I converted to DCC in early 2009. With nearly 40 Kato passenger cars outfitted with their old incandescent light kits, I set track voltage for just under 12 volts assuring that the cars would not melt. All was fine with operating dozens of converted locos (diesel and steam) until I purchased (2)( AC-12’s (for double heading 40 car trains on 2 % grades) with custom Tsunami sound installations. One ran decently, the other barely moved. An Athearn Challenger with factory installed Tsunami sound behaved the same way as did a couple of Bachmann steam locos with factory installed decoders. With regard to the AC-12s, I started a chain of e-mails with the Hoppy shop provider, with InterMountain and Soundtraxx. I did not get any satisfactory help on what the problem might be, until after almost 3 years. I recently returned one of my AC-12s to InterMountain for a check out to see what the problem was. They returned it and said it was fine, but it still barely moved on my layout. Many of you have probably figured out the problem already as did the techs at InterMountain in follow-up e-mails. My track voltage was too low. I have since increased it to just under 15 volts and all these locos now run perfectly. Speed matching the two AC-12s is a breeze and together they can pull anything. But, here is the rub. All the light kits had to be removed, and I was not very excited about a $250 to $300 investment in new Kato LED Light Kits. So, I realized that in converting a large number of Kato diesels to DCC, I had dozens of LED light boards of which about 60 to 70% could be used in the passenger cars (have not figured out why some of them do not work off the DCC track voltage). I have proceeded to relight nearly 20 cars with these boards without any additional expense. It was a relatively easy process using the old light kit (with bulb removed) to lock feeder wires from the light board to the track pick-ups. In many cases the plastic “light pipe” clipped to the under side of the roof had to be removed. But, the LEDs are very bright and the reflective tape carries the light throughout the car. Need to be careful not to short the 2 feeder wires across the reflective tape.
Ah yes, I too figured out your problem after the second sentence :startled: I think everyone has done something like this at least once, OK maybe twice :uhoh: And where I come from we call it Hillbilly engineering when we can find a new use for old stuff....LOL......Mike
Harold, The original Kato Light kits that were installed came with an adhesive backed reflective strip. I imagine a carefully cut piece of aluminum foil would work as well. Nick
What did you use for the step-down resistor? Did you cut the old loco light board down so you had both the LED and the resistor mounted on the remnant? What about bi-directional lighting? LEDs light in only one "way", because they have positive/negative leads -- did you work out something to keep the lights on both going forward and backward, or do they only light in one direction of car travel?
Nothing so sophisticated. I took the collection of discarded light boards, turned on my DCC system with track voltage set to 14.8 volts (AC, I believe) and touched the light board's 2 copper tabs to the rail. Those boards that worked had both LEDs on. Some boards did not work at all, for what reason I don't know. Of the 40+ boards I had, 30 worked. Then I proceed as described above. In some cases, I cut off one of the 2 LEDs and the other LED still worked.
