I haven’t seen anybody mention it, so I must be the only one with this issue: For some reason known only to God and the Chinese assembler of my Spectrum heavy Mountain, the LED supplied for the headlight is BLUE - not blue-white, but a deep blue! And of course, like all Spectrum steamers, only a small dot it the center of the light is illuminated. Now I’m certainly going to replace that with a golden-white LED, and might even replace the LED with a micro bulb inserted into the headlight housing, but still; blue?? What’s up with that?
nobody is picking on you. i think they are all like that. at least mine are. just sing along, “let the K-mart special, shine it’s ever lovin’ light on me”
remember there is an element on this forum that takes exception to China bashing, so i try to keep my mouth shut. (limited success)
grizlump
A problem I share. [:)] It’s nice to know I’m not the only one with the headlight problem. I do plan on getting into the beast and fixing it, but I haven’t worked up the courage yet (somebody pass the bottle!) to dig into it. Getting chicken in my old age, I guess…
What??? Now if we can’t bash the Chinese anymore what are things coming to? I mean there are so many we can’t bash anymore I think I need a score card just to keep up with the PC boys!!!
Is bashing the “Martians” still OK?
Mark
My Spectrum 4-8-2 with sound is my favorite steamer, Ive never noticed the blue headlight. I’ve never had the engine running with the lights off, so Im going to check mine out right away. I’ll be right back…
The blue light is certainly not prototypical, but I love mine.
I’m sure the Chinese assemblers only put in what was specified. Manufactures must buy thousands of smaller assemblies and parts from other sources. They must have specified a white LED and they got a white LED. Due to the characteristics of LEDs white appears blue. If you can see the LED try touching a yellow highlighter or Sharpy on it to tone down the Blue.
Better then the orange LEDs from BLI. At least they listened to us and changed to a sunny white.
Pete
It was probably just one run. How difficult is it to change the LED in those units?
absolutely not!! some of my best freinds are Martians, besides, they eat liberals and pee gasoline.
grizlump
The simple solution I used on my Spectrum USRA Light will work for the Heavy version, too. [swg]
Wayne (not a fan of running re-detailed locomotives in the dark)
Now that I think of it. the headlight on my Blueline M1a is pink.
You see it more when you look at it head on.
Well, I have nine Bachmann Spectrum Heavy Mountians and yes the LED headlight has a blue tint, because as mentioned, early white LED’s where that way. I would not call it deep blue by any means.
If it really bothers you that much change it. Personally, headlights are not a big deal to me. Yes I like them to work for the occasional “night” scene, but since most steam locos did not run with them on in the daytime (only a few roads started running steam with headlights on in daytime during the 50’s), it’s really not a modeling issue for me.
The reason I have so many Spectrum 4-8-2’s is they are one of the best running and most affordable locos out there today. AND, they fit the theme of my freelanced ATLANTIC CENTRAL perfectly, and they where also owned by the C&O which I model and the Bachmann model could even be a reasonable stand in for some B&O 4-8-2’s which I also model.
The B&O in fact was so happy with its home built 4-8-2’s it never evn thought about buying/owning/building a 4-8-4
The 4-8-2 was one of the first large dual service loco designs and the Bachmann model is an excelent representation of the USRA versions.
Blue headlights, orange headlights, yellow headlights, some too bright, some too dim, some to small, some too big. Who cares, I model daytime so I can SEE the trains.
Sheldon
Great comments by all, & food for thought!I changed the LED’s in my BLI AC6000, they were 6 of them. I had some 3mm yellow white LED’s on hand & it really improves the model. I believe that manufactures may still use blue at times because at one point they were still less expensive than the pure white or yellow glow.Reasons I change them:I can’t fool non-train & train people by saying the unit has HID lights. (even if they did, they would not be in that shade of blue)It really looks nicer, & matches the prototype.I can’t leave anything unmodified.I’m pretty good at working on small things, very patient.Just my thoughts,
Hi Gary…
Good post. Before you replace the LED, you may try a simpler fix first, that has worked for me. Go to your local LHS or a hobby shop that sells TAMIYA paints. Get yourself a bottle of the Clear Orange(a few bucks). disassemble the lamp housing to expose the LED and with a 00 brush, gently dab the Clear Orange onto the LED whil it is lit…if you get too much on, it’ll turn a greenish color but its easy to wipe off with a damp towel and start again.
I have been able to get very good results to a ‘sunny’ White look that appears more incandesent.
The trick is just lightly building up enough color to get the right balance.
It’s worth a try and hope this works for you as well as it has for me.
Thanks,
HeritageFleet1
They eat liberals “what”???
;-]
Mark
Yeah, my Blue Line T1 has the same pinkish tint, its bright so it doesn’t bother me. I like your back drop, I take the train across that very bridge nearly every day for work and school. [:)]
Trust me, Pete, this ain’t a blue-white LED - I could live with that until I hit it with a yellow or orange marker. This one is BLUE! A nice rich, solid royal blue. And I’d way rather have orange. - at least that would look like the fireman isn’t feeding enough steam to the turbogenerator. The hogger would have some words with him when he found out…!
Heritagefleet1, That would be an excellent suggestion, if a) the “lamp housing” wasn’t the boiler weight (a two-piece hunk of Zamac held apart by insulated spacers (ala N-scale), and b) the “lamp” wasn’t a deep blue (as opposed to a blue-white) LED. Fortunately, I’ve done this sort of thing before, with two Spectrum Connies.
I removed the light pipe and cup from the headlight (actually, from inside the boiler shell), and ran a micro-bulb through the hole in the boiler front into the cavity in the clear plastic headlight lens. I tied the bulb leads into the LED wiring, and replaced the circuit board in the tender with a constant lighting unit that runs off a 3-terminal voltage regulator, since the old diode-drop circuit won’t work with motors that draw less than a third of an amp or so. I run on DC, and don’t care about reversing headlights on my road engines, so it’s all good.
Besides, I was originally just trying to find out if there was a rationale for putting in a blue LED.
Holy cow… did you say N scale? Sorry, I didn’t realize that earlier allthough the idea probably would work in most cases, it sounds like you got this one handled. It’s really irritating that the manufacturers keep allowing this to be acceptable. Broadway seems to be doing a better job these days - Kato corrected this on their HO locomotives a while ago with a sunny white LED and then on their last HO release(SD40-2), they went to a dismal orange LEd that barely is visible.
Glad you got yours looking better …take care.
HeritageFleet1
Small world [:)]
What hobby shop do you get your loco’s from. Since you’re local I definitely want to know who they are. On the pensy side there are a few decent ones.