Keith, I found all your lighting recommendations in my catalog including neat tiny flat mount 820 ohm resistors and I will go that route but I'm curious as to why you prefer incandescent lamps over LEDs.
I hate Bulbs, They are not very bright and they burn out too easily. Use an LED with a 1000 ohm 1/4 watt resistor. You can either use a t-1 3mm LED or a 0603 SMD LED. If you do not want to wire up the 0603 SMD LED you can buy them already wired with magnetic wire. The Blue wire from you decoder goes to the positive wire on the LED, the resistor is then soldered to the negative lead of the LED and the White wire from the decoder is soldered to the other end of the resisitor. Once done, the LED will outlive you; and you will never have to replace a burned out bulb, go for the LED! You can find the wired LEDs on-line, litchfield station probably has them.
Thanks, Richard. I think I'll go with incandescent and if it flops I'll eat crow. I now realize that an LED may be too bright for old #151. To fit into my chosen era she's in her last few months of service and her headlight was probably a softer glow. I appreciate the explanation of how to wire the resistor. Is it basically the same routine for incandescent? Progress made tonight is that I converted the tender trucks to larger prototypical sized wheel sets and added eight wheel electrical pickup in preparation for reliable DCC operation. I have several AHM tenders so I can modify one of my spares until I get it right. Lucky me. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to share opinions and knowledge.
Let's see if I've learned anything. An LED light, say for instance a yeloglo, with a higher resistor value of 1000 ohm will not be a blindingly bright light but more on par with the appearance of an old fashioned incandescent light but with a longer life expectancy. Will the LED fit up into the smallish headlight casting as easily as the tiny incandescent bulb as in Don Wirth's description?
You can buy LEDs with different brightness levels, just get a lower value of millilumens. Also if you increase the resistance value, that will also lower the LED brightness. I fit T-1 3mm LEDs into headlight castings all the time, but I think you would be better served in this case with a 0603 SMD LED.
I say put a tiny reservoir of lamp oil inside the smoke box, plumb it to the headlight where a wick would be, and.... crap. I just remembered its an electrical generator headlight. Never mind. Sad sense of humor on 5 hours sleep.
SMD means surface mount device. Their advantage is they are very very small in size. I have a PDF file on LEDs that explains everything. I prefer using pure white LEDs, but you can use any color you want. Installing LEDs in models is just not that hard to do.
Richard. Thank you for that valuable write up. I saved it if you don't mind and will use it when the time comes. Awesome stuff. Jim that should help you tremendously! I live the idea of soldering a brass tube to the headlight for a channel for the wiring. Good stuff.
Manny, you are welcome. If anyone has any questions, just ask. ON a DCC decoder, the Blue wire goes to the positive side of the LED, that is always the longer lead. Connect you reisitor to the shorter LED lead. If front headlight use the decoder white wire connected to the other end of the resistor. If back up, or rear headlight, use the yellow wire.
Eight Wheel Tender Pickup I know that constant electrical pickup is needed for reliable DCC functions and here are photos showing how I'm doing this with the lousy Rivarossi/AHM/IHC 4-4-0 type tender set up. It originally picked up from one side only just like the Bachmann Oldtimers and now it pick up power from all eight wheels. This is not my invention but I read about it somewhere. I used Kadee centering springs and cut them as shown in the photo. Then I bent the long spring arms out at an angle. Then I soldered a wire to each and mounted them to the truck frame and adjusted the tension between the long spring arms and the wheels so that the wheels roll freely along the rails with the weight of the motor added. I replaced the tiny wheels with larger diameter metal wheelsets. Then I drilled holes through the tender floor to allow the wires to pass through up to the motor bay. This is a spare tender I used but it works flawlessly and the trucks will be used on #151. It does not hesitate through turnouts like it used to do. Now I'm ready to order my decoder and light.
Looks good Jim. I just wish you could get rid of those pre-1880 trucks. Can you measure the journal to journal for me? Maybe I can find you a pair that will work.
Thanks for the kind offer Manny but the factory truck mounting system is nice and I don't want to muck it up by modifying too much. I do have an idea, though. I could sand down the outside of the factory truck face and sand down the inside of an arch bar side frame and glue it on like a laminate. I have spares so I'll give it a try.
Today I received the last of my supplies to go DCC and sound. Now it's all up to me to get this done but it's gonna work out. I think I could've gone with a bigger speaker but I'll use this one first. I need to make a sound box for it. I bought 2pin micro connectors to make changing speakers easier just in case. Now the fun begins although electronics is my least favorite aspect of this hobby. Some phobia or something.
What I thought would be the hardest part is already over. I installed the headlight and boy do I sure like the golden glow of the incandescent bulb. I used the 820 ohm resistor. So far so good!
