Tried those new 3-LED strips !

Ed, they came out nice. I had earlier ordered some when Lee posted his find. I thought you could get away with the rectifier if you used an HO pack?

Where did you get the LED's?

Tons of them on eBay.  Here's one that looks like a good deal: 5M Warm White LED Strip, 300 LEDs

 

I just scan for the good price in the buy-it-now category and go for it.

 

I bought the ones Lee posted....and think they are great.  Nice knowing that they will not burn out any time soon.....plus I run them on about 10 volts....so should be good for a long time.

Should work very well for your application.

Thanks, I just nailed three hundred for six bucks, can't beat that.

John

Hard to beat the price, I think I have four or five rolls of them.  I also have about 30 passenger cars still waiting on conversion!

 

looks interesting- so how do you apply power- would these work on passenger cars using 18 volts power (vi DCS) do you wire them direct to the power rollers?

Sounds like you need to spend more time on conversions! LOL

 

Come on John, bite the bullet and knock them out in a weekend!

Just to clarify a bit... these are NOT the 5meter 300LED strips of lights.  They are 3 leds encapsulated in a hard plastic strip with double stick tape on the back and wire leads attached to each. Screw holes on each end.  Please refer to my first picture.

 

on eBay, here's an example (at a good price!)  http://www.ebay.com/itm/321229240034

about 38 cents for a 3LED strip

 

IMPORTANT: I used WARM WHITE.  They look like incandescent.  The cool white ones have a bluish tint to them, but also look good.  Just a matter of taste.

 

They look like this:

 

 

When I cut them apart, I left the grey and white leads on one end so I could splice a longer wire to connect to DC.

 

The bridge rectifiers look like this.

 

 

 

The ones I ordered are:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-20A...;hash=item19c856350b

about 78 cents each

 

I only used one for the layout... Rated at 20 amps!  Converts AC to DC, so a DC (like HO) transformer is not needed.

 

I connect my 12V AC accessory feed on the layout to the bridge AC connections, then connect the DC connections on the bridge to the LED strips (making sure + and - are right.  Output measured at about 10.5 volts.

 

Ed

 

... credit goes to Lee for first finding them!

These are what I use @ 12volts ac

Eddie: yes I'm up in the NE corner (Brooklyn) Before I retired from UPS, one of my runs took me to Stratford every night.

Don; you don't need a rectifier or HO pack. They run on AC or DC.

Thanks Spence. That is what I thought. I had tested them last month and the worked off my 10 v accesory post.

Spence,

 

I never tried them on AC... noted the advertised title, the 12V DC markings, and the 2 colored wires and just figured to go DC.

 

I wanted less than 12V to calm them down a bit, so the 10.5 volts from the rectifier worked well.  Also read something about flicker on AC, but will have to try mine to see what I see!

 

Ed

 

 

Note that LED's have a fairly low reverse voltage specification, in the 5-7 volt range.  If you're running on 12 volts AC, you have around 17 volts peak reverse voltage on the strips.  There are three LED's in series on each strip, so they're getting close to 6V reverse voltage on each.  It may be a problem after some time, hard to say.  I run them on DC.