Hi everyone,

I've had more time than usual to contemplate the train project list lately. (but I'm away on holiday so I could not use the time for layout progress) My bench project list is at a standstill so I've turned my research to the last big inquisition: finding a way to add cheap lighting to passenger cars. Specifically the 24cm metal coaches and the 27cm Eurofima-type coaches. I really want lighting, but I don't want to deal with the cost of buying marklin/ESU- it for sure isn't worth the price to me at that point.

So far I've decided I will use the Marklin pickup shoe kits for simplicity and reliability, but from there I'd like to find some sort of wholesale LED strip solution to run through the cars, wired through the vestibules/coach ends. Have any of you tried this, and know of a good solution? A quick search produced 1 meter breakable/tear point strips with adhesive backing for $7-10, so it is clearly worth the project financially. I just would rather avoid trying a ton of different options if someone had a sure fire solution.

Thanks!

I have not done this for passenger cars yet but I have ordered all of the parts from China and am waiting for them to arrive. However, from my initial experimental order I have used the 600 LEDs per strip ones for lighting a station platform. They will work on both AC or DC but will flicker noticeably when on AC. Therefore, to get down to the recommended 12VDC I have added a very inexpensive AC/DC electronic SMD rectifier and the appropriate dropping resistor in order to get ~11VDC output to the LED strip. Varying the dropping resistor size changes the voltage and obviously the resulting brightness of the LEDs. I found the 12-14VDC recommended voltage too bright for my liking.

I plan on doing the same for my passenger cars except I will add a capacitor across the DC output to prevent any flickering from the potential intermittent rail contacts of the wheels. I didn't need the capacitor for the platform since it is a solid electrical connection and I have no visible flicker.

The key thing to remember with these LED strips is that the LEDs have to be cut to length in groups of three as per the scissor marks on the strip. That is why I use the 600s instead of the 300s.

Happy New Year.
Peter

The primary reason for a forum to exist is so that we can all ask questions, so there is no need to be sorry!

I need to redo the lighting in a lot of older coaches myself and I would love to hear how this turns out.

I see a good year ahead for my MRR in 2017 - I hope that is true for all of you as well!

Thanks! So here is my theoretical schematic then. (in order)

Pickup Shoe 18VA AC

AC/DC Rectifier

Resistor to sub-11V DC

Capacitor (??)

LED Strip

Car to car connections

That looks about right? Famous last words but this seems easy...

The only thing I would add to that list is a capacitor across the DC side of the rectifier if you have enough space. I've ordered 470Uf 25V ones for now and I will need to see if I can fit them in somewhere or not. Otherwise, yes your list looks like mine.

What I have not tried is connecting this setup to track power to see what voltages I end up with. I have also not tried what John is suggesting in the previous post about supplying the power for the lighting from the loco decoder, which would make the pickup shoe and rectifier circuit obsolete if I understand his post correctly.

Peter this is correct.

regards.,

John

For figuring out the resistor values, it may be worth the effort to build a prototype and use adjustable (via a small screwdriver) resistors in the circuit so that you can dial them up and down and figure out what setting gives you the lighting effect you like. Then take those out of the circuit, measure the resistance (at the correct points of course) get a fixed resistor(s) at that value (or close enough), to confirm, and THEN order the larger order of resistors.