Coach Lighting The Easy Way...

[Super]

Thanks Dr Chris, I hadn't seen those that use the button cell batteries. Found some very cheap at Amazon and noticed they had Cyber Monday sale for the button battery's 10 for $5 so I grabbed a couple of those too. The wire lights I have now are way to long, 20 feet and even though they have a remote and different lighting settings they use a big battery pack that takes 3 AA's.   I bought a couple 6 packs of the button cell wire lights that are only 7 feet long much closer to what I have in my mind. Just over $9  for each 6 pack and comes with 12 Button batterys too. So for $28 I got 12 7 foot lighting packs with 44 button cells. woohoo

There's a little black on/off switch on the battery pack, next to where the wire comes out.

I meant more to turn them on and off without having to open up the carriage or having the switch/battery on the outside.  I suppose you could drill a small hole in the bottom of the carriage so you could get access to the switch with a pen tip or something...  Worth investigating as a cheaper option.  I'll have to look into the magnetic reed switches, I bet some enterprising little man from the far east probably sells those little control boards that come with the Hornby lights

[Super]

Hmmm...hope we kind find that fellow...it just occurred to me  that...it would be neat to add some kind of animation on say a station (llights) or switch point that a train, with a magnet attached would turn on or off some action when passing by.

As it happens I did a bit of mooching around Amazon last night, found some sellers with normal magnetic reed switches and magnets.  Thinking about it if you bust out the switch from those sets of lights you're getting and wired the two poles of the reed switch in place of the switch all you'd need to do is figure out a place to put the magnet where it keeps the reed switch closed. 

A typical reed switch is 'open' (i.e. off), when you put a magnet near it the switch closes (i.e. on), although you can get some who work in the opposite manner.  I should imagine the way the hornby board works is to use the activation of the reed to turn an electronic switch on or off each time the magnet activates it.  As we don't have that board we'd need to keep the switch in a closed postition all the time you want the lights on.  The way I'd approach it would be to fit a small piece of metal inside the body of the coach along with the reed switch and then you could probably place a suitable small magnet on the outside of the coach.  That should then stay in place due to the attraction to the metal plate and in turn keep the reed turned on while its in place.  Sensibly you'd put the reed on the bottom of the inside of the coach and stick the magnet underneath the coach.  If you get some of those powerful little Neodymium magnets they should be more than up to the job.

As for a light going on when a train approaches, you could if you got a two pole reed switch have it display say a red LED by default when there is no magnet near it and then when a magnet comes close switch it to the other pole and turn off the red LED and turn on a green LED for example (think here stop lights on a layout).

[Super]

Good news....at least for me...both of the wire LED light strings can be cut to fit without fail or re-wiring.

The 7 foot long Button Battery pack as well as the 20 foot long AA pack, Remote Controlled one. Perfect for adding somewhere that looks better with a perfect fit without much trouble or modification.

Nice one super, just bear in mind with the remote control one the box needs line of sight to the remote as it will be an infra-red (IR) signal which operates it.  I know you probably know that, but just in case


Of course if you can get away with a big control box stashed in the train somewhere maybe you should be looking at EL strips instead of LED's?  They can be cut to length and provide a constant strip of light similar to a flourescent tube in comparison to a bunch of bulbs...

Also meant to say I found this article on Reed Switches don't know if this is of help, but you could potentially use one of these to replace a physical switch and then find somewhere to place a magnet on the car to turn the lights on (maybe on the underside of the car).

[Super]

No, that didn't dawn on me about the remote needing to be able to 'see' the battery box. I did a little test and of course you are right. I wasn't really planning on using the Remote as there is an On/Off switch on the battery box but I have decided that the Button Cell version is the best for the uses I have in mind The wire is thinner and is silver which makes it less noticeable in the Layout and the tiny battery pack will be easy to hide.

I am not sure I am understanding the Reed Switches correctly...are they only 'Momentary'...meaning that the magnet has to be near it to stay either in the On or Off position and when it moves away the switch reverts back to its opposite pole?

Hi Super,

Are you planning to use these new lighting packs on the layout rather than in the coaches?  Sorry my misunderstanding if so, but still good options for providing building lights and stuff without loads of trailing wires etc...

Reed switches are momentary on/off or multi-pole depending on the type you get.  You can get them either as on or off as the default value which then flops when you apply the magnet.  Although you also get two pole versions, in that you have one lead going in and two coming out, without the magnet one out lead will be live, with the magnet the other out lead will be live instead.  So the latter could be used say for dual colour signal lights or something, so you could have red as default and green when a magnet is in the right place.  I'm sure there could be far more uses as well, but that is just what springs to mind

[Super]

Scenario for a Reed Switch....Station has lights with a Reed Switch...Train, with Magnet passes the Station....turns the lights 'ON' but once the train's magnet passes the station the lights go 'Off' because its a momentary switch?

Totally correct, I suspect the little circuit board that comes with the lighting set from Hornby looks for that momentary contact and then flips an electronic switch on/off until it gets another signal from the reed switch to flip again.  Now if I can only find a circuit that does that then it will be a doddle