Older Williams passenger cars

[phillyreading]

I have some older passenger cars(Reading King Coal set of six) that the wires to the lights keep coming off; either at the base of the light socket or at the center roller. When this happens it shorts out the whole track it is on.
What I have done to a couple of the cars is to re-solder the connection but it happens again after a few months.
The newest repair I did to these was to install a 4.7 MF capacitor and replace the light socket with one the has terminals on the outside of it and soldered slightly heavier wires to it, today, I will have to see how well this takes. So far I have a little better constant lighting in the passenger car that I did today.

Lee F.

[Joe Satnik]

Dear PR,

Danger !

Do not connect an electrolytic capacitor to AC voltage.  It could heat up and explode on you. 

You would need a diode bridge (to convert your AC track voltage to DC voltage) to use a capacitor in a "flicker reducing" circuit.

A more complicated circuit with much larger capacitors or rechargeable batteries would be needed for "constant lighting". 

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik 

[phillyreading]

Thanks for the warning about using capacitors that way.
What I am using is called 'radial leads' rated at 4.7 MF @ 100 volts.

Lee F.