Batman
Is a 5mm LED to big?
5mm = 0.2 inch x 87 = 17" light bulb?
If you go for the flicker its about 59 cents for a led that flickers.
The roundhouse I am trying to emulate got electricity in 1897. I doubt it was reliable and I read the light was so dim they still used lanterns with reflectors for up close lighting.
How do you tell the + & - on these LEDs? I haven’t looked yet. I do have some good equipment to hold them as long as I don’t lose them first.[(-D]
By 1897 carbon-filament lighting up to roughly the output of a modern 40-watt bulb had been long perfected, as had automatic-regulating arcs and a range of high-intensity lights using the general principle of the incandescent thorium mantle – limelights are one example.
To modern eyes this is toward the red end of the spectrum and dim, but it was bright to them. Keep in mind that the ‘lanterns’ might be Argand lamps with large reflectors, like some contemporary locomotive headlights, much brighter and whiter than you’d think, and just like dynamo-fed carbon bulbs, very little visible variation or flicker.
I think mine are nano’s. Suppose to be colour coded. I have red/green issues, could be interesting.[(-D]
Brent,
I’m holding a Nano chip in My paw in this pic’…I also used them in some scratch built railroad yard lights and street lights. The round lense looking thingy inside the brass lampshades are Athearn BB F7 porthole lenses that I happend to have a bunch of… Red + Anode, Green - Cathode…
You may click on pic’s for a larger view:
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
If you have trouble distinguishing red and green, build yourself a little test jig. 9V batter and a 1K resistor. Touch the LED wires to the free end of the resistor and free battery terminal (the other side of the resistors goes to the other battery terminal, if it wasn’t obvious). If it lights up, great, the LED lead on the + side of the battery is the + wire. If not, reverse the LED wires. If it still doesn;t light up, something’s broken, but if it didn;t light up the first time, it should now, and again you have identified which wire is the +. If you are not going to immediately solder the LED into the circuit, you can do something like put a loop in the very end of one wire to mark it for later.
–Randy
T3 is 3mm or about 10" in HO. Not much better but still much closer. A 10" globe cover is almost believable.
Back in the day, Edison bulbs were rarely over 30 Watts. They were just carbon film over a thin cotton strand and not very efficient. It wasn’t till later they started using Tungston.
Arc lamps were very rarely used as they emitted Ozone and hazardous UV light.
Doing a google search, I found a 40 watt edison which put out 230 lumens. A 40 watt incandecent puts out up to 500. A 60 Watt, over 800 lumens. So a big difference.
The + leg is usually a tad longer. Also for SMD LEDs (the super tiny ones without metal leads) the + pad is marked with a +, or a white mark, or a slightly thicker soldering pad. Do not leave your soldering iron on the SMD leds for more than 1 second. What I like to do is hold the wire to the soldering iron which has solder on it and touch them at the same time onto the SMD. That way the solder bead on the wire is still molten when it touches, requiring less time for the iron to touch.
When wiring USUALLY White / Red are usually hot (Positive) and Black and Green neutral (Ground or negative).
Remember it this way, It’s White HOT or Red HOT. HOT meaning it has voltage. GReen = GRound
Thanks for all the tips guys. The light shades are 24" HO and you can see how small that little yellow LED is. The #11 is in case I want to end the torture.[(-D]
I created a jig for mine. I cut a hole the size of the LED lead spacing for a T3 LED and then countersunk it to stick the hat in. (About 1/10th an inch…but I use 7/64" to give me some clearance)
You could also solder one leg to the hat and use the hat as a conductor and only feed on leg up the inside hat hole (insulated) I had less success that way
Handy little scale chart for Chips, SMD, LED proportions: From Lights4models…
Image may be clicked on for larger view.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank