Before I converted to DCC about a year ago I had stocked up on Walthers passenger car lighting kits that were intended for DC operation and I had a few others already installed.
I noticed that they were emitting a high pitched whine, probably from the capacitors on the boards. Sounding like a DC locomotive sitting on live DCC rails. This really gets annoying after about 5 minutes!!!
Well, after picking up a few of the DCC lighting kits from Walthers I see that they just have the circuitry removed and the lamps in direct contact with the wheel pickups. Simple… right? Just remove (or bypass) the electronic components on the DC ones… NOT so fast-- they’re using lower voltage lamps on the DC version and if you power them off the DCC they are WAY too bright and I’m sure would burn out in a matter of minutes, or sooner.
Now what? Resistors? What value? What about heat… then the light goes on !! Just wire the three bulbs in series and see how that looks…
Viola! Just right, maybe a tad brighter than the stock Walthers DCC lights but they’re just a bit too dim for my taste.
Try it and let me know what you think…
You could also use a bridge rectifier between the wheel pick up and circit board to change the AC to DC.
Thats true about the rectifier, however the Walthers kits already have 4 diodes that act as a rectifier, then two capacitors and a voltage regulator on a heat sink.
I wanted to elimate all that especially since I’ll have about 50 lighted passenger cars on the layout, that’s 100 capacitors for the DCC booster to charge up every time track power is applied, plus about a dozen sound equipped locomotives! Makes for a pretty big current draw at startup.
The Walthers light kits for DCC are just straight wired to the contact points.
Not really much room for a rectifier in there either. On the lightweight cars I’ve had a difficult time replacing the roof with the capacitors getting in the way.
Thanks for your help though…