Lighting Trains

[brill27mcb]

A little late, but better than never right? I also thought a list of Narrows and Wides would be great especially for Tomix since they usually do not list if they require the Narrow or Wide type, unlike MicroAcce models which are listed on the box.

 

To start the ball rolling, here's my first list of the models which I have. Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to provide more information as to models which I do not have, but it's a good start to this list and hopefully many others can add on so that we can have a nice comprehensive list for all to use. Please also make amendments if I have been mistaken on some.

 

TOMIX

 

SHINKANSEN

92852 200 series Renewal colour - WIDE

92796 400 series old colour - NARROW

92083 500 series (old model) - NARROW

92276/ 77 700-7000 Hikari Rail Star - NARROW

92486 N700A - NARROW

98925 N700 Kumamon/ Kurochan - NARROW

92630/ 1/ 2 E2-1000 Hayate - WIDE

92725 E3 Komachi - NARROW

92804 E3-1000 Tsubasa - NARROW

92764/ 5/ 6/ 7 E4 MAX - NARROW

92501/ 2 E5 Hayabusa - NARROW

 

LIMITED EXPRESS

E253 Narita Express (former) - NARROW 

Odakyu Romance Car VSE-50000 - NARROW

 

RAPID TRAINS

92369/ 70/ 71/ 72 E231-1000 'Tokaido Line' - NARROW

 

SLEEPER/ EXCURSION CARRIAGE CARS 

E26 Cassiopeia - NARROW

50 series belonging to Nostalgic View train - NARROW

 

COMMUTER TRAINS

92297/ 8 209-500 series Sobu Line - NARROW

92329 / 30 209-0 series Keihin-Tohoku Line - NARROW

 

 

MICROACE

 

LIMITED EXPRESS

A2273 485 series Zipangu - WIDE

A7090 495 series Irodori - WIDE

 

RAPID TRAINS

A0521 455 Series Akabe colour - WIDE

 

SLEEPER/ EXCURSION CARRIAGE CARS 

A6980 Suha-43 - NARROW

 

COMMUTER TRAINS

A5933 Kiha-40 Fox-Squid-Crab colour - WIDE

 

Please add on and keep the list going! Thanks!

 

Great info, JR500!  Don't be apologetic for not offering info on trains that you do not own -- there are already far too many people on the internet who offer "information" on things about which they really have no personal knowledge!  :)  Hopefully others will add to the list by checking their own collections.

 

Rich K.

[cteno4]

ok so i gave soldering the tiny magnets a whirl. i soldered some 1x2mm magnets to some 30awg wrapping wire (copper core thats tinned thorough out) and it works! you have to really solder the magnet on something metal or in a small clamp to make sure it does not stick to the soldering iron tip and if you get it too hot too long it will depolarize and no more magnet (perhaps using some wood bits to hold the magnet might help reduce this issue). but after burning one out i was able to solder a couple quickly and they couple and only show 0.4 ohm drop, the same in the same length of wire so magnet joint is not adding any real resistance.

 

of course im not sure how much amperage yet you can pump thru the joint but with higher gauge wire it could probably do well, when i get some time ill play with it to see how much. slapped a battery and led on it and lit like it was hooked directly to the battery fine so takes 20ma no worries! magnets could get a bit bigger for the diaphragm coupler like 3mm dia by 6mm long. these would give a good positive couple as well and probably hold up to some flux loss in soldering. I think these neodymium magnets may be coated with something as they have a shiiny coating and i have a few sets that are rather dull looking, looking like they are uncoated. ill try soldering one of those to see what happens as well.

 

i used the 30awg wire to see if kvp's idea of dangling connectors might work. there is a little play there but as it gets short it really goes down.

 

but i am thinking the power transmission thru little diaphragm magnetic "plugs" could work well. its a part that would be perfect to cheaply 3D print. at some point im going to have to machine a couple out of styrene to see how it might work.

 

but the cool thing is now i know i can also use the magnets to transfer power to buildings as well as hold them in place, so dont have to worry about small plug connectors and the attached wiggling wires to deal with when i do lighted building and want to use the magnets to move them between ttrak and layout and club! 

 

cheers

 

jeff

Edited July 7, 2014 by cteno4

[JR 500系]

Oh interesting Jeff! Would love to see it in pictures! Sounds like a workable plan, but personally I suck at soldering...

 

Yes Rich K! I would sincerely hope others could add on to the list so that in the end we will have one extensive list for reference!

[E6系]

Hello Mr Jeff,

 

Could you post a couple of pics of your work?  I'd like to see these 2mm magnets.

 

I'm thinking along the lines of electrified, spring-loaded, magnetic buffers.  Could it work?

[kvp]

Just found something interesting:

http://www.krois-modell.at/produkt/stkupp/

Of course, it doesn't help much that the same picture is used for TT and N scale and it looks quite a bit of a home made thing, but the idea is clear. The plugs and sockets are the ones that are used for 6 pin NEM sockets, so despite the claimed 1.2A rating, they have a 0.5A rating with 1A peak, which could be enough.

[cteno4]

Interesting couplers. I assume they work on a pivot pin so they swivel a little on each truck. Still a bit pessimistic about having like 26g wires causing stiffening of the swivel,in n scale distances w/in the truck space. Also I have dealt with sooooo many plugs in my life and none are perfect, especially with lots of uses like a coupler could,get. Also as things get smaller more issues come to play.

 

Those plugs will handle 1a or more fine I'm sure. They have a pretty good cross section and should only be a small peak draws really with the intermittent dropouts. Most of the amperage will go up thru the motor car trucks (least resistance) and only draw thru the plugs on dropouts, but flywheels will also reduce this some I expect.

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

Hmm been thinking, if the diaphragm magnet couplers would work you could do 4 connections so that you could have the all wheel pickup on one buss then the other be an internal lighting bus so one of the end car or the motor car decoder could control all,the car's lighting.

 

Jeff

[keitaro]

thanks Jeff,

 

i was thinking more along the lines of just throwing the power the magnets do not need to touch.

 

but after some research i have found it`s too small to do

http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/technology/magnetic-resonance-and-magnetic-induction-making-the-right-choice-for-your-application.html

[kvp]

 

Interesting couplers. I assume they work on a pivot pin so they swivel a little on each truck.

They are (in theory) NEM couplers, so they have to be mounted in whatever coupler holders the cars have. This could mean conventional fixed with a little swivel, bogie mounted and even close coupler mechs. The movement of the couplers relative to the car could be almost zero (bogie mounted ones) or really flexible (close couplers).

 

i was thinking more along the lines of just throwing the power the magnets do not need to touch.

Electromagnetic coupling only works with AC. Normal analog DC power doesn't have an AC component and a DCC signal is a square wave, which would get distorted pretty quickly when driven through multiple aircore tranformers.

Edited July 7, 2014 by kvp

[JR 500系]

Just thought i'll post this here:

 

So I was lighting up most of my trains with illumi, including the Tomix E3 Komachi. The Komachi I got was the older model, the 92725, as an USED set from a Yahoo seller. It came with pre-fitted interior lights, but they were the older type (duller, less bright) and they were all Orange (warm) colour.

 

As the Komachi had 6-cars, only the first car (or car number 11) is Green Class so that'll stick with the pre-installed bulb colour. I went ahead to strip out the remaining 5 bulb colour light tubes and installed them with the new illumi white LED light tubes. Boy were they bright! Thing is, way TOO bright the roof started giving off light!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOO Bright! Seen under light conditions

 

 

Worse if it's under dark conditions...

 

That doesn't look nice, doesn't it? So I went ahead to modify it using the simplest method possible which I picked up from building Tomytec building kits. Aluminium Foil!

 

 

Lay it on the underside of the body nicely...

 

 

Viola! Solved! Picture taken under dark conditions!

 

 

Simple and effective method. But leaves me wondering why the body of the Komachi was this thin it couldn't take the illumi LEDs? The rest of the Tomix models I had all could receive illumi fine without this problem...

 

So I research abit and found this:

 

 

【コラム】トミックス・E3系改造パーツセット

トミックスの「こまち」は2010年5月にリニューアルされた際、プロトタイプがR18編成以降に変更されたが、屋根上パーツ交換で従来品のような前期型に改造できるパーツセットが用意された。トミックス製品のパーツ類を通販している「テックステーション」のみで購入できるもので数量限定品。リニューアル「こまち」と同時に購入したものだが、このパーツに触れているサイトや書籍はほとんどなく、ブツを見たことがある人は少ないと思うので紹介してみたい。

 

同社の単品ケースに入った状態で送られてきた。「TS-003」という品番が割り当てられたテックステーションオリジナル商品。

改造に当たっては車両を分解、屋根板を交換するという作業が発生する。切削などは必要なくポン付け程度の工作となるが、やはり慣れは必要なためかタイトルに「上級者向け」と付いている

 

内容物はほとんどが屋根上パーツで、中間車4両(12号車～15号車)の屋根板、16号車のケーブルヘッドガイシと交換する小さなカバー、ガイシパーツ(500系に同梱されているものと同じ)のほか、前期型の編成・形式番号が収録されたインレタ(クリックで表示)が含まれている。

インレタに収録されていのはR2・7・11・14編成で、それ以外は製品本体に付属するインレタの内容に準じている。

 

 

前述の通り、改造はポン付けレベルのものなので、工作慣れした人ならマニュアルを見ながらやれば簡単に前期型へ改造できるだろう。ただし、実車の前期型(R2～R16編成)は前面窓のワイパーが1本となるが、トミックスのE3系は2本ワイパーなので厳密には異なる。ワイパーを1本削り落とせば実車と同じになるが、前面窓は透明パーツゆえに難易度が高いため妥協したほうがよいだろう。だいたい、パンタカバーの形状から違っているのだし。

パーツの組み合わせ次第ではR17編成も再現できるが、インレタから番号を拾って組み合わせる必要がある。R17編成が印刷されている旧製品を持っているなら、リニューアル後の製品を改造した余りパーツを流用しR2～16編成の屋根上になっているのを是正して、真・R17編成にした方がいいかもしれない。

最後に、比較的簡単な工作とはいえ、この手の改造はたとえメーカー純正パーツであっても、基本的には自己責任で行うものである。工作は苦手、もしくは慣れていないという人は、なるべく出来る人に作業を依頼したほうがよいだろう。

 

 

I initially thought they were parts to rectify this situation, but goggle translator says otherwise. Seems they are only parts to make the older model more prototypical to the newer one?

[E6系]

Good heavens, that's bright.

 

Solution:

 

[HantuBlauLOL]

LOL E6, you made my day! :D

 

2.2K to 4.7K ohm resistors would be the most perfect choice for it IMHO

[cteno4]

Yes light levels are critically important to make model lighting say "real" to the viewer's mind's eye! Light does not scale literally due to the inverse square law so it's tricky to make a model scene light properly to make the mind's eye say REAL. The more dimmer lights the better, but we usually end up with one very bright one per unit.

 

Way back I did a lot of exhibit modeling in 3/4" scale (1/16) and we use to do photo shoots and usually had a lighting person come in. They would ask how the final real life scene would be lit and do all sorts of whacky things lighting the model that were not at all how the real life exhibit would be lit,must look thru the camera and voila the model scene looked just as the designer had described it for the real world version to the lighting person! All this is to say lighting requires a lot of playing with and the one light fits all won't work...

 

Adding an SMD pot would allow each train to be set to just the right light level to make it shine! (Pun intended)

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[E6系]

LOL E6, you made my day! :D

 

2.2K to 4.7K ohm resistors would be the most perfect choice for it IMHO

 

Hello Mr HantuBlauLOL,

 

Yes, I keep a fishing tackle box full of resistors and capacitors, especially for this kind of problem.  Sometimes photography exaggerates the brightness of the lighting but you're probably right, the 470 ohm resistor I pictured probably would not be enough.

[Melandir]

LOL E6, you made my day! :D

 

2.2K to 4.7K ohm resistors would be the most perfect choice for it IMHO

 

I usually use 4.7K for trains with large windows and 3.7K for Shinkansen that usually have small windows

 

but if you paint the train interior that will be a huge different for the light

[cteno4]

That's what I loved about that German club's video is that they had painting the interior the appropriate colors. Not only will effect where the light is reflected, but also the color and intensity. Also with the lighted windows the eye is drawn to look in the windows so just a tad of detail like painted seats visible will really stimulate the mind's eye into saying super real!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[kvp]

My only problem with interior lights is that they make it obvious that the train is running empty. So imho if you light up a train, there should be a few passengers in it, including a driver. In japan the guard is at the rear of most emus and dmus, so it's easy to add two drivers for bidirectional operation, but putting a ligthed train into a yard with people in it looks strange, so it's not a 100% solution. (turning the lights off while in the yard helps) Also, with interior lights a constant lighting controller (or DCC) is a must if you plan to stop at a station. (in case of DCC you could either isolate the yard like in DC or add a decoder into every car) In short interior lights look great and bring along a whole lot of things to do before the train starts to look more realistic.

[cteno4]

Indeed! People really help make the train as well and lighting does a great job of making them standout as in a dark car even in daylight you tend not to notice them unless you look close!

 

N and eve z scale cheap Chinese architectural figures lopped off a the waist to go in seats work great! Keitaro did some nice interiors with these figures. At three cents each a buck can decently populate a car.

 

Jeff

[railsquid]

 

Looks better in real life than the photo. Using "TORM" lighting strips from TamTam, which have LEDs along the whole lengh (rather than Kato's "bulb at one end and thick plastic prism strip"). They're also thinner than the Kato prism strips, which is important in this case as there are some uniformed restaurant car staff standing.

[cteno4]

Excellent cephalopod!

 

The light in the daylight really make your figures pop nicely. Looks great in the photos so must be spectacular in person.

 

Yeah I'm a big fan of more lights at lower levels to get more realistic lighting than trying to use plastic light strips that never diffuse light well for a realistic effect. Unfortunately the labor costs to solder 5-8 half yen SMD leds is a lot more than a strip of plastic!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[railsquid]

Thanks :) My wife is the driving force behind peopling the rolling stock, she came across a random model shop recently and came home with a pack of Kato blue train restaurant car staff, which was a good excuse to go out and buy a Kato blue train restaurant car :)

 

The TORM strips from TamTam are only marginally more expensive (595 yen + tax from TamTam) than Kato's own ones (about 550 yen from Yodobashi Camera), so I'll be using those for any future lighting projects.

[cteno4]

Wow that's a reasonable price! How many leds do they have? How constant is the lighting brightness while running with increasing speed? Just wondering if they did any current or voltage regulation to keep it even and a capacitor to keep flicker down.

 

The cheap Chinese architectural figures from ebay are great to fill the cars cheaply. Some have found that in some cars z scale figures have to be used as the n scale one haut look too big. Usually need to be clipped off at the waist (then just need to figure out to do with the dozens of sets of legs!)

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[railsquid]

Wow that's a reasonable price! How many leds do they have? How constant is the lighting brightness while running with increasing speed? Just wondering if they did any current or voltage regulation to keep it even and a capacitor to keep flicker down.

 

 

IIRC there were 8 LEDs on the strip. It looked pretty good when running, though I only ran it a few times so far. I'll report in more detail when I get some more strips as I don't want to dismantle the car again unless I need to.

 

The cheap Chinese architectural figures from ebay are great to fill the cars cheaply. Some have found that in some cars z scale figures have to be used as the n scale one haut look too big. Usually need to be clipped off at the waist (then just need to figure out to do with the dozens of sets of legs!)

 

 

I picked up a bag of cheapo sitting people a while back, I did of course have to amputate their legs (and in some cases perform an impromptu haircut). I guess if I were modelling a field hospital in a war zone the excess legs might come in handy for the medical waste pile ;)

 

The Kato figures are the waitresses standing in the aisles, not very visible in the photo, I had to cut their feet off as well, alas.

[cteno4]

When one of our members did a bunch of busses up with passengers we came up with the idea of having an overturned truck with legs spilling out. It was the truck from the mannequin factory in an accident...

 

Jeff

[JR 500系]

Oh wow that looks great Squid!

 

I gotta start amputating some of my people and place them into the trains! Definitely adds on to the realistic!

 

Didn't know TORM was for the Kato? I thought they were only for Tomix and MicroAce, like illumi. Interesting that Kato has a third party light tube that's usable! Can you share what the installation process is like; I mean like is it a full light tube with springs that easily sits into the carriage or does it come with some assembly required like the Kato?