Installation of Party LED's in Yamanote E235 Series.

[bc6]

I was doing a deep dive on YouTube and came across party trains so I had to have them in my N scale trains.

After doing a exhaustive search on Google I found the company that makes them since it doesn't look like the original company makes them.

https://hktilc.com is the company that I ordered my set of leds from they are located in Hong Kong and took about a week to get here (USA)

I have 7 out of 11 cars retrofitted with the party leds, Below are some instructions on how I installed them as the leds do net have any instructions I thought this post would be a good resource.

 

• I got my cars ready I did a car at a time.
• Remove a led strip from the runner a gentle snap is needed no tools.
• Insert a copper strip into both holes.
• Take the led strip you removed from the runner then measure it (I had to remove two leds in order for the strip to fit the car)
• Insert the led in front of the plastic part where you put the copper strips so the contact on the strip makes contact with the contacts on the led. 
• Double check the contact between the copper strip and the led before you put the body back on the car.
• Once the car hits the track it will blink automatically you can not control the speed or function of the leds with DCC.
• I'm extremally happy with the way they look
• I just put in another order for the rest of my train. 

 

 

LED Strips one per car and copper strips.

 

Copper strip not fully installed. 

 

 

Copper strip installed fully.

 

Measuring led strip against car body.

 

Cutting two leds off the strip with pliers. 

 

Installed led strip.

 

No shell

 

Only four more to go. 

 

Another example of party lights not my video though. This video helped me a lot with the installation of the LED's.

Edited April 22, 2023 by bc6

[James-SNMB]

Cool! The "Lighting Trains" thread over in the Electrical section of the forum has several pages worth of posts about these HKTILC lights, and I plan to order from them too. (Not the party lights though, but it sure looks fun!)

 

Having read what others have written, it sounds like this may actually be the same factory that makes the lights for Popondetta, just that they also rebrand and sell directly.

[bc6]

Thanks James I'll check it out I wasnt sure where to put this post at.

Im glad I found HKTILC I had FOMO when I couldn't easily find these led but kept looking, They are fun.

 

It looks like that may be the case, In my casual observation the pcb's and arrangement of the leds are different than Poppendetta's 

[James-SNMB]

Oh that's interesting, and kind of surprising that they may be different given that the website (last time I checked) was only in Chinese and not super oriented to international sales. I thought maybe it was how they get around stepping on the toes of Popondetta as a client, but I think that detailed aspect was just personal speculation on my part. I have no first hand experience with either HKTILC or Popondetta lights, but I'm highly interested in the flicker free feature (using capacitors), and HKTILC looks like great value. It's encouraging to see another satisfied customer and makes me more eager to pull the trigger myself. Thanks for sharing your installation!

[bc6]

Im glad they are still being produced regardless it would have been to miss out on so much interactive fun.

I took a closer look at HKTILC website and they have black pcb's on the front page and the old leds use to be black too. 

I know they wont ship to Japan thats for sure so maybe your right about international sales being off limits to certain places. 

I'm interested in flicker free lighting too and would like to see how you get along with them. I'm glad I was able to show confidence and support in at least one of their products enough to be a return customer as I was nervous submitting my first order with them.

[James-SNMB]

Yeah I'll have to head over to the Lighting thread and ask some questions before I place an order to make sure I know I'm ordering the right styles and colours. There are a couple of things on my shopping list that are ahead of it in the queue, but seeing you videos has got me more interested again.

 

From what others have said, the "flicker free" works pretty well, but of course it has it's limits if track is very dirty.

 

Honestly though, I just switched from Atlas flex track to new Kato unitrack, so that has made my Kato Lighting pretty much flicker free...at least until that track gets dirty too! So we'll see when my motivation truly kicks in... 

[bc6]

I'm glad I rejuvenated your interest in lighting again and hope you get it figured out with the help of other JNS members I'm sure you will get it sorted. That's another think I'm working on is the best method for clean tracks, I have a nice Tomix track cleaning car that I use and some cleaner as well. I think Kato Unitrack is the caviar of N scale track personally and I've used Atlas track before.

[disturbman]

On 4/22/2023 at 5:23 AM, James-SNMB said:

Oh that's interesting, and kind of surprising that they may be different given that the website (last time I checked) was only in Chinese and not super oriented to international sales. I thought maybe it was how they get around stepping on the toes of Popondetta as a client, but I think that detailed aspect was just personal speculation on my part.

That's the info we have. HKTILC is the producer of Popondetta lights and are by contract not allowed to sell in Japan. The website is in Chinese and English and its no issue ordering from abroad. You should also be able to order the lights via the Khaho (https://www.khahostore.com/, https://www.facebook.com/KhahoStore, or via their WhatsApp contacts) both companies are linked and my contact is the same at Khaho and HKTILC.