Manufacture for HO custom lighted number boards?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Is there a manufacture for custom lighted HO number boards(steam and diesel)?

Or just number boards with a custom road number?

Thanks

2

I did this once, long time ago, to an Athearn GP. Carefully Dremel out the number boards from the shell, so the headlamp shines thru them. Cut clear plastic parts to fit the holes you just Dremeled out. Decal numbers onto the plastic parts. You may want to make the plastic parts less transparent by sanding them, or giving them some DullCote. Glue into place.

3

Ok thanks!

Is there a way for steam loco number boards?

4

Cal Scale, Details west and a number of others make steam number boards:

http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=Part&scale=H&manu=&item=&keywords=number+boards&words=restrict&instock=Q&split=240&Submit=Search

5

Hi Trainman440:

I’m assuming that you mean lighted steam number boards.

If the number boards were part of the headlight assembly then certainly they can be illuminated. Separate standing number boards would be more of a challenge but it might be possible with 0402 SMD LEDs. Pretty fussy though.

For the number boards that are built in to the headlights the process would be much the same as for the diesels. You would need to hollow out the headlamp behind the number boards and then make up boards to fit. Some headlight castings do come with the number board holes already opened up. If you are using LEDs you might have to use three to get the number boards lit properly, one for the headlight and one each for the number boards. The challenge would be to get the number boards lighted evenly. If you just plug and LED right behind the number board you will have the center one or two numbers too brightly lit but the others will be much dimmer. The easiest solution might be to use a relatively high value resistor (10,000 - 20,000 ohms) to dim the number board LEDs down to a glow.

Here are a couple of examples with the number boards opened up:

Here is one that could easily have the number boards illuminated (well, relatively easily anyhow):

Dave