I like my engines to have their headlights and number boards illuminated, but never cared for the appearance of a parked “running” engine with the headlight on ! The picture shows how I made separations in the cab roof to separately illuminate the headlights and number boards, this way, the engine can be idling at the facilities with only the number boards on. The two number board LEDs are wired in parallel to reduce their brightness. the headlight and numberboards are connected to their own function output on the decoder. To reduce stray light around the numberboard lenses, I brush on a coat of black silicone around the lense, then remove the excess using Q-tips. This forms a nice black gasket around the lense, eliminating any stray light. When everything is tested and working correctly, I install a “ceiling” across the dividers and again seal any cracks with black silicone to prevent stray light in the cab.
Most regular white LEDs (the ones that end up looking bluish) are totally clear. Golden whites usually are a yellowish-orange color - those are the ones I use, since my locos are generally first-generation diesels and they didn’t have modern high intensity lights in them. I also have some Yellow-Glo LEDs from Miniatronics that are totally clear except for a yellow spot on the actual die inside where the diode junction is. These also light up with a yellowish color rather than bluish.
Mark, the LEDs I use are the T-1-3/4 white ones. I use the larger size which enables one LED to illuminate both headlight openings. To eliminate that nasty “blue tint” of the white LEDs, I cover the back of the headlight and number board openings with some small pieces of clear 35mm film negative. The orangi***int of the film negative eliminates the blue tint giving them more the appearance of tungsten light. If you look closely at the pic., you can see the small pieces glued over the openings.
Obviously, the more logical decision would be to use the golden white LEDs, it’s just that I purchased a whole bunch of these for cheap before the golden whites came out and wanted to put them to use.
