Wild Goose(neck) chase . . . . gooseneck and "Just Plug" advice requested

Hey Elliot. I have been buying my "HO" scale goosenecks from Walthers. Every York show there is a guy in the Black Hall who always has a bunch of them. They come 3 to a pack and will most certainly work off of 10V to 12V AC. They are not LED's.

Hope that helps.

The Woodland Scenic system is pretty cool to use with all the different hubs, etc. However, all of those lights are LED and I think need their system to operate properly. I also have a bunch of them that I like.

Donald

3rail 2 posted:

Hey Elliot. I have been buying my "HO" scale goosenecks from Walthers. Every York show there is a guy in the Black Hall who always has a bunch of them. They come 3 to a pack and will most certainly work off of 10V to 12V AC. They are not LED's.

Hope that helps.

The Woodland Scenic system is pretty cool to use with all the different hubs, etc. However, all of those lights are LED and I think need their system to operate properly. I also have a bunch of them that I like.

Donald

I’ve only used the Woodland Scenic O building lights, but I sort of have to agree with Donald. You need some of the hubs (based on how many lights you are using), but you can use one of their connecting wires to run the power from your transformer (one end connects to the hub, the other is cut off, the wire split, and then on to the transformer).

The Walthers ones work and look great if you want AC bulbs.

Elliot,

Not sure if these are the ones you mean from Walthers,

I have used these and run on either AC or DC as they are just incandescent lights.

Seems they are in stock at Walthers.

Hey Rich. I am sure we use the same ones from Walthers.

Now that I am back home.....the Walthers "HO Lamps" are #933-1094 "Wall Mounted Lights" (3 pack).

They list for $12.99 and you should be able to find them for $2 or $3 less.

looking thru the window in the box, the reflector is around 9mm to 10mm. A little over 12" scale.

Hope that helps.

Donald

Woodland products in the 'plug and play' line will not take 12-16 AC........I tried 12 DC and burned up 3 in seconds. 

Many thanks to all for your suggestions !!

Just purchased, at least I think I purchased, three sets of the Walthers HO scale gooseneck wall mounted lights on the auction site for a reasonable price. Only one website other than the auction site had them and they were $17 per box. It looks like these lights are no longer being produced as most of the sites said "Sold out." So . . . . . gooseneckers, you will likely be using the JustPlug system in the future.

I have used the Woodland Scenics HO Scale wall mount lamps on several buildings.  AMC Dave is right, you can't hook a WS Stick on LED (such as the kind used for interior lighting) directly to a power supply.  These are the ones that come in a tube.  You do need the Hub.

But you can use the wall lamps and street lights without the hub. These come in a small box. Each lamp (or pair of lamps) comes with a separate connector wire that has a small white connector plug (the "linker" plug intended to go into the WS hub) at one end, and a 3/8" wide tan or light gray box with two pushbutton receptacles at the other.  The needed diode and resistor are close to the white linker plug.  You push the lamp wires into the push button receptacles, making sure to match the red and black wires to the red and black receptacles.  You then cut off the white linker plug and connect the wires from the diode/resistor directly to your AC or DC source.  Cut as close to the linker plug as you can, as there is not a lot of wire to work with.  I typically run about 8 Volts AC, but it can go up to at least 12 Volts.

Here are some examples of my buildings with these lights:

In the townhouse scenes above, the porch lights are HO Scale, the foreground street lights are O Scale, and the background street ligst are HO Scale. All are WS LED "Plug and Play"

Beautiful pictures John!!

John,

Thanks for the advice and the beautiful examples of how you use the lights !!

AMCDave posted:

Woodland products in the 'plug and play' line will not take 12-16 AC........I tried 12 DC and burned up 3 in seconds. 

Is this statement correct? It could be but seems screwy.

  Your trailing example only refers to 12v DC where the main subject is AC 12-15v.   The reference at over 12v is mostly unfounded unless you ran long enough to make use of AC's "cooling time" as an incandecent lamp cools on ac cycles. If LED?, well are mosy just very sensative to overvoltage.

  Most cooked led are from our old school low voltage habits of maxing voltages for a split second to "test" or brighten; or from using ac. A diode uses DC by nature. Any diode that seems to run on ac is one of a rare breed, and/or has a limited lifespan or is regulated/rectified "somewhere" "unkown", but usually as add on components like another diode(s),resistors, etc.

  Without an LED I.D. to know what to use, test with power from a source to match up to of a few amps  (enough for one or for a string, more amps are better) use DC at 1.5v then 3v then 4.5 then 6v then 9v then 12v. ,16v, 24v,32v,etc Stop at the lowest voltage where you get about the expected brightness (a guess and remember overvoltage will cook it) dim if needed with more resistance. A 3v LED at 2.9v DC doesn't care if a button cell battery or a 10amp dc power supply is feeding it, just never more than three volt. It is likely brightly lit at well under 2v.  If you give it 3.5v it cooks is seconds. (It's a good idea to use some resistance as some modern power supplies might need some to see a decent enough draw to want to do any work at all. The amount of power a low volt led actually uses is "stupid small".  )

   As far as "plug and play" goes; the term has been regretably twisted to become a quiet proprietary term vs the "generic" usability it's use once implied. To me plug and play would mean accepting up to 18v ac.. actually it should take short bursts of 25vac imo, but I've lowered my expectations some just for modern comparative considerations on power. 

It may as well be labeled great, bargan, value, best, or deal of the century .

  John, it looks great but I can draw at least three pictures with that "simple/easy" explanation. More depending on if "linker plug and connector plug" are the same thing (changing terminology never helps) and more for whatever my imagination might think push button repticals might be ... Are they a female plug that a button plugs into? Are they a recptical on a push button unit. Is that unit the same as the grey box? Is the grey box a hub? Are the buttons a hub?  Slightly exaggerating the confusion, and theretisiappreciation but I want to say... "Those that can, shouldn't necessarily teach"

Greeting Everyone,

I roll my own.   I use K & S 1/16’ X 12” round brass tube #8125, HO Scale lamp shades from Campbell Scale Models, a piece of 1/4" brass channel stock I found in the scrap box and a strip and wire bending jig #60401 from Micro Mark.   For lighting I use PICO LED’s from Evans Design.   Warm White for older style lighting and Cool White for more contemporary style lighting.  It's a bit tedious but after all it IS a hobby.

Chief Bob (Retired)