Street and railway station lights

[Geoffrey]

I have been a railway HO fan for just over 14 months and I appear to be going well with the system. However, I thought of installing street lights and other type of lights. But not as simple as I thought, I did try connecting up but the lights lasted just a few seconds before they went out. Some research tells me I need to lower the current. (I was using the current from my Bachmann DCC system - but that appears too strong as well)
I have not yet been able to find a book, or a model train site which tells me exactly what/how to do it.
My location is Canberra, Australia.

Cheers

Geoffrey.

[ozrail]

LEDs are best in my opinion. They are very small and easy to fit. They draw only a tiny amount of power about 20milliamps and they give off more light and don't heat up. If Robert is reading this, info on LEDs would be a good addition to the club.

[George]

Geoffrey first of all you need to know the voltage of your lights and power supply. If you have a lower light voltage, then you will be able to run them in series. For example with 18 volts power and lights 3 volts, then series 6 lights. That's what I use, but other members might have other views. If you just want to use only one light, then try a resistor in series. If I was you I would begin with an 1800 Ohm and then work down until you get the brightness you want.

[Waltdavies]

I ran a two wire line around the outside of my table where I can hook up things like light.
Bachmann has two voltage settings I use the lower setting and have less trouble with burnouts. Some lights will flash like my signboard but my street lights work great. I keep all wires under the table so they are out of site and easy to hookup too.
Walt Davies
Oregon

[bottlecap]

most rice bulb lights are only 4 volts. try 1 battery and see if it lights a bit. if so buy a plug in wall-wart of lower voltage so the bulb will last forever.

[davemoody]

Hello,

For my taste LED's do not give a realistic kind of light, and that's the goal here - realism. Here's what I did on my layout, using the electrical supply provided by most supply units. I used ordinary grain of wheat type bulbs, but connected them in pairs as shown below:

+ve connectio------------- bulb1 -------------- bulb2 --------------- -ve connection

So, if your powersupply is running 12volts for example each bulb is running at 6volts. If that is not enough then run 3 or 4 bulbs in serial until you get the right amount of current running through each bulb. If the current is less than the bulbs rating then it will have a lovely yellowish light instead of a bright white light, which in my opinion is far more realistic.

On a sidenote, I really hate running wires up the side of streetlight poles etc, looks ugly. Here's my suggestion for added realism. Use REAL overhead powerlines. What? I hear you say. It's easy. Just get some fine electrical wiring, like that used to make ribbon cables in a computer, strip the plastic insulation off, and then run it along powerpoles in your layout. If you use the above mentioned method of wiring bulbs you don't just get realistic light, you also get a realistic looking wiring system throughout your layout. You could always paint the wires with some kind of matt paint when you've done to provide some insulation, like a lightgray colour would be fine.

Happy wiring!
Dave.