Starting another high hood unit (Wheeling and Lake Erie 107), and that involves removing the short hood and cab headlight. Adding the nose increases the length that the bar has to go(LEDs on a board), so my question is, how would I go about extending the lights to go to the new headlight and numberboards? Would I want clear styrene rod?
Sounds like an ok way to go. The other way I can think of (depending on how long it has to be of course),would be to unsolder the LED from the board, and, using the relatively stiff wire from a doner LED, solder longer leads to the LED and re-attach to the board. Just remember to keep the polarity of the LED correct.
Light bars can be fussy and dim. Extending the LED is usually easier, if you’re OK with soldering.
As Mike said, light bars often don’t work all that well to begin with, and inserting an extension will cause further loss of light.
Without seeing the set-up I can only guess at the solution(s). Is the current light bar attached to the shell or the chassis? Will the existing light bar fit the new nose? Also, is it possible to separate the LED board from the main board? If you can separate the LED portion of the circuit board then you could glue the LEDs right to the back of the light bar, and then attach the light bar/LED assembly to the new nose. Then you can re-connect the LEDs to the main board with some wire. Leave the wire long enough that you can separate the shell from the chassis. Sounds more comlicated than it is.
An alternative would be to get rid of the light bar. If the lenses are attached to it carefully cut them off so they can be re-used. Then install the lenses in the new hood. Then glue LEDs to the back of the individual lenses. You will need 3 or 4 separate SMD LEDs. The tricky part is controlling the amount of light coming from the LEDs. You want the headlights to be bright but the number boards have to be much dimmer or the numbers will be washed out by the bright light. That will mean experimenting with much higher value resistors for the number board LEDs. This solution is as complicated as it sounds!
If my suggestions don’t fit the problem how about posting a few pictures of the situation so we can see what other options might be available?
Dave
I did use the clear sprue that window material comes on, in a previous high hood, and it kind of works. I don’t have the HH on me right now(open house), but the LED is on the digitrax board. So I don’t think soldering it would be the easiest option for a beginner.
The light bar is completely separate, and sits in the cab(notches in the cab roof, but it wouldn’t be long enough for the new nose-too short by quite a few scale feet)