# Passenger Cars With Bulb Lights On DCC



## pmcgurin (Sep 7, 2010)

I have a few sets of Kato passenger cars with bulb light kits installed before the LED kits came out, and I have several Atlas cars with bulb lights. What would happen if I were to put these on the track of a DCC layout? Would they cause some kind of problem? Would they light up?

I plan to convert the 13 Kato cars to LED lighting, but the Atlas cars are different. I could remove the wipers that get power from the wheels, or I could try to install LED lighting drawing power from the track, but I would like to know if anything dangerous would happen if I were to use any of these in a DCC system. It is easy enough to just not use them until converting them to LED.

I don't yet have DCC, not even a real layout as I am working toward clearing space in the basement for a layout.


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## SF Gal (11 mo ago)

These "incandenscent" bulbs will light as if you are running a train at full speed... they will illuminate constantly, just sitting on the tracks...generating heat and in theory, may cause some issue with plastic models. In my case, I am going to change out ALL of my lighted passenger cars to LED. Besides the heat issues, you are burning AMPS, that could be better used to run more locomotives on your layout. DCC control's have a max amperage you can run, some 2 to 5 amps. By burning up amps to run incadenscent bulbs you start using up your power supply and DCC equipment. Change them out even if you run DC!!!!


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## pmcgurin (Sep 7, 2010)

SF Gal said:


> These "incandenscent" bulbs will light as if you are running a train at full speed... they will illuminate constantly, just sitting on the tracks...generating heat and in theory, may cause some issue with plastic models. In my case, I am going to change out ALL of my lighted passenger cars to LED. Besides the heat issues, you are burning AMPS, that could be better used to run more locomotives on your layout. DCC control's have a max amperage you can run, some 2 to 5 amps. By burning up amps to run incadenscent bulbs you start using up your power supply and DCC equipment. Change them out even if you run DC!!!!


Thanks for your reply. It is likely that I will have converted most of these cars to LED before I will bw able to stabilize a layout and implement DCC. The Kato cars can be easily changed to LED, but the Atlas cars will take more time, but I don't use them much. Good to know the incandescent lights aren't a big danger.


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## pmcgurin (Sep 7, 2010)

I have changed out the bulb units for LED modules in my Kato lighted cars, and the result is brighter lighting with more even light level over the speed range. I used an led strip of six LEDs in an Atlas car, removing the bulb strip in the process. Works but flickers from time to time. Probably a case shere a capacitor is needed.


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## OilValleyRy (Oct 3, 2021)

pmcgurin said:


> I have changed out the bulb units for LED modules in my Kato lighted cars, and the result is brighter lighting with more even light level over the speed range. I used an led strip of six LEDs in an Atlas car, removing the bulb strip in the process. Works but flickers from time to time. Probably a case shere a capacitor is needed.


I think a constant brightness board would work. I never paid too much attention what those consist of. They’re small, ready to use, and have been on the market for decades. Easy peasy to wire one in between the pick ups & LED strip.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

LED's have fast turn on/off times, so any track dirt will show up. A cap would help, but remember an electrolytic cap has a positive and negative terminal so your circuit needs a diode or full wave bridge before the cap. If you want to get fancy get a cheap buck/boost power converter to drive the LED's. or a CL2 LED driver that outputs a constant current to the LED's.


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