Some are incandescent & others are LED.

Anything is possible, just depends how much time one wants to fiddle around & come up with solutions.

If you are running electric locos & you have powered catenary. Run motor off one circuit & lighting off the other. Probably still a pain to do.

Going back to your original point, I have found that even LED equipped Marklin Locos' lights come on at different voltages, so there is no consistency even within products of similar vintage.

I'm sure Stephen at CK LEDS must have a few hanging around, but I think there is also a German manufacturer making a similar product. Hopefully someone here will chip in with the details. When I fitted CK LEDs into my vintage BR218s I found that, due to the vertical orientation of the lamp, the LEDs were shining into the roof, so I modified the LED modules to change the orientation of the LEDs on the board.

I have also modified failed incandescent modules to replace the bulb with an LED and resistor. I haven't tried this in the BR218, but I'm sure it's possible. I'm happy to go into more detail on any of this if you're interested.

Cheers


Chris

Hello, hope all is well.

Lighting is always a compromise. The original light bulbs provide very little effect, unless seen at full throttle. Replacement bulbs are often listed in the secondary market. Fortunately these were replaced with LEDs, but sometimes these have rather dull light.

I have not seen replacement LED lights directly from Marklin.

I did manage to pick up a few of the modules CK produced thinking these would be available forever. It was sad to find out this was not the case. I am not certain if there are any leftovers available. I believe their remaining stock was listed on eBay a while back.

The only source I am aware of is High Tech Modellbahn. Here is their website.

https://www.z-hightech.d...g=6&sprache=englisch

You can choose their LED listings from the column on the left. They seem to have many different ones, but I would check availability with them before ordering. These modules are small and shipping could be a minor expense. I have ordered from them before, and they have a reputable business.

Depending on which locomotive you have, a while ago I needed a circuit board for my BR 111 and when I received it, the LED lights were already on the board. You may be able to update the circuit board and get LEDs too. There are different circuit boards for the early Br 216/18 as compared to the newer models so this might not work. Some of the earlier locomotives were revamped later. And the frame and circuit boards are different.

Take good care.

Dwight

Yes, if not at 6 volts depending on how long it is lit for heat build up. Other current draw with it can prolong it,but resistors are a must, and manage it well.

Not really, or rather it won't really help. LEDs have a very non linear voltage-current relationship and once they start conducting a very small increase in voltage will cause a large increase in current. In addition to that, the relationship is very temperature sensitive and as the LED gets hotter it will draw more current applying a pure voltage to an LED will lead to very unpredictable levels of brightness and a good chance of failure.

(By contrast, incandescent bulbs draw less current as they heat up, so they have a sort of built-in protection mechanism, up to a point, anyway.)

The series resistor that you'd normally use with an LED sort of regulates the voltage across the LED anyway so it sort of does the job for you. In principle, if you were to limit the track voltage to, say, 4V you could reduce the value of the resistor so the LED shines more brightly at that 4V.

Hope that's of interest


Chris