On this episode of Caleb's Trains we show you how we upgraded the lighting in our MTH Premiere passenger cars. We hope you enjoy.........Happy Railroading!!!
After all of these years since the conversion, we’ve never had a single problem on these cars. We run them a lot too. Good luck if you decide to do this conversion. Thanks for watching. Happy Railroading! 🚂🚃🚋
The lights we chose are a bluish color. There isn’t any way to change the color. Thanks for your question and thanks for watching. Happy Railroading! 🚂🚋🚃
Great video. So this can be done without using rectifiers and capacitors ? Do you experience and flicker at times ? I have no scale Rivsrossi I want to change over from incandescent. I was told to use a rectifier and a capacitor. I wonder why.
I’m no certified electrician so I’m not an expert. I can tell you that we did this 4 years ago and are still problem free. You will get a flicker if the power is disrupted but it doesn’t flicker like the old incandescent bulbs that used to be in these cars. We also run them a lot on our layout so they’ve stood the test of time. Thanks for asking and thanks for watching. Happy Railroading! 🚂🚃🚋
@@CalebsTrains thank you the reply. I'm going to wire one car the way you did to see how it goes. If I have to do it in the manner I mentioned. I have all of the components on hand. I'll be doing this on n scale. Thanks again.
Bill Yates , I thought the same but when I seen them used in this application, I figured I'd give it a try. So far they've been working fine. We did one car about a month ago and ran it as our experiment. So far so good. I've read and heard many differing opinions on this, so I figured I'd post our results and let everyone see how they came out. Thanks for watching.
Since LED's are diodes they only allow current to pass one way, when the current passes through the LED it will light. This means under AC current the LED's are flashing rapidly and are only lit when the current is flowing in the direction the LED was designed for. It won't hurt the LED but you may notice the rapid flashing (60Hz in US) if you are sensitive to it.
I did a similar upgrade on some of my MTH coaches as well--I had to, since I was making up an Amtrak Auto-Train and the power draw of nine Superliners was...well they were pulling half an amp apiece just for the lights. If you search "O Gauge Amtrak Auto-Train" my video of it should be the first result, since I'm the only one so far to do it on TH-cam. The effect isn't quite as noticable in my video since I ran the train in daylight--you can see the lights in the low-angle shots--but in the darkness, most of the light stays inside the car, whereas before, much of it went right out the windows. You can see the effect on an old O Gauge RR forum discussion (ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/300-led-rope-light-question?page=3) where I posted photos of my conversion. Like you, I was concerned about the holding ability of the adhesive on the strips, and on the last couple of conversions I re-used the grey bulb strip that held the original lights to hold the strip against the car ceiling without involving any sticky stuff, letting the LED's shine down through the slots (my strips are the indoor version without the clear plastic coating). Only modification to the plastic bulb holder was to use masking tape to insulate the brass strips that powered the original lights--even though I wasn't reusing the old bulbs, I was reluctant to toss the parts. For that matter I didn't even toss the original bulbs--just stuck them inside a hidden part of the lower level with hot glue :D One other difference in my project was that I added a circuit to regulate the current running into the strip (rectifier, capacitor, current regulator and a choke to preserve DCS signals), rather than go straight to track power. I'm told that LED's aren't so good at absorbing reverse voltage (i.e. half the AC power), and are prone to dying prematurely if fed enough of it.
![[TH] VALORANT Champions Seoul - Grand Final - EDG vs TH](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WvObMc9VelI/mqdefault.jpg)
Thinking about this. My passenger cars are tripping my transformer.
After all of these years since the conversion, we’ve never had a single problem on these cars. We run them a lot too. Good luck if you decide to do this conversion. Thanks for watching. Happy Railroading! 🚂🚃🚋
They look soo good soo much brighter and they won’t flash
When you do this up grade, are you able to change the color's of the lights?
The lights we chose are a bluish color. There isn’t any way to change the color. Thanks for your question and thanks for watching. Happy Railroading! 🚂🚋🚃
Great video! Thinking of changing the lighting on my Metra Bi-level cars soon.
steven williams, I think you’ll like the results. Thanks for watching.
Great video. So this can be done without using rectifiers and capacitors ? Do you experience and flicker at times ? I have no scale Rivsrossi I want to change over from incandescent. I was told to use a rectifier and a capacitor. I wonder why.
I’m no certified electrician so I’m not an expert. I can tell you that we did this 4 years ago and are still problem free. You will get a flicker if the power is disrupted but it doesn’t flicker like the old incandescent bulbs that used to be in these cars. We also run them a lot on our layout so they’ve stood the test of time. Thanks for asking and thanks for watching. Happy Railroading! 🚂🚃🚋
@@CalebsTrains thank you the reply. I'm going to wire one car the way you did to see how it goes. If I have to do it in the manner I mentioned. I have all of the components on hand. I'll be doing this on n scale. Thanks again.
How is it that you state that there are positive and negative wires when the power off the track is AC? Is there a conversion to DC for the lights?
No conversion used. Track power from third rail and common ground from outside rails.
Over 5 years of problem free lighting.
Hello, but that way, it only lights up in one direction of travel, the other way around, right?
This setup is constantly on. If there is power to the track then the lights are on. Thanks for watching. Happy Railroading! 🚂🚋🚃
@Caleb's Trains Thank you very much for your prompt response.👍
@@elmundodepedro 👍
Looks great! I thought those LED light strips were for DC volts not AC volts? Anyways, great video! Thanks!
Bill Yates , I thought the same but when I seen them used in this application, I figured I'd give it a try. So far they've been working fine. We did one car about a month ago and ran it as our experiment. So far so good. I've read and heard many differing opinions on this, so I figured I'd post our results and let everyone see how they came out. Thanks for watching.
Since LED's are diodes they only allow current to pass one way, when the current passes through the LED it will light. This means under AC current the LED's are flashing rapidly and are only lit when the current is flowing in the direction the LED was designed for. It won't hurt the LED but you may notice the rapid flashing (60Hz in US) if you are sensitive to it.
Cool video! No need for a converter to DC for the LEDs?
Matt-Trainlover9943, nope. We’ve had trouble free operation since we converted them over.
Caleb's Trains Cool! You eventually going to add capacitors to keep them flicker free.
Matt-Trainlover9943, we haven’t decided yet.
Caleb's Trains Alright, if you decide to, can you video on how to do it?
Matt-Trainlover9943, you got it.
I did a similar upgrade on some of my MTH coaches as well--I had to, since I was making up an Amtrak Auto-Train and the power draw of nine Superliners was...well they were pulling half an amp apiece just for the lights. If you search "O Gauge Amtrak Auto-Train" my video of it should be the first result, since I'm the only one so far to do it on TH-cam.
The effect isn't quite as noticable in my video since I ran the train in daylight--you can see the lights in the low-angle shots--but in the darkness, most of the light stays inside the car, whereas before, much of it went right out the windows. You can see the effect on an old O Gauge RR forum discussion (ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/300-led-rope-light-question?page=3) where I posted photos of my conversion.
Like you, I was concerned about the holding ability of the adhesive on the strips, and on the last couple of conversions I re-used the grey bulb strip that held the original lights to hold the strip against the car ceiling without involving any sticky stuff, letting the LED's shine down through the slots (my strips are the indoor version without the clear plastic coating). Only modification to the plastic bulb holder was to use masking tape to insulate the brass strips that powered the original lights--even though I wasn't reusing the old bulbs, I was reluctant to toss the parts. For that matter I didn't even toss the original bulbs--just stuck them inside a hidden part of the lower level with hot glue :D
One other difference in my project was that I added a circuit to regulate the current running into the strip (rectifier, capacitor, current regulator and a choke to preserve DCS signals), rather than go straight to track power. I'm told that LED's aren't so good at absorbing reverse voltage (i.e. half the AC power), and are prone to dying prematurely if fed enough of it.
RailRide, we have no problems with how we did our conversion. It definitely is a nice upgrade over the original setup. Thanks for watching.
very cool. were do you get the led roll
joseph battaglia, we got them on eBay. Thanks for watching.
thanks....happy new year
I found a place near me that just specializes in led lighting...he has a warm white 60 foot roll for 25 bucks...not bad...
joseph battaglia, that’s a good price.
Are you using 12v leds ? I thought you would have to use 18v or so. Please advise me.
Edward LaBonte
We used 18 volt LED strips that we purchased on EBay. Thanks for watching. Happy Railroading!
thanks can you give me a model number or the seller id to look it up please.
Edward LaBonte
We purchased these a couple years ago. I don’t remember the seller. Just search eBay for LED light strips. Thanks for watching.