Lit up Caboose--A Crazy Idea for Bachmann!

[jbsmith]

How about cabooses with lit up interiors?
Just a simple bulb of some sort or LED inside at the very least.
It would look great during "night-time" running.

So far as I know,,,No one makes HO cabooses that have operating lights!

[jbsmith]

unless MTH has a paper mountain of patents on the idea and WILL
sue anyone who dares to make lit up cabooses.

[Tylerf]

I do own a caboose by proto 1 or 2 thousand that came with full interior and lighting, but that's the only one I've ever seen. However rapidos new caboose will have lighting and markers

[Jim Banner]

The first lighted caboose I remember was made by MARX in about 1950.  In the 1960's Tyco produced them in H0.  But I cannot think of any made today.  It would be very easy to add a light yourself.  A warm white, cone end LED, a 300 ohm resistor, and a stack of two 2032 lithium cells would do the job nicely.  Better add a tiny slide switch to turn it on and off.

If you are not so interested in the DIY side of making things, Rapido N-scale Easy Peasy lighting with its magic wand would do a great job.  Check out this link:

http://www.rapidotrains.com/light_n.html

If it was an older caboose lit by a kerosene lantern, perhaps you could consider a flickering LED, readily available in the form of a battery operated tea light.  For about a buck you can get all the parts you need - special LED, resistor, miniature switch, battery, and battery holder.

Jim

[jonathan]

Personally,

I like the DIY method.







The lighting isn't the hard part (thanks to Jim).  It's getting the caboose apart, and back together, without breaking ladders and handrails!

Rapido is a bit too rich for my blood.  At a dollar-a-piece for GOR bulbs, and a little solder, one can light up an entire layout for the cost of one of those wand operated cars.

Regards,

Jonathan

[lmackattack]

Proto 2000 made them a while ago with some very nice details and if I recall not to pricy?. I make my own lit cabosses from old tender pick up tabs and a bulb that can handel 16volts.

[jbsmith]

thanks for the ideas there all! I like the photos, those are great.
I just happen to have a spare caboose or two to experiment with.

Jim
Never thought of battery powered, sounds like the trick would be hiding the switch. a hole in the floor? Veddy intereschting,,,may have to try that one

jonathan
what are those tail lights?  small LEDs in drilled holes? like in photo #3.

my first theory was to try to get power from that rails, much the same way
some steam locos get power from the tender trucks, metal wheels with metal axles, a small flat piece of copper that touches the axles with soldered wires to the copper and either soldered or just electrical tape at the bulb end.

looks like i was thinking about something similar to lmackattacks idea.

Or this is just plain nuts,,line the inside with tinfoil and use a small jack o lantern candle!------and keep a fire extinguisher handy.

the idea came to me when i was running my spectrum heavyweights the other night. I thought,,"if passenger cars can be made to light up, why not cabooses?"

[ABC]

I think I have about 10-12 cabooses with lighting. I have also seen cars with flashing end markers on the ends of trains. i was thinking about trying to put one on the back of my ordinary rolling stock.

[jonathan]

JB,

I use 12-16volt grain of rice bulbs.  The marker bulbs are painted "True Red".  It's the touch up paint from my car.  Just a thin layer will do.  I start with a #65 drill bit and work my way up to a 3/32" hole.  The GOR bulb fits in perfectly.  Since I generally don't run my trains past 50% power, the bulbs don't really heat up (I touch them after running to see if they get too warm for the plastic--so far so good).

I think we had a thread about this subject in the recent past.  However, I use kadee centering springs to "electrify" my trucks.  I started with 4-wheel pick up, but have graduated to all-wheel pick up (the CSX caboose is lit that way).


One must take care to start with small, well placed, holes in the trucks.  Work your way up to a large hole to attached the centering spring to the truck.

Also, the wheels will be quite stiff when complete.  GENTLE wiggling of the centering springs (with a tiny screwdriver perhaps) will release some pressure off the wheels.  It will never be completely "free rolling". But I've gotten them loose enough to be easy to pull in a consist.

I don't know if this will help, but here's a view with the shell off, so you can see how I ran the wires and mounted the bulbs.  That's a GOW on the inside and a GOR for the marker light:


Here you can see the holes I drilled for the GOR bulb and its wires:


Got Lucky on this project. I didn't break and/or mutilate a single part on the caboose.  Wish it always went that way.

Regards,

Jonathan

[Stephen D. Richards]

jbmith,  check with Walther's and MicroMark.  They have just what you're looking for in a variety of combinations!    Stephen

[Jim Banner]

Jonathan,
I like your pickups on all eight wheels.  That should give you a lot less flicker than picking up off only four wheel, which is the best you can do with the usual type of tender pickup picking up from the axles.

The photos are GREAT.

Jiim

[jonathan]

Thanks, Jim.  I wish I could say I thought of this, but I believe the truck/centering spring idea came from an old article on improving pick up of old time 4-4-0s.

You taught me the wiring, soldering and light bulb part.

Someone once mentioned to me I could make these cabeese DCC compatible, but adding a small resistor, so the system wouldn't think there was another locomotive on the track.  Is this true?  I've been thinking of trying it.

Regards,

Jonathan

[Jim Banner]

At "normal" speed on dc we might be putting 8 or 9 volts on the rails.  If the caboose lights look right at that speed/voltage, then they are going to be too bright at the 15 or so volts that DCC puts on the rails.  Not only will they be too bright, but in some cases they will get hot enough to start melting plastic.  A resistor in series with each bulb will cut down the light and reduce the heating.  Try some different values between 22 and 100 ohms.  I would advise 1 watt resistors to keep the resistors from getting too hot.

An alternative in cabeese and passenger cars is to rewire the lights into series pairs.  If your DCC puts 15 volts on the rails, each bulb will receive 7.5 volts which is pretty close to what it was getting on dc.

Yet another plan is to change the bulbs for ones rated for a higher voltage but the same or somewhat smaller current.

None of the DCC command stations that I am aware of would detect a caboose as another locomotive.  There would be an increased current draw from the booster (which may or may not be part of the command station) but nothing to indicate whether the increased draw was from a caboose light or a light on the locomotive.  Perhaps the person was talking of block occupancy detectors which are sometimes used on railroads to determine where the locomotives are for the purpose of automatic operation or controlling signals.  With these, the occupancy detector (not the command station) could detect the caboose as a locomotive.  However, with transponding being available to tell you not only that there is a locomotive within a block but also which locomotive, I don't know that straight occupancy detectors are much used any more.  Transponding requires a decoder with the transponding function being installed in the locomotive.  You could put such a decoder in the caboose (or any other car that you wanted the command station to keep track of) but unless you made an error in programming, the caboose would still not be detected as a locomotive.

Bottom line, the resistor is often required for heat and light control but will not cause or prevent your system from detecting your caboose as a locomotive.

Jim

[Cody J]

I read this topic yesterday and when I got home I got out an old Bachmann Caboose and took an old beat up set of christmas tree lights (I'm 13 and a couple years ago I took apart a whole strand of colored xmas lights). Anyway, I put an orange in it, hung the wires down to the tracks and used electrical tape to get it to stay. Of course I would change the color of the bulb to a correct color after the experiment. The only trouble was that I had accidentally mixed old bad bulbs with new, good ones. I had put a bad bulb in the caboose. So tonight I will take the caboose home (my layout and computer is at my grandmas where I go after school) and put a new bulb in and bring it back tomorrow and try it.

Thanks for the idea

Cody

[jonathan]

Well, Jim, once again you helped me see the light.  I'm at it again...

This caboose will get two 14 volt bulbs, connected in series.  So the bulbs should be receiving at little better than half their capacity on a DCC layout.  I have a small resistor standing by, but will try to get away without for now (I like the K.I.S.S. method).

I think it was Lexon, who wrote recently that stranded wire from a PC mouse is nice and flexible.  I just happened to have two old mice that were no longer compatible (not USB).  I now have 37 feet of beautiful stranded wire to work with.  Will take a while to work through it.

OK, one more photo.  When the shell is back on, there is no way to see that this caboose has a bathroom, with toilet and sink!


Regards,

Jonathan

PS  Cody, let us know how the Xmas lights work out...