# LED Upgrade for an MTH Premier Dome Car



## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I have this 18" full dome car that was due for LED upgrades, so I thought I'd show the upgrade in pictures. First, I removed most of the original wiring as they piped track power to the lights and I want the output of the LED lighting module to go to the lights. One of the requirements, besides all the benefits of LED lighting, was not to have pieces of the car hard wired together, that's a PITA when you're opening them up to add passengers and the like.

I started with the outer shell, the LED light strip is connected directly to the spring contacts, all the other wiring was removed. In order to make a neat installation of the lights, I retain the old light bar plastic and install the LED strip recessed in the light bar. This blocks the light from the sides and makes for a neater installation, and still allows the light to illuminate the entire passenger compartment. When you look at the dome from the side, you don't see the LED strip, just the smooth side of the light fixture. I cut away all the intermediate supporting structures and just left the sides of the light bar intact The connections from the LED strip to the back of the car are hit-glued in place to route them to the spring contact block. I also put a few spots of glue along the strip as these have been known to sag over time, I guess the 3M adhesive isn't all it's cracked up to be.





















This is the main floor of the upper deck, and it has the lighting attached to the bottom. I also retained that light bar to make a neater installation. The metal conductors under the light bar was retained as it was a convenient way to bring power to the other end of the car. I installed a connector at the opposite end to allow connection to the bottom level floor and seating as that's where the lighting control module is located.










The lower level floor and seating, note the lighting module installed at the right. That's really the only mod to this beside the notch in the bulkhead to clear the added connector.










The chassis, (using the term loosely for a piece of plastic), was rewired to repurpose the spring contacts to carry the DC power to lighting, the track power was directly connected between the two trucks. Track power is also routed to the AC connector that plugs into the LED lighting control module. Note in the middle of the car there are two small PTC programmable fuses, these protect the wiring in the case of a derailment that might otherwise cook the wiring. They're rated at 255ma hold, more than enough for LED lighting. The two connectors at the right plug into the wiring module when the unit is assembled, they're dissimilar 2.5mm plugs to avoid the possibility of mistakes. The lighting module is equipped with matching male connector headers.










The bottom pieces all cabled up and setting together, ready to finish the assembly.










Now the part that took as much time than the whole rest of the job!










Turns out that these cars are some of the cars that MTH thoughtfully painted the whole truck and then put them together. The only thing is, they forgot that pain doesn't conduct electricity! All the trucks had to come apart to remove paint from around the sideframe mounts, and on the top and the bottom of the springs. Since these are sprung trucks, the springs actually carry the power from the wheels through the springs to the fixed part of the sideframe. Then, there's the screws that hold the sideframes, they were also screwed down on paint, and needed it removed to make contact. I wondered why the original lights were so flaky, but I figured I was replacing them anyway. When the job was done, I found out why the lights were flaky!

The joy of all this is I have a whole bunch of these D&H cars to do, if they all have the same painted truck issue, it's going to be a time consuming affair!

The finished car on my York display stand, this will be my LED lighting demo car. Since this has two light strips, I have the module cranked up to supply about 35ma of current to light the LED's. Not bad to go from .45A of current to .035A, get better even and flicker-free lighting in the bargain!


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## Pingman (Aug 18, 2015)

Terrific write-up and photos, John.

Timely, too, as I have a LIONEL 15" full dome car to do. Much different construction than your MTH; for example, no lower level interior.

But it will require upper and lower level lighting; and, a suitable lower level interior if I can find one--why have an upper level, populated interior and silhouettes below.

Again, thanks for the write-up, GRJ.


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

I like the looks of the D&H dome car. D&H has some nice color schemes.

When I did my ATSF full-length dome, I didn’t keep the light bar on the underside of the top level. Instead, I connected wires to both ends of the LED strip. On the top plastic light strip, I only cut away enough to clear LEDs and I added a few cross pieces to glue on the LED strip. I kept enough of the top light bar to connect the top LEDs and I also kept the MTH spring contact plates for the top light bar. The spring contact plates make for a nice neat installation. No visible wires.

I didn’t do anything to remove paint from my trucks and I don’t notice any problems with conductivity. My full-length dome is 2004 vintage and yours is 2001. Not sure if that makes a difference.


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## ERIE610 (Jan 19, 2015)

*LOOKING GOOD*

Very nice HOW-TO writeup + Photos. Most of the time a picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks for posting.

LATER


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## Spence (Oct 15, 2015)

Nice job. I did one of my MTH Texas Special vista domes. Talk about labor intensive, I never did the other 5.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

It's a good job ... you must have plenty of spare time to take on a project like this ??


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## Pingman (Aug 18, 2015)

Lehigh74, excellent write-up and photos. THANKS!:appl:


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Bob, it was well known that some of the MTH trucks that were painted had the issue with conductivity, but not all did. I had forgotten that little issue until this happened! I noticed when I flexed the springs I'd get some sparking and the lights would flicker on and off. When I scraped the paint off under the screws and springs, it was pretty thick, I think they dipped them. I guess the only good news was that it was easier to take these sprung trucks apart than many, but having to break them down to individual parts was still a PITA.


wvgca said:


> It's a good job ... you must have plenty of spare time to take on a project like this ??


Well, the whole project took less than two hours, but half of that was fixing those stinkin' trucks!


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## superwarp1 (Dec 13, 2016)

Nice job


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> Well, the whole project took less than two hours, but half of that was fixing those stinkin' trucks!



That's quite a bit less than what it would have taken me ...:appl:

good [and fast] work on that project


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

The standard Premier coaches I can knock out in around 15 minutes, most of the time is taking them apart and putting them back together. Dome and observation cars take longer to deal with either multiple levels or the markers and rear facing lights.


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## Garton (10 mo ago)

Hi. are there any photos with better quality? Btw, I am mad about LED lighting. I have 16.4 Smart LED Strip Lights in almost every room of my house. Moreover, I decided to make a LED upgrade for my low beams after studying the reviews. It has proven itself quite well. I chose it due to the presence of a cooler. It should give better cooling and prolong life in theory. There were no difficulties with the installation. There is a lot of space in the low beam headlights compartment. The driver fit without problems. The lid was closing too. I compared visually it with an old one after installation. The difference was enormous.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Garton said:


> Hi. are there any photos with better quality?


Try clicking on the thumbnails to expand them to full size.


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## Krieglok (Sep 7, 2013)

I have a MTH Santa Fe 70’ full dome car coming to me. This tutorial is just what need to upgrade the lighting!










Thanks John!

Tom


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Glad it will help Tom.  I go the "extra mile" as far as serviceability is concerned, so that's why all the connectors to allow complete separation of each piece of the car.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

that's a nice clean install .... better than most, good job !


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