Making signals

[rankodd]

Allright - 3 days of putzing around with LEDs and bits of styrene trying to make n-scale signals have left me stumped. I even tried to retrofit LEDs on to a greenmax 3-light signal kit, without success. There's nowhere to stick the wires!

 

Anyone have any tips for scratch building japanese signals?

[quinntopia]

I tried to scratch build some of my own, but I just don't have the craftsman-ship skills to pull off anything convincing.  They basically looked like big black boxes with lights.

 

I did manage to find a better solution by using bi-color LED's with Greenmax signals to come up with something that looks pretty good.  At least, if all you are looking for is basic red/green indication and you don't mind that there is only one 'light' on the signal.  The link to my blog where I explain what I tried is below if you are interested.

 

I did these Greenmax signals a couple of years ago, and I later used SMD led's with the plastic signal kits from Busch (german style).  The SMD leds look a lot better!

 

http://quinntopia.blogspot.com/2010/03/signals.html

[rankodd]

http://quinntopia.blogspot.com/2010/03/signals.html

 

Thanks for the link! I remember reading that page a while back. Do you have photos of the new style SMD version?

 

I'm interested building something a little more prototypical, even though I don't know if I'm going to DCC or home brew them. I'm looking for the 3 aspect G/Y/R type, mainly...