I build some customer N scale locomotives and for added realism I hollowed out the fan housings and used BLMA’s fan kit so you can see through the fan grill and see the fan blades. The problem with this is that you can see through to the DCC board that controls the locomotive. Even worse is that when the locomotive is in reverse you can see the light through the grill.
What is the best way to stop all of this from happening? I thought of using black paper, but I don’t want to see the grain of the paper either. I also want to make sure I’m not going to have a problem if it gets to hot and risk the paper igniting. I also thought of black cloth or felt, but again, you’ll see the texture of both and they also have the same risk of fire.
Is fire not something I have to worry about? I have no idea what kind of temperatures can build up from the motor and PC board. I wouldn’t think it’d be that much, but I’m not an expert. I want to avoid using something thick because the locomotive also has sound in it and the see through grills really let the sound come out. All suggestions are welcome! Thank you.
The Atlas locos I have use a piece of black plastic that mounts just under the fan blades, which blocks out light. The piece can be removed easily. The reason I discovered this, while changing bulbs to LED’s, I forgot to put it back, and when the loco ran in reverse, I had light coming out all over! ooops!
On other locos, I have used the shrink tubing to make a “socket” for the lights to slide into. This blocks out stray light, also.
Not sure what you can do in N scale. HO is the smallest I go.
I don’t do N gauge but I mount my HO LED headlights in styrene tubing then paint it and the back of the LED black, That prevents light splash from going anywhere except out the front of the tubing.
As suggested above a thin sheet of Styrene painted black should take care of the decoder problem.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
Why would you be looking that close at the fans ? you would have to be right down where your nose was in danger of derailing the locomotive tosee anything but black in there.
In N scale the DCC board sits high on all locomotives in order to get as much weight as possible in the locomotive. Then with the light on it’s no trouble at all to see inside.