Passenger Car Upgrade to LED

[RailMan63]

Hi,guys!  
I finally went and upgraded one of my combines to an LED light to replace the standard germ of wheat bulb that these cars come with from the factory.
I used a prewired 5mm warm white LED(fits the hole for the original light bulb perfectly!),a 4 prong bridge rectifier, and a 1000uF25v condenser, and a little hot glue to get the job done.
And as you'll see in the accompanying link. it was a job well done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG50YUnUnCc&feature=youtu.be

I hate flickering lights, so I'm going to do the same thing with all of my On30 passenger cars. Next up: I'll be upgrading the observation car that I've in the middle of repainting.
I'd have already finished it, but I had to buy a replacement airbrush. I'll post a video of that finished car on this link when I complete the project.

[Ton N]

nice.
I don't use a bridge rectifier because i have DCC.
But i understand why you are using one.
What value resistor did you use?
And is 1000uF a bit overkill?

Ton

[RailMan63]

Actually, I don't know what type, or value, the resistor is.  I buy the LED's on Ebay from sellers in Hong Kong. They're prewired so I don't have to solder them myself.
Saves a lot of time that way. A lot of 20 LED's costs me about $6-7.00 U.S.
As I'm sure you know, the bridge rectifier is a must have in order to get the lights to work in both directions when running an analog only system.
As far as the capacitor is concerned,a  bigger capacitor is always better than a smaller capacitor when it comes to holding a sufficient charge to prevent flickering.
I tried using the same capacitor with the grain of wheat bulb, and that bulb sucked it dry immediately. And it didn't stop the flickering.
It worked perfectly the moment I replaced the bulb with the LED.
I did some research after reading your post, and I found that the bridge rectifier is unnecessary when running on a DCC system. Unfortunately, my 2 moguls are purely analog, so if I want the cars to be able to run right with the moguls and the DCC 4-6-0 and new 2-8-0, I believe that I'll have to do the same thing to the other remaining cars that I did with this combine.
Can DCC harm the bridge rectifier , or  a car with one installed in it? Or can a bridge rectifier cause problems with a DCC system?
Thanks Ton !

[Ton N]

A bridge rectifier is made for rectifying  AC to DC but also works from DC to DC.
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/diode/diode_6.html?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
Have a look at the schematics.
I made a mobile power supply on a flat car for a wireless camera and have no problems with DCC.

A LED usually consumes  20 mA.
If I make a power supply I always use the rule of thump, 2200uF per Amp.

2200x0,02=44uF per LED
Times the number of LED's.
3?
=132
taking the E24 standard sequence it would be 150uF.
That should be enough but to be sure use 220uF.

Ton

[J. S. Bach]

...snip... I did some research after reading your post, and I found that the bridge rectifier is unnecessary when running on a DCC system ...snip...

What, if anything, would happen if you ran that car on a DCC system with the rectifier in place?

[Ton N]

...snip... I did some research after reading your post, and I found that the bridge rectifier is unnecessary when running on a DCC system ...snip...

What, if anything, would happen if you ran that car on a DCC system with the rectifier in place?

Nothing at all.
The rectifier has no influence on the dcc signal at all.
You are just adding four more diodes to the system as a LED is also a diode.
That said, I was told that using a LED as rectifier shortens the life of that LED.

Ton

[RailMan63]

J.S. Bach:
Using  a bridge rectifier with a capacitor was suggested to me on a large scale forum several years ago. I had severe flickering problems with the lights in my G Scale passenger cars that I had converted to LED's. The problem with using LED's is that the LED only lights when the train is going in one direction.
It has to do with the way the current from the power supply flows. It flows one way, and the LED lights up. It flows in the reverse direction(when you change the polarity/direction on the power supply to reverse your train), and the LED goes out.
So, when reversing, all the lights would  go off. And,of course, they still flickered going forward.
Someone suggested adding a capacitor/bridge rectifier to solve both problems. He also provided a diagram showing how to connect everything.
I followed his instructions, and both of my lighting problems immediately went away.
It seems to me that with a DCC system, since you are no longer changing the trains direction with the switch on the power supply,the current direction on the tracks remains the same.
With a DCC system you are either using a remote control (such as the MRC Loco Genie DCC system that I installed in my Bachmann On30 4-6-0. With that system in order to reverse the trains direction, you press a button on the IR remote provided with the system. It changes the trains direction, but not the direction of the electrical current that's flowing through the track. Is this a correct assessment, Ton?), or using a command station that is wired directly to the track (like the Bachmann E-Z Command system).
The need for the extra bridge rectifier is thusly eliminated when using LED's to light your cars.
Am I right so far,Ton? Please correct me if I'm not!
The fellow on the large scale forum didn't mention anything about problems with shortening the life of the LED's. I'm not too concerned about it . The ones that I get are cheap, and easy to replace.

[RailMan63]

Here's the now completed combine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWKUyV9Rrw4

I used 3 LED's instead of one in this car . The car was too dark with only one LED.

[Ton N]

Current is what an appliance draws when it needs it. (Ampere)
The tension ( Voltage) is what is applied. (Volt)
A LED is nothing more than a diode that emits light.
A diode only lets a current through in one direction.
The name says it all , a Light Emitting Diode and fall in the category of semi conductors.
When an electron in a high energy state goes back to its original energy level it emits a photon.
The colour emitted depends on how high the jump is.
Thats quantum mechanics.
Take AC and put a diode into the circuit, it will only let through one polarity.
Then you get a DC Voltage with a frequency of 60 Hertz in your case and 50 in mine.
Using a bridge rectifier you also flip the omitted polarity up and you get 120 Hertz and in my case 100 Hertz.
That might count for the flickering you get when making DC from AC.
A capacitor can been seen as a loadable battery that gives of Voltage when needed.
Taking a capacitor and connecting it behind the rectifying diode(s) from plus to minus it will flatten out the pulses.
Gone are the flickers.
To keep it simple, DCC is not AC but DC but it behaves like AC if you measure it with a multimeter.
That is why you need to rectify the voltage with a couple of diodes or a bridge rectifier.
I hope you get it because this is difficult for me to explain in English.
My native language is Dutch.

Ton

[RailMan63]

Ton:
You did perfectly , my friend . Thank you for the explanation. I know some of that, but not nearly everything about it.
Not by a long shot.
I'm new to DCC trains. My On30 4-6-0 is the first locomotive with DCC that I ever bought. The BLI #268 is the second. I have 2 fairly new large scale locomotives( bought new last year) that have sound systems that are DCC capable, but I use magnets glued to the track ties to get the bell and whistle sounds.
At least you can control the bell and whistle sounds on the BLI #268 by flicking the direction switch back and forth. What a pleasant surprise! I downloaded the complete manual on it. 22 pages long! Kind of like a short novel. But it did give me important info on the loco, so that's good.On, and one more thing about the BLI #268: I love it.
Thank you for telling me about it!

[RailMan63]

Ton:
Do you know if decals for on3 passenger cars will work for On30 passenger cars?
There are 2 different sets of decals for passenger cars on Ebay right now.
One is On3, and the other is On30. There's a $10.00 U.S. difference in price, so I'm wondering if I can save the extra $10.00 and buy the on3 decals for my On30 passenger cars.
I think I can, but I'm not 100 percent sure.
Thank you!

[Ton N]

Same scale other wheel spacing.
on3 cars are usually longer , on30 cars tend to be shorter.
So yes you can use those decals.
I had them from San Juan Decals and i found a Dutch guy who can print custom decal sheets in the Netherlands.
https://www.decalwinkel.nl/
You provide  him with a JPG or a pcx file you have drawn yourself and tell him how you want it; in colour , black or in white.

Ton

[RailMan63]

Cool! I finally went on the San Juan Decals website,and found them there.
i also discovered that the set on Ebay that the seller says is for On30 trains, is actually the exact same set that he's listing for On3 trains,but he's charging $10.00 more for On30.
After going to the SJD website, I memorized the numbers for the On3 decal set(they don't offer a set specifically made for On30).
I then went back to Ebay and checked the numbers on the decal sets being offered by that seller. Sure enough, the numbers on both sets are SJD701 !
Nice,huh?
So, I'll be buying the decals directly from SJD. Better price,and cheaper shipping,too!

Thank you, my friend!

[vitaliiokolos]

You may want to check out this article on bridge rectifiers https://www.derf.com/how-a-bridge-rectifier-works-step-by-step-tutorial/ Hope it helps.

[p51]

I have saved the link, as I yanked the wiring out of all my passenger equipment (one Bachmann and two AMS coaches).
The RR I model (the ET&WNC) didn't seem to use lighting in daytime runs, looking at period photos, so I'm no hurry to put lights back into any of them. But still, it's good to see a good way to do it if I change my mind later.