and just use the strands...or you can buy by the foot including stranded fibers (sort of like stranded wire with a few dozen tiny strands in a sleeve).  I'm figuring maybe $5.

Note that the strands are acrylic/plastic, and if you heat (e.g., place near a soldering iron tip) the ends of a fiber they will mushroom to roughly double the diameter which I think is what you'd want to make a bigger lens or output.

Then randomly bundle the dozens of fibers and illuminate the bundled end with multiple flickering blue (and/or orange) LEDs.  By randomly bundling the fibers and feeding the bundle with a mix of LEDs, with some experimentation I think you'll get a nice effect.

I don't know if this might help you or not, but years ago, we used to hook up the small Christmas light bulbs to the speaker out puts of a cheap dollar store am/fm radio.....we would put the bulb into an O scale barrel with some red and yellow colored cellophane and put the radio on am anything, and just the crackiling would make the bulb flicker ......looked like fire!....not sure how this may help you....but thought I would mention it...anyways, really sounds like a cool project!