# Conductive "Plastic Steel" ?



## hawkeye2 (Jan 6, 2008)

The metal wheels on my older B'man coaches have holes in the inside face which I would like to fill with a conductive material so that I can add wipers and get away from the 9V battery lighting. I have had a couple of the "Plastic Metals" on hand and have put a bead on paper. A check with an VOM shows that they would make a great insulator. Anyone know of a 1 or 2 part product that would work?


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## old john (Dec 29, 2008)

MicroMark sells a can of plastic aluminum that supposedly is conductive, I have never used it but know some who have for other purposes and say it's a good product.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Just up grade to the newer wheels. later RJD


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

I think I'd make some brass discs.


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## BarrysBigTrains (Sep 4, 2008)

I filled a bunch of wheels and I can't remember what it was, but I thing it was a liquid metal in a tube. I don't think it was conductive, but what I wanted was a filler for the holes so my pickup plungers would fall into the holes and stop the wheels from rotating. As I do recall the lights did not flicker.

I was happy to see the wheels successors.

Barry - BBT


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## hawkeye2 (Jan 6, 2008)

Thanks for the replys guys. I was looking for a cheap quick & dirty fix and I think I'll just fill the holes with what is on hand. Barry, I had hoped that the lights wouldn't flicker as it would be unlikely the wipers on 4 wheels per side would be on an insulated area and your experience confirms that.


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

could you fill the hole with solder? I suppose it would wear out quickly.

A good way to prevent/minimize flicker is to just add a high value capacitor to the circuit. Radio shack sells them in the 1000-4000 uf range. You would want to add a bridge rectifier as well, to make sure the capacitor does not see the wrong polarity and explode! 


track power to the AC pins on the rectifier (the wave symbol), + and - from the rectifier to the capacitor, making sure the leads go to the right place. Then connect the wires from the lights to the capacitor. The capacitor eliminates flicker completely


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## tmtrainz (Feb 9, 2010)

Lownote, could you provide a simple wiring diagram?


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## hawkeye2 (Jan 6, 2008)

I expect the heat would destroy the insulation between wheel and axel long before the wheel was hot enough for the solder to stick. Duh! Never even thought about adding some simple electonics.


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Dave Bodnar's site has an excellent explanation:

http://www.trainelectronics.com/LED.../index.htm 

The wiring is simple:










If you are using LEDS, you need to include a resistor in the circuit to reduce the current. You can use this site:

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz 

to figure the resistor

Figure a typical LED to operate at three volts, with a forward current of 20 milliamps. 


Since We run on DCC, we have a constant current on the track. All our rolling stock has LEDs in it, and the LEDs run with no flicker whatsoever


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## BarrysBigTrains (Sep 4, 2008)

I am not saying it will occur in all instances, but I tried to solder a Bachmann wheel some years ago and the wheel melted.

So this is an advisory.

Barry - BBT


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