Hello, Has anyone installed a headlight into a dummy F7 loco? I have heard about lights for carriages that work off internal batteries rather than from the track power supply, and I wonder if there is something similar for loco headlights.
Many thanks in advance,
Derek
Derek, I've never installed a headlight in an F-unit dummy, but I imagine I would do so the way I started the installation on an old powered Athearn SD7 years ago.
This wasn't really a big job. I just found a piece of brass tubing that would be the right size for a bulb, and bent some brass strip to form a bracket. That bending essentially made two right angles in the strip, one to support the headlight tube, which I soldered on, and the other with a couple of screw holes to attach to the frame. The frame of course required a couple of holes to be drilled to match the ones in the strip. A little fiddling and checking got everything lined up well, with the hole drilling being about the last step. I will mention the holes got threads tapped in--a necessity with a cast metal frame.
The job never quite got finished--I sold the unit, which was painted and lettered for Baltimore & Ohio to a friend--but other than wiring up the headlights (I did both ends), it was done.
In your case, with a non-powered unit, adding a small battery bracket and figuring out how to install a switch in an inconspicuous but reachable location shouldn't be too hard; you should have plenty of room inside for anything you want to do. You should find a lot of things for this in something like a radio or electronics supply shop, such as Radio Shack.
You could make some phosphor bronze pickups if you wanted to use track power. Either wheel wipers, or 'shoes' as shown here:
http://www.micromark.com/phosphor-bronze-sheet-5-inches-x-7-inches-pkg-of-3,8335.html (http://www.micromark.com/phosphor-bronze-sheet-5-inches-x-7-inches-pkg-of-3,8335.html)
Having some phosphor bronze around can be handy for a lot of projects. But if you don't need that much, Kadee #5 style coupler centering springs are fairly easy to turn into 'wheel wiper' pickups too:
(http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/1879/bachmann_4-4-0/sound/image/0020315_tapered_wings.jpg)
Len
Thank you both for your suggestions... much appreciated.
Derek
One thing that was not asked is this, are you running in DC or Dcc. I you are running in dc with direction lighting or dcc than run wired from the back up light to the dummy with a plug between the units.
It is running on a DCC layout. Thanks.