I want to put an HO scale radio transmitter tower on my layout, with a couple flashing red lights, halfway, and at the top. But I can’t find anything like I have in mind. The Walthers catalog has a couple, but not quite what I had in mind. I don’t want the cellphone type tower. Just a straight tower of decent height. I also don’t want the tower with the three LEDs at the top. I want to install my own red flashing lights with a slow fade, like the real ones. Any suggestions?
or this
| Model: Scale: Color: Maker: Features: |
Model Train Lay out structure HO - 1:87 Scale As Shown Busch |
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hobo9941,
I know of no tower with LEDs that slowly fade out like the lights on a radio tower, because most LEDs are incapable of slowly fading out. LEDs glow at a constant intensity until the voltage drops below a certain level, and then they turn off without fading.
An incandescent bulb could be made to slowly fade out if you could find an electronic circuit that would control such an action, but a bulb would also be much larger than an LED.
Budliner,
That’s exactly what he said he doesn’t want – a tower with 3 LEDs at the very top. We have one of these on our HO scale club layout.
I have this one from BLMA…
But if I had to do it again, I’d buy the one from this site…
http://www.texnrails.com/catalog/details.asp?sid=GL50472838975403&mfg=TMS&item=2000601&cat=S&series=
Bingo! That last link is what I’m looking for. There are some very small bulbs available from miniatronics which I can use. I have experimented putting a large capacitor across the bulb leads, and it gives a slow fade, like I want.
Thanks, much!
I know of no tower with LEDs that slowly fade out like the lights on a radio tower, because most LEDs are incapable of slowly fading out. LEDs glow at a constant intensity until the voltage drops below a certain level, and then they turn off without fading.
Hmm, the many customers who have bought my LED board that does just that are going to be really dissapointed. [;)]
LEDs can be dimmed and faded, if you know the technique. I use a programmable chip that does it nicely, but there are simpler ways.
To the original poster: The TrainCat tower is what you’re looking for (incidently, I saw some of his other kits at a show and suggested that he make it.)
My tower beacon (http://www.ironpeng.com/ipe/radioindex.htm) can light it for you. I just noticed I haven’t updated my web site. The Old style Tower beacon now has a solid on LED included for halfway up the tower.
Mike Tennent
Yes. Most of the radio transmitter towers have fixed lights halfway up, and a flashing light on top. They always looked cool, off in the distance, usually on the outskirts of a town.
well as Roseanne Roseannadanna sead "It’s Always Something"
or Emily Litella "Never Mind"
Just an FYI, (at least around here) the towers have white flashing lights at the top of the tower during the day time. Then upon night fall the red lights on the tower are on and the red lights on top of the tower fade on and off.
My previous post had the weblink for the TrainCat tower.
Cool…Now I can finally light my tower [:)]
I’m glad you take paypal.
Do you know WHY that is?
Because its cheaper to add strobes to an existing tower that was previously painted, rather than painting it again. We leave the existing red lights on the tower because again, they are cheaper to maintain than the xenon strobes. You have to adjust the brightness of the strobes at night to a lower level so you don’t blind people. They are still a PIA to work on and require a lot more maintenance than the normal flashing bulbs. Still cheaper though than repainting the tower every 5 to 7 years. So thats why you see alot of older towers with both kinds of flashing lights.
You might consider a lighthouse light circuit to get the fade effect for a bulb. You can adjust the length of the fade time by varying resistance.
Since you don’t like any of the kits available you could always scratch build one from brass, use red incandecent bulbs, and install a decoder with mars light capability for that fade in and out effect (that’s if you run DCC on your layout) to make it work.
I’m in process of building a tower from three of the four sides of the Walthers conveyors that came with the Glacier Gravel kit. Need to sand the edges to a bevel so they fit at the right angle, and I’ll need to get the circuits and LEDs/bulbs for the lights, but it’s also less expensive. (Bought the conveyors that weren’t being used from our MRR club’s GG kit).
The cheap way, and it’ll suit my needs. Nice touch is, they’re already painted a rust type of color, so I just need to paint most of the tower silver and leave a few spots uncovered for ‘rust’…
Jim in Cape Girardeau