Hi guys,
I have an older 1990s era Atlas GP-9 (DC) that I would like to find a way to safely brighten the lights on. It does have LEDs, but for some reason almost no light gets through the lenses, not enough to look like locomotive headlights at least. My Atlas RS-1 (single headlight) really looks sweet, even projects a beam on the tracks. Any ideas? Thanks
Are the LEDs right at the ends of the locomotive, or did they use those silly plastic “light pipes” to route the light from further inside the shell. To me, those things are next to useless. I have an S1 switcher that I modified to put the headlight right where it belonged instead, and it works so much better that way. If you can’t move the LEDs, you would probably get better performance by replacing the light pipes with real fiber optics.
If the LEDs themselves are just very dim, you could try using smaller resistors. Remember that you might end up burning out the LEDs by applying too much voltage, but then you could replace them with brighter LEDs. I use 3 mm Golden Whites for my HO gauge headlights, with a 1K resistor (DCC) and I just love them.