Hello
Im looking at changing lights on my kato. proto and atlas locos. I don’t like the lighting colours they give off. I was looking the NCE LED’s
The LED pack provides ten “Sunny White” LEDs. Size: 0.120" (3 mm) diameter. Rated at 3 to 20 mA.
Any thoughts?
Anyone done this before?
What kind of lights are in the locos now?
Are you running DCC or DC?
A LED requires a “current-limiting” resistor to keep it from frying. I use a 1K resistor with all my LEDs, and it seems to work pretty well. You will get a brighter light with a smaller resistor, and a dimmer light with a larger one. Don’t “test” a LED by hooking it up “just for a moment” without a resistor. You will then have a Darkness Emitting Diode, or DED.
LEDs must be wired with the correct polarity. If you wire them backwards, they won’t work at all on DCC. They’ll work OK on AC, though, because half of the cycle is always right for the LED.
I like the golden white, sunny white or yellow white LEDs a lot, by the way. They make great headlights.
DED.[(-D]
I’ve installed in a few engines ESU loksound decoder and white LEDs as well as beacon lightl. I used too 1kOhm resistors.
Wolfgang
This is your 4th thread on using LEDs with DCC. Not that I am counting, but you are pretty much asking the same thing over and over.
Ok…to anwser your question, YES, you can swap, in general, LED for LED. Match up the polarity and you are good to go.
David