Best Of Keystone Customs announces Angled numberboards for your SW Diesels

[peteski]

I also think it will be easier to paint the interior of the housing using your sliver/black method from the larger opening in the front.  I think I would leave the black off though to allow more reflection inside the housing.

Pre-wired 0402 LED's are quite plentiful now for very reasonable prices.  I would do it myself, but this is not really a factor anymore IMHO.  I bought 30 for $25+ recently.

Again, the housing is not thick enough for an 0603 for sure.

John, I was thinking of painting the *OUTSIDE* of the housing first with silver, then black and then final color.

As far as the pre-wired 0402 LEDs go, I bought a bunch from couple of eBay vendors. They use relatively thick insulated wire rather than the very thin enameled magnet wire I use. Either you would have to route all those 4 wires down the hole in the housing, or do some precision soldering of the LEDs to only need 2 wires to be passed down to the inside of the shell.

LED thickness:  there are extra thin LEDs available in 0603 size.  I don't have the part number handy but they are available at Digikey (and probably at Mouser too).  The only problem with those is that because the phosphor infused case is very thin, the color is very cool white (as the blue LED light makes up a large portion of the total light emission).

[Lemosteam]

Ah I find a coating of liquid electrical tape inside works well too.

There are some that specifically use magnet wire as well though.

Was thinking that to get two wires out the hole the connections don't have to be made at the LED, say just downstream on the wires.  if you stagger them there's no worry of short.

[coosvalley]

Would you consider a lit, and a non lit version?. My concern is not adding the strip of styrene, it's that I would have to add the strip of styrene, some decals, and then some clear styrene glass, and all of those combined would be thicker than the recess would allow, essentially protruding from the box.....

[Lemosteam]

Would you consider a lit, and a non lit version?. My concern is not adding the strip of styrene, it's that I would have to add the strip of styrene, some decals, and then some clear styrene glass, and all of those combined would be thicker than the recess would allow, essentially protruding from the box.....

Sure, you are the original requester, but I have to ask why?  Why would you need clear at all- just glosscote the decal and white styrene to make it shiny and pop it into the recess?

Trying to simulate the multi-layer effect in the first picture is somewhat overkill no?

If you look at Chris's pictures you can see that the numbers were painted right on the lightboard and placed in front of clear glass panels (see the opened box image).

You will not be happy with the decal laid in the FXD recess.  Trust me, it will not be smooth enough for a decal, unless you are planning on sanding that tiny surface inside the recessed area quite a bit.

Again, I will make both of you happy if that is what is required.

[coosvalley]

I am willing to try it this way, as I see your point about using gloss instead of a clear layer of styrene...

How much did you change the box dimensions?

[Lemosteam]

Lets put it this way, the height was increased by 0.75" 1:1, the thickness is equal to 1:1 and the length is in creased by 1" in 1:1, the dept of the lid only was reduced.  The recess is equual to 1:1 (although I may find the closest evergreen strip and if we are lucky it won't change much).  Overall though the box is smaller than the original model. The box as you can see below is much closer to proto than the scaled HO Cal Scale dimensions.  Light green is new, dark green is old (the one you have):

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Yes i will rotate the brackets as per proto as well.

[Lemosteam]

And by the way, really want to thank @Chris333 for the measurements.  Extremely helpful.

[coosvalley]

I like your comparison shots!...I was just curious to see how much they changed, and those completely answered my question!..

I much prefer they be to scale, the Cal scale part was as close as I could get at the time...

[Lemosteam]

I like your comparison shots!...I was just curious to see how much they changed, and those completely answered my question!..

I much prefer they be to scale, the Cal scale part was as close as I could get at the time...

Thanks.  No worries Joe, always have to start somewhere!

[Chris333]

And by the way, really want to thank @Chris333 for the measurements.  Extremely helpful.

It's that in depth field reporting that the Railwire is known for.   

[peteski]

Ah I find a coating of liquid electrical tape inside works well too.

There are some that specifically use magnet wire as well though.

Was thinking that to get two wires out the hole the connections don't have to be made at the LED, say just downstream on the wires.  if you stagger them there's no worry of short.

John,
If you have 2 LEDs in the housing how can you have only 2 wires going through the hole without making some soldered connections between the LEDs inside the numberboard housing?  I don't think I understand.

[Lemosteam]

John,
If you have 2 LEDs in the housing how can you have only 2 wires going through the hole without making some soldered connections between the LEDs inside the numberboard housing?  I don't think I understand.

Pete, sorry if I did not use the correct terminology. Here is an image of what I was thinking.

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[railnerd]

Pete, sorry if I did not use the correct terminology. Here is an image of what I was thinking.

(Attachment Link)

would recommend that you wire the LEDs in series.

-Dave

[peteski]

John,  your drawing is not making it any clearer to me.

This is how I see it.  To only have 2 wires going through the exit hole (the 2 right side examples), you have to do some soldering on the wires inside the number-board housing.

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[Lemosteam]

@peteski My thought was to solder them outside the housing like this, these are the pre-wired 0402's I bought):
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And then feed the two wires out of the 0.010" hole in the bottom, and glue the led to the back wall in the locations shown. Shove any excess wire inside keeping the splice joints from touching, liquid tape on thee joint if necessary.

Test them in the housing, cover them with the lightboard, and mount the things feeding the magnet wire into the shell through a 0.010" diameter drilled hole. This is a 3v disc battery (2032).

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Magnet wire in an 0.010" hole:

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