wiring strobe light

[trainnut04]

I hava an Atlas Trainman RS 32-36. Im wanting to add a flashing strobe light and light the classification lights on the low nose. I need to know what kind of lights and resistors to get.

 

[stationmaster]

On the low nose or cab top? I would advise cab top or mid hood. More realistic and believable. Don't know hw prototypical....

How is the "engineer" going to see with a strobe in "his' eyes? lol

Bob

 

[Wastrel]

Personally, for strobes I use 3mm yellow LED's with the top filed flat mounted to cab top. For ditch lights or class lights I use grain of rice bulbs or fiber cable.

 

[Larry]

Can you buy a strobe lite that will operate on DC & what company sells them?
Also, is it a hard item to wire into the locomotive electronics?
Wastrel; Do you have a photo of how you use Fibre Optics in your engines? I have enough FO's to wire up 1000 engines & someday hope to try to use them up. Have the glass & nylon ones. I guess they are nylon, may be something else, but any of them will work, right?

 

[stationmaster]

Larry,

I just sold my only engine that was equipped with a strobe. One of the members at our, now defunct, club installed it for me. I'm not an electronics-savvy guy. I think that he used something called a "discharge capacitor". I don't know the schematics, but the light itself was an LED. Again, I wish I was more knowledgeable on the subject, but I'm not. The light did work on DC, but am ignorant as to how.

I would think that FO would be a bit tougher. You would need a source of light. Under most shells, space is at a premium. Might be a tad hard to find the needed area to install the light source.

Bob

 

[Wastrel]

I dont have a pic handy of the fiber optics, and to get one I would have to pull a shell off an already tight install. The way I did it was to make 2 small light box's with 2 3mm LED's each (a green and a red in my case), routed the cable from the box's to each position, then ca'd the cables in place (2 per class light location, a red and a green). I am on DCC so switching color is a simple matter of functions. As for a strobe effect on DC, they sell kits for FRED's as well as strobe kits, or you can cheat if the blink rate is unimportant and simply get a flashing LED.
Here is a pic of what a 3mm LED looks like when used as a strobe.
Here are a couple links to flashers that would work on DC. The first is battery operated, the second uses track power.
http://www.accuratelighting.com/HOscale/LightingSystems/StrobeFlashers/Ho_StrobeFlashers.htm
http://www.hobbygauge.com/flashing_units.htm#view 48