I have spent the past year searching out and purchasing a few pieces of Brass Steam for my Boston & Maine collection. I have managed to get my hands of a few Sunset 2-8-0’s, PFM 2-6-0’s, and a few other hard to find items. Some are already painted, some aren’t.
What I’d like to do is install DCC with 3mm Golden White LED’s. On all of the locomotives I’ve listed above, it looks like it will be a fairly easy LED install except for one minor detail. Does anyone make light lenses that will fit into the end of the brass headlight assembly?
I have used MV lenses in the past. You drill out the center very carefully and insert a small led. I last did this when only small bulbs were available, but the result should be the same. Of course you could do it like TRIX does and use clear plastic rod (or fiber optics) leading from the led in the smoke box into the headlight forming its own lense.
If you are able to locate a lens or some acrylic rod, you want to drill out .116" OD hole for a 3mm LED. (That would be #32 drill bit.) The best way to do that is to use a lathe because the hole will be perfectly centered in the lens or rod. It’s a little trickier otherwise…
Michael, if I were you, I’d drop the LED idea, and go with 1.5v micro bulbs. I’ve had great success with them, especially since they are almost small anough to pass for scale headlight bulbs. Drill a hole through the back of the headlight casting just big enough for the bulb. Then, paint the inside of the housing silver. Feed the bulb leads though the housing from the front and through a small hole in the smokebox front. Then with the bulb leads connected to a battery, move the bulb back and forth until you get the filament into the focal point of the reflector. The light will light up with a nice solid beam. Epoxy the bulb into position. Then, using the appropriate dropping resistor if needed, connect the bulb leads to the decoder headlight outputs. Here’a a pic of one I put in (the only retouching of the photo was to add smoke & steam) -
