HO Steam Engine - need light
- Thread starter eddie
- Start date
NYC_George
Well-Known Member
Brighter headlight
Hi Eddie,
I just replaced one of my steam engine's 12 volt bulb headlight with a ultra bright yellow/white LED. When I made up 2 four engine atlas consists I knew I wouldn't be splitting them so I took the bright yellow/white LEDs out of the middle units for just this reason. To replace the bulb headlights on my other engines as they started to burn out. The Atlas LEDs came with a 1K Ohm resistor soldered to the LED. You can see what it looks like in the second photo below. I just opened the boiler front door of the steam engine and soldered in the new LED with the resistor attached to the old headlight wires. I did an alligator clip test first to get the polarity correct. In the photo below the steam engine has the new yellow/white led. The F7 has the old 12 volt bulb type. When that goes I may use one of the ultra white LEDs that are in the package below. They come with a 560 Ohm resistor. I just looked at the photo. I guess I compressed it to much the headlight looks kind of funny.
NYC_George
Hi Eddie,
I just replaced one of my steam engine's 12 volt bulb headlight with a ultra bright yellow/white LED. When I made up 2 four engine atlas consists I knew I wouldn't be splitting them so I took the bright yellow/white LEDs out of the middle units for just this reason. To replace the bulb headlights on my other engines as they started to burn out. The Atlas LEDs came with a 1K Ohm resistor soldered to the LED. You can see what it looks like in the second photo below. I just opened the boiler front door of the steam engine and soldered in the new LED with the resistor attached to the old headlight wires. I did an alligator clip test first to get the polarity correct. In the photo below the steam engine has the new yellow/white led. The F7 has the old 12 volt bulb type. When that goes I may use one of the ultra white LEDs that are in the package below. They come with a 560 Ohm resistor. I just looked at the photo. I guess I compressed it to much the headlight looks kind of funny.
NYC_George
Last edited by a moderator:
NYC_George
Well-Known Member
Shrink tubing.
Eddie
Make sure you use shrink tubing on all the exposed wires. You don't want to blow any decoder boards etc. You can put the in the resistor tender. I curled up the resistor and put in the boiler because there was enough room to do so.
NYC_George
Eddie
Make sure you use shrink tubing on all the exposed wires. You don't want to blow any decoder boards etc. You can put the in the resistor tender. I curled up the resistor and put in the boiler because there was enough room to do so.
NYC_George
What happened so far
I purchased a 3mm LED white bright. It was a little large (I had to file a bit of the base off) and very bright. I am in the process of buying a new light housing. I plan to drill a large hole in the back so the LED can be pushed further into the light housing. This should allow the led not to protrude from the front of the housing. More to come on this.
I purchased a 3mm LED white bright. It was a little large (I had to file a bit of the base off) and very bright. I am in the process of buying a new light housing. I plan to drill a large hole in the back so the LED can be pushed further into the light housing. This should allow the led not to protrude from the front of the housing. More to come on this.
