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Interior Car Lighting DCC
James models HO and posted this question:
“I put some interior lights in a passenger car with 2 wires linked to the left/right metal wheels of the car but nothing seems to work. Would I need to program them for my dcc unit? Advice wanted please.”
5 Responses to Interior Car Lighting DCC
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Hi James if you have used LED’s then the DCC power will have blown them you need to have a rectifier circuit and a larger wattage resistor to drop the voltage to 3 volts. any voltage greater than the 3 volts will blow the less and they run only on dc so they need to be connected the right way round + to + I would also put in a 500uf capacitor to smooth out the DC current.
James,
I would install a single function decoder and power your lights from this. If you are using a single led’s you will need to put a resistor between the light(s) and the decoder. If you are using an incandescent 12 volt light you are good to go.
I would use a light strip that can be trimmed in multiples of 3 led’s. This gives a more uniform light through the car and will run on 12 volts. If the light is too bright you can add a resistor to dim the amount of light. You can power more than one car from a decoder but you will have to install micro connectors at the ends of each car (along with the wiring) if you wish to separate the cars.
Rail voltage is about 14v. The LED is either rated for 3v or 5v. You need to drop the difference with a dropping resistor. So 14 v down to 3 volts means to drop 11 volts. Leds run about 25ma. So R=E/I or v11v/.020 amps -= 550 ohms.
Put a 600 ohm reisistor in series with the led to one side of the power source the other side to ground.
A LED only conducts in one direction. The LED has a flat spot on it which is the negative lead.
Put a small capacitor wired correctly with a full wave bridge rectifier to straighten out the rippling voltage. This is a “current keeper” and the lights will not flicker.
Hi James. You need to use the 12 volt strip LED’s and a small resistor I would sugest the warm white as they give a yellow glow, If you want to see the result plaes have a look at my youtube chamnal “Smallton” as I show how to do this
For lighting passenger cars check Project 3, Project 18 & 19 at the webiste modeltrainsounds.com