Who dimmed the lights?

@trainman48 posted:

... It's got 40 LED lights on a sequential circuit

Elaborate.  40 LED lights in parallel?  What do you mean by sequential circuit?  Is this some kind of LED strip meant to be powered by some fixed voltage?

powered from an AC-DC converter mounted on the front truck powered by the motor current.

What is this AC-DC converter (picture)?  What voltage is its output set to?  And by being powered by motor current, do you mean the converter input goes to the 2 motor terminals?

It's quite impressive, but the problem is, once I give it the throttle, the motor draws the current from the lights, and they start to fade. The more throttle I give it, the dimmer the lights get.

When you give it more throttle with the fading lights, does the engine go faster?

I have a switch mounted on the top of the powered unit that will shut the current off to the motor, so the lights will work while the engine is idle.

What is the purpose of the switch?  Let's say you solve the problem of the fading lights as throttle is increased.  Is the idea that you walk over to the engine and manually turn the lights on/off?

I hooked up a 5 volt Zener diode to the positive side of the motor, and it helped considerably, but didn't solve the problem. And the diode got hot to the touch, which means I assume it's the wrong type or size.

The positive side of the motor obviously changes if you reverse direction.  So I'm not clear on the purpose of the Zener diode?

Fun repaint.  I assume by sequential you mean they are "chase" lights?

Somewhat related, but I just added another Walther to my other collection today. Lol.

@GG1 4877 posted:

@GG1 4877 posted:

Somewhat related, but I just added another Walther to my other collection today. Lol.

P-38?

@PRRMP54 posted:

If I had that kind of money to spend, I'd rather put it into trains!  An original one of those goes for an awful lot now.    Just a tiny PPS M2 on a good sale price, but I digress.  I have multiple Walthers.  Most are are trains.

Yes, they're "chase" lights. I also built a "Trump Train" with the same setup. but I'm keeping that under wraps until after the election. Those lights run on two 9 volt batteries, so I don't have my current problem with that one. That's what I get for trying to save space.

@stan2004 posted:

So many questions. I'll bet Perry Mason couldn't have done a better cross examination. I just need to know  the correct diode to use to drop the voltage on the motor enough to run the lights.