What do you do with old light boards? I've converted several locomotives to DCC. I kept the old light boards and marked each one with the the locomotive information it came from. Figured I'd keep at least one from each type in case I needed to check if it ran on DC. But what can I do with the extra? Has anyone done a project with and old board?
One of the boards I had was very long, but very simple. A couple of bulbs, long copper traces and a couple of diodes. It truly was just directional lighting. I used it to practice soldering (and unsoldering) to a PC board. After a few tries, I knew what it would take to solder wires to a decoder without melting everything or burning up components. I harvested diodes from another board to make a bridge rectifier. I'm keeping the boards for potential use as connectors inside loco shells for future decoder installs.
I keep them all in separate small stacking boxes in the event I decide to sell the locomotives or want to run them as a guest on a DC layout. While the locomotives do have decoders installed when I sell them, I include the DC board as well. I have an excess, so I have provided them to Trainboard members seeking them, or the have had LEDs and SMD devices removed for future use, and the rest is put into E-Waste.
