(1) I would call this ‘perfboard’. To me ‘breadboard’ implies more specific layout and labeling, not necessary for your intended use.
(2) One way is ‘score and snap’ – if the perfboard isn’t cheap and you find the pads popping off as you snap [:O]. A thin cutoff wheel or thin-kerf razor saw also work with care. Clean up edges with a file or fine sandpaper afterward. Others will have suggestions from their experience.
(3) You can solder to the pads, but often using projecting component leads or even one or two turns of wire-wrap on those leads is useful too.
(4) “suck it and see”!
(5) Temp will be determined by your solder’s alloy. I recommend the lowest temperature that gives clean shiny joints. I still advise you have external no-clean flux in addition to the solder core; others will have a different opinion…
I was thinking about the rear LED. It’s the little yellow 1mm square on the end of the lead going off to the right.
That lead plugs in to the rear lamp frame as is.
Now notice the cylindrical shape leading to it. I think it’s possible that there is the correct resistor in there for the small LED. The whole assembly plugs into a 2-pin harness on the light board.
Is there any way to tell what’s going on there without messing it up. Have multimeter. Will try to use it.
Rethink–okay maybe over-think.
The LED plugs into the white 2-pin harness in the left center of the board. Click photo to enlarge.
One lead goes to the blue wire of the nine pin harness. The other goes to the round black gizmo with 100 printed on it, lower and just right of the harness (marked L1). From there it goes to the yellow wire on the 9-pin harness. (I think.)
There’s another round black gizmo that is just to the left of the other one (marked L2). The top is cracked open a little and you can see part of a coil of thin wire like you would see wrapped around the armature of a motor.
The resistor (R1) two gizmos to the right of L1 measures .972K.
I’m assuming that I can ignore all my ramblings and just use the 1K resitor I had originally planned.
Anyone want to try to explain what’s going on in that circuit?
The square black things with coils in them are inductors - they are probably in series with the wires to the motor, orange and grey. The little blocks that are yellow are capacitors, the ones to the left of the wires going to the 9 pin connector are probably between the motor wires and ground. All that stuff is for RF suppression and can be bypassed - the capacitors can be just cut off, but the inductors need to be replaced with jumper wires. These same things are on Bachmann locos. They interfere with better quality decoders using BEMF motor control.
The small black squares are resistors, the 100 marking means 1K. One if the front headlight, the other is for the reverse lights - so it is not likely there is a resistor under the shrink wrap at the LED.
The big black squares are diodes. Those are used in the motor circuit for continuous lighting - basically restricting the voltage to the motor so the LEDs can come on when using DCC before the loco actually moves. Those are likely bypassed if the decoder is plugged in to the 9 pin connector.
In short - the only thing on there needed if a decoder is installed are the 1K resistors. If you supply your own, everything including that entire board can be removed.
