Tomytec lighting kit

[Pashina12]

So I have this Tomytec battery-powered lighting kit with six lamps that I'd forgotten I'd bought, so I'll be using this to light my layout; I'll definitely have to buy at least one more. I like how it has these easy plugs that you just stick into the battery box and boom, let there be light.

 

What I'm curious about is, are there streetlights and station/yard lamps available to fit these plugs?

[cteno4]

It’s hard to do streetlights and lamps with plugs on them as you would need to drill a hole way larger than the pole to fit the plug thru the baseboard. Even if you do a big hole then you have to cover it over somehow. Even with the tiniest plugs (I use to use single serial pin connectors on wires to do our set up on the fly layouts) it takes a good sized hole to slip them thru. You could solder on plugs once they are thru the baseboard. I’m betting that the Tomytec uses mini pc board plugs. These can even be crimped but tiny wires many times can slip out of crimps with a good tug so best to put a drop of solder on as well.

 

jeff

[Pashina12]

4 hours ago, cteno4 said:

It’s hard to do streetlights and lamps with plugs on them as you would need to drill a hole way larger than the pole to fit the plug thru the baseboard. Even if you do a big hole then you have to cover it over somehow. Even with the tiniest plugs (I use to use single serial pin connectors on wires to do our set up on the fly layouts) it takes a good sized hole to slip them thru. You could solder on plugs once they are thru the baseboard. I’m betting that the Tomytec uses mini pc board plugs. These can even be crimped but tiny wires many times can slip out of crimps with a good tug so best to put a drop of solder on as well.

 

jeff

I'm curious, what approach do you use street lights and such?

[cteno4]

Just solder it up wires to the leads. For distribution you can make little termial strips using pc board screw down terminal blocks.

 

I've also hooked up small wires to pc board by tinning the ends of the wire and just shoving them in a pressure fit IC socket. Easy way to hook up wiring that is not going to get yanked much to either a little power distribution board and easily put some micro variable resistors on the pc board in line with the power to each led to adjust its brightness. A 2k variable resistor gives a good dimming range for LEDs. Best add a limiting resistor in line to limit your current to 20mA for your input voltage. Thus way if you turn the variable resistor all the way up (ie no resistance) you won’t blow the led.
 

I am a huge fan of making lighting variable as setting it to the right level is critical in making something look really good, more dim LEDs is way better than a couple of very bright LEDs. Of course things like streetlights need to be set the same as each other but even on our street I see variability in brightness of our streetlights down the street.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Forgot to mention I’ve found this 30g wrapping wire to be excellent for wiring LEDs like this. It’s preinned so strips much more gracefully than small gauged untinned stranded wire and solders very easily. Its insulation is very tough as well, all around tough wire (used a lot in aviation wiring). Also the cheapest wire you can buy (well maybe magnet wire is cheaper, but a PITA to work with). Does require some small wire strippers though.
 

jeff.