lighting buildings and other ho products

[bill aston]

I am new to this hobby. I would like to know the easiest way to light building, signals , etc on an ho layout. Are there special products?

[Jim Banner]

One choice is to use Grain-Of_Wheat (GOW) bulbs from the hobby shop.  These are generally rated 12 to 16 volts and can be connected to the ac or auxiliary terminals on your power pack.  If you are using more than one or two lights, a separate power pack or a "wall wart" type power supply rated 12 volts, 1 amp (1000 milliamps) would be better.  The lamps work equally well off ac or dc.  An auxiliary power pack is a necessity if you are using DCC to run your trains as no DCC system that I am aware of has an auxiliary output for lighting and turnouts.

Another choice is to use Christmas tree lights, the kind that come 50 or 100 or even 200 to a string.  These use 2.5 volt bulbs so you need 5 bulbs in series (the electricity flows through one, then the next, and so on) for a 12 volt supply or 6 in series for 16 volts.  These are much cheaper than GOW bulbs.  The Christmas tree lights are usually too big for signals but work great in buildings.  I would not recommend running whole strings of Christmas lights on 120 volts because of the dangers of having 120 volts on any wiring running around under a model railroad.

For signals, it depends on what you want to do with the signals.  If they are just for show, then you might want to use scale models fitted with tiny bulbs rated 1.5 volts, available from you hobby shop.  I use signals that tell which way the turnouts are set and are visible from across the room.  They are only approximately to scale and use Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) which can change colour.  I am presently writing an article on them and will upload it in the next couple of days.  If you would like a link, I can post it here on Bach-Mans site.  I have included a photo of one of these signals below.

[Yampa Bob]

Jim
I'm looking forward to your article.  I hope you include information about switching of the signals, such as micro switches, or turnout throw arms linked to slide switches, and wiring schemes, etc.

Bob

[Jim Banner]

Jim
I'm looking forward to your article.  I hope you include information about switching of the signals, such as micro switches, or turnout throw arms linked to slide switches, and wiring schemes, etc.

Bob

Will do.

[glsummers]

Jim
What you are saying about the Christmas lights is to cut them up into five bulb sections and then you can attach them to your ac bus line. Looking forward to your article. Larry

[Yampa Bob]

Larry
Shortly before I started railroading I threw out a bunch of old Christmas lights that had many burned out bulbs. 

Morale:  Never throw anything away.   

Bob

[rallygsc]

Jim has some killer ideas there, and some nice pics of the layout to boot

one thing I have done is use Led lights on the buildings, I would get a power pack that would be voltage rated to how many bulbs I am using,

also you have to put a voltage resisitor on the positive side of the voltage going to the light

I had a nice O scale layout that I did all of this work to, I put a control pot on one side of the wiring going to the lights, this was a great way for it to act as a dimmer when you needed it.


also there is miniature lights sold by bachmann and readio shack with a screw in base, these are great for the inside of buildings, believe me these lights do burn out at times, I would use a cheesey old train controller and hook it up to the track side, the throttle acts as a dimmer switch this way the bulbs are not burning at full brightness.


now that I am back into the hobby, going with HO scale this time around, all the advice I see and hear is always helpful and appreciated.

take care
George