voltscooter constant lighting board

[cteno4]

I had seen this mentioned before on n scale lists and finally took a look. very interesting board. it gives constant brightness with dcc and analog as well as being ADJUSTABLE! very nice design with super capacitors that give many seconds of power so no flickering. also 8 smd leds so very even lighting and even gives a constant 3v current limited tap for additional led if you want it. quite nice. only rub is $20, but its a pretty sophisticated board so i can see the cost. Ken is a good guy ive chatted with in the past on lists, interesting to see he is now selling the kit.

 

http://www.voltscooter.com/

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Oh it's an interior lighting decoder!

 

With DCC you might be able to program the intensity to a F Button.

 

Maybe it'll fit Fleischmann coach cars.

[cteno4]

Well not a decoder per sey as you can't trigger it remotely via dcc, but you can adjust the brightness you want it to have with track voltage >3-4 dc (im guessing) or the standard dcc voltage by adjusting the pot on the board directly. Since its designed to provide a very constant illumination over wide dc operation I doubt it would work well to vary the voltage to the board with a decoder to vary the intensity.

 

Capt how about a board like this with the simple decoder in it to vary brightness and on/off and the supercapacitor idea?

 

Jeff

[KenS]

I know it says "supercapacitor", but the photo looks more like a pair of watch batteries. I'm not aware of any "super" capacitor that small, but they could just be fairly large ordinary capacitors.

 

You can certainly get constant lighting in a board this size with surface-mount LEDs using ordinary tantalum capacitors (a bit bulky, but smaller than whatever it is he's using).

 

As long as you're giving the Capt. ideas, how about a Kato-replacement constant lighting lightboard (not a decoder, just the same stuff this is using: rectifiers, resistors, LEDs and a couple of caps) that can fit into Kato cars with the flicker-prone Kato lightboards?

[cteno4]

Hey Ken,

 

yeah i was wondering about the supercapacitor. i did some poking around and there were a few small capacitors that looked to have a similar form factor, but most are not. other thought was they are just lithium rechargeable button cells to give the short extra power, he says it lasts like 30 sec after power is removed which seems like too little for what a couple of button cells would provide anyway.

 

ive been eyeing getting some tantalum capacitors to experiment with.

 

btw have you seen this flex conductor strips? look good for playing with something like this

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-07-cm-HOCHFLEXIBLE-Platine-0-09mm-dunn-100x200-mit-79-Leiterbahnen-RM-1-27-/370642468165?pt=DE_Modellbau_Modelleisenbahnen&hash=item564c033d45#ht_2810wt_907

 

spacing is just right for small smds to bridge the two conductors.

 

correction they still sell the two conductor strips

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-07-cm-10x-ultraflexible-Streifen-Platine-500mm-fur-PLCC-LED-3021-3528-5050-/370642421194?pt=DE_Modellbau_Modelleisenbahnen&hash=item564c0285ca#ht_2572wt_907

 

they use to have auctions and you could get these at much better prices sometimes.

 

cheers

 

jeff