Model Power Pacific 4-6-2 Improvement: Fixing a Disaster and making a Pearl

[MK]

Or, if space allows, put on a piece of Kapton tape.  I did that with a decoder that had super bright and super white LED for an E8.  A piece of Kapton over it and viola!

[1956Porsche]

Loved your post.   Like yourself I like tinkering to improve things. I use SH1.0 JST connectors.   I plan on trying a few of your upgrades.    I have a Model Power Pacific 4-6-2 that I bought at a train show for $5.00.  I started working on it, but got side tracked.   Its main issue at the time was bent engine pickups.  The front ones to the headlight broke off.  I'd love to see someone do a complete replacement of the weak pickups, because I think it's only a matter of time before something gets into them knocking everything out of whack. I alfo look forward to seeing more of your improvements.

Joe

[u18b]

Having built the plug, I repeated the previous process of routing the wires and adding epoxy to hold them down.

The only thing extra I did was add a little slack  of wires to the plug- because if I have to get that light module out of there, I need to be able to pull that plug without ripping anything loose.

With all the wires locked down, a test assembly confirmed everything was working as expected.




So with the LED now installed in the nose, it was time to fix the light pipe.




I cut it at the last angle.




I sanded the cut smooth and inserted it into the back of the nose cap.




It was at this point that I discovered something.    The stock construction does not allow the end cap to fit ALL the way on the light pipe.

But now that the light pipe is cut, I can press it all the way in.

You can see the difference in the tip protruding or not.  Here is the stock look...




And then we have the new look with the pipe pushed all the way in.




Here is the back side  with the trimmed light pipe inserted.




OK, what we just did was move the LED to the very front of the nose,  use a large LED- and it made it modular.

What you see in the comparison photos below is:

1.  stock incandescent bulb
2.  Swapping out the incandescent bulb with an LED.

3.  Adding an LED but moving it to the nose.

With the exception of the color, THIS is the brightness I wanted.

[u18b]

Loved your post.   Like yourself I like tinkering to improve things. I use SH1.0 JST connectors.   I plan on trying a few of your upgrades.    I have a Model Power Pacific 4-6-2 that I bought at a train show for $5.00.  I started working on it, but got side tracked.   Its main issue at the time was bent engine pickups.  The front ones to the headlight broke off.  I'd love to see someone do a complete replacement of the weak pickups, because I think it's only a matter of time before something gets into them knocking everything out of whack. I alfo look forward to seeing more of your improvements.

Joe

Joe, you could replace the trucks entirely with Bachmann Spectrum trucks.

[u18b]

Or, if space allows, put on a piece of Kapton tape.  I did that with a decoder that had super bright and super white LED for an E8.  A piece of Kapton over it and viola!

This is a good idea.  Simple and easy to try.

But I was not sold on the final look.

The original LED was slightly blue-ish.

After adding Kapton, it is now definitely not blue-ish, but is it now slightly greenish.

[peteski]

Yes, Kapton tape makes a good blue filter, but it's color is a bit on the yellow side, so the light ends up greenish.  Transparent orange does a better job of filtering the blue and creating more of a warm white.  But some cool white LEDs can be hard to convert to warm white because they use phosphor which does not produce a lot if red light (which is needed for the warmth).

[gi-depp]

The krapton tape is too much yellow.
I take the revell 730 clear orange, to give the led's more warm white light.

Mike