Florescent Light Fixtures

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

LION just finished building a few “florescent” light fixtures. They are a little large for HO scale, probably a little large for O scale! But they are “fixtures” and are not supposed to be bare bulbs.

LION cut some white, plastic drinking straws into three inch lengths, put a dab of silicone caulk in each end, and then inserted a 5mm cool-white LED into each end. When the glue is dry I will bend one long lead and one short lead back along the outside of the tube and connect them with a 510Ω resistor. Then the long free lead goes to ground, and the short free lead goes to the +12v dc bus. I will glue these to the top of the passageways that they are intended to light, and I will place a bit of wood, plastic, paper or cardboard to shield the light from the viewing end. It is supposed to light the tunnel or passageway without shining light into the light meter on the camera, causing a bad photograph.

Photos of this project shall be forthcoming.

ROAR

2

DAVID thinks that this thread is useless without PICS.

Pfffffft.

3

It was either here or in an MR article a couple of years ago that someone made soem very nice looking flourescent fixtures with styrene shapes. Or maybe it was that free online magazine, I know I’ve seen this, in fact I sort of remember commenting about drillign into it and putting in a white (the kinds that are somewher bluish) LED to light them up.

yes, I am lazy tonight, just got done setting up the 25x110 modular layout and the doors open at 7am tomorrow (for vendors and exhibitors). So I leave it to someone else to Google and find what it is that I am talking about.

–Randy