The Carolina Sandhills Lines in HO Scale

[davefoxx]

I need to get back to the U18B project, which needs the rear headlights, Gyra Light, and red emergency light installed.  A special thanks has to go out to @robert3985 for pointing out J-B Weld’s SuperWeld that cures with what I guess is a UV light applicator.  This stuff works great!  Gluing these 0402 LEDs to the rear of the headlight lens is still fiddly, but once I got them lined up and zapped with the light, they’re surprisingly rugged.



If these install successfully, I may even go back and redo the front headlights, to fix some light bleeding, in addition to adding some robustness.

DFF

[davefoxx]

I got all four LEDs installed in the rear headlight casings of the U18B and have tested the rear headlights, Gyra Light, and red emergency light.  At least until I stuff the mechanism back into the shell, everything is working and programmed properly.  Headlights are not directional, so they can be controlled independently. I did make the Gyra Lights and emergency lights at both end function directionally off of F5, because they would never be lit simultaneously on both ends.  This is also because there’s a limited number of lighting functions when using the ProtoThrottle.  When activated, the flashing red emergency light functions while stopped, and it is extinguished with the Gyra Lights beginning to illuminate when the locomotive begins to move.



I’m not particularly looking forward to cramming the wires into the shell, because there’s a f*ckton of them- eight wires from four LEDs at each end of the loco.  Borrowing from a manufacturer’s tip (Athearn, IIRC), I used a pieces of shrink wrap (unshrunken) as guides to keep the wires under some organization.  Oh, and thank goodness for the Decoder Buddy and it’s removeable Connector Board.

DFF

[davefoxx]

Okay, that went surprisingly uneventful, as the shell dropped right into place.  Here’s the lighting description from my previous post in the form of a video.  Please note that the red lens is much more apparent in person than on a crappy cell phone video.

DFF