# USA pass car lights



## tom h (Jan 2, 2008)

I have 2 short USA passenger cars, 1 is half baggage car/passenger car, they are both wired for lights. They have p/u`s for track power, what is the easiest way to make them battery powered. The wires are on the bottom of the car, I have it hooked up to a tender with battery power, should I run the wires to the tender, and when the power goes on the lights go on? Or should I make a switch with a seperate battery in the each car?

I took the roofs off and there is lights in the top also, and the roof has copper contacts that connect to the sides of car.

Never done this before, so looking for ideas.

Thanks, 

Tom H


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Are they LEDs, or incandescents? LEDs are much better candidates for battery power.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Are these made by Aristo? 

Greg


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## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 22 Mar 2010 09:44 PM 
Are these made by Aristo? 

Greg 


No Greg, he clearly said USA









I updated the lighting in my USAT overton cars -











Basically I removed all the original lighting and the voltage regulator PCB (in the roof) and installed LED strip lighting - http://www.trainaidsa.com/shop-leds.shtml#s50 (warm white) in the roof. One strip was enough for two cars. I still use track power with one ball bearing axle per car but I did wire them together with JST connectors http://www.allelectronics.com/make-...E/-/1.html/http://www.allelectronics.com/make-...E/-/1.html which could easily be used for battery power. Works great, email me for more info.


-Brian


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Huh Brian? 

That was fun. 

Greg


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## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 22 Mar 2010 10:11 PM 
Huh Brian? 

That was fun. 

Greg 



Tom writes "I have 2 short USA passenger cars".

Greg writes "Are these made by Aristo?".

Brian writes "No Greg, he clearly said USA".

What's not to understand?

-Brian


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

I hope this isn't too basic, and is helpful. I don't know what comes in those USAT overton cars



If the lights are incandescent bulbs (I think they are) then it would be to your advantage to replace them with LEDs. LEDs draw much much less current, and so your batteries would last longer. 


You could by individual LEDS, or buy one of those strips Brian recommended, which are great and easy to wire up; and work well. Or you could look for a set of warm white Christmas lights. I use those all the time. Cut the string up into as many leds as I want to use in the car, and then I use this online calculator to figure out how to wire the leds. Brian's suggestion would be easiest


For example, some of the led strips Brian recommended can run on 6 volts or less. That means you could use four AA batteries to power the lights. You could go to radio shack, buy a four battery AA box, glue the box to the bottom of the car, and then connect the power pickup wires from the wheels to the battery box. Then your on/off switch would still work. It sounds harder than it is.


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## tom h (Jan 2, 2008)

Brian, the second car in your pic is exactly what mine are, did you put the lights in the roof section? because currently the incandescent bulbs are hanging from the roof, so you just took those out and put those strips along the roof correct?

Thanks for the help!!

Tom H


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## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Yes, I just ripped old ones and glued in the strips with a little GOOP. The strips are easy to cut and solder leads to. The PCB board is in the top roof comparment. I removed it but kept the wires to the brass strips and soldered the new leads to them. The light strips are good up to 18 volts and they sell the appropriate resistors on that site if you will be using a higher voltage. 

-Brian


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Tom...... I recently converted my USA Sierra Cars to LED lighting by added 2 buss wires down the center of the coach using 1/8 brazing rod. One is the plus side the other minus. Added 2 LED's in the middle of the coach, each with a 1k resistor. They're powered by a 14.8 volt Li-ion battery in the first car ahead of the 4 coaches. All are daisy chained together as one unit. 

It works very well... Doing it that way, I still maintained the USA original coach lights when I might sell them.


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