It's the little details - Power out aspect on relay boxes

[Ian MacMillan]

When I was at the Springfield show I spent some time at the HO scale Dry Hill Model RR Club's modular HO layout. A friend of mine does all the signal wiring and special effects wiring, and as a 1:1 Signal Maintainer for Pan Am, he tends to drag his work pretty well into HO scale. One of the "damn thats neat" things that he recently added to a crossing that he was building, was adding the "power out" aspect to the crossing relay boxes. Its so simple yet over looked.

I decided that I wanted to add some to my crossings as well. So I bought some of those mass quantity 3mm warm white LEDs that you get from China at 100 for like $10, some Atlas and BLMA relay sheds and drilled out a 1mm hole.  He had done his with some fiber optics but I found it a little bit easier to just place the LED in the box. I just need to paint the inside and the LED to block the light and bam its a quick little project.

[wm3798]

Once you start down the road of cheap LEDs, there's no turning back...  That is a cool project.  Back in the day, the WM had little posts outside of the relay box with the bulb about 10' in the air...  That'll take some fiberoptic (which you can also by like penny candy from China...)

Lee

[Ian MacMillan]

You're right there is no turning back... Last week I spent about 50 bucks on LEDs of all types.  I got some flashing green ones as well to add to my truck loading docks after seeing an example at the Springfield, MA USPS distribution center.

[wm3798]

I keep having dirty thoughts of getting one of those gigantic G scale USA Trains SD40's and tricking it out with markers, properly back lit number boards, running lights below the sill... and maybe even a light inside the engine room you can spy through the sight glass...  But then I'd remember that I can't afford the real estate and crew of landscapers I'd need to be able to run the damn thing...

[ljudice]

So the ones you see on ebay as "wired" - already have a proper resistor in place, so they work directly on 12v?

[TiVoPrince]

Adding 
this to the "Is there any detail Ian does not model?" file...

[Ian MacMillan]

So the ones you see on ebay as "wired" - already have a proper resistor in place, so they work directly on 12v?

Yes

[delamaize]

Yes

Got a link to the seller? I need a mess of them.

[Ian MacMillan]

I use two. The first one is in the US with China prices. The second is in China.

http://stores.ebay.com/niktronixledandgamespecialists
http://stores.ebay.com/buynow360

[ljudice]

Holy cow - another thing to divert my short attention span to....

[Bob Bufkin]

I keep having dirty thoughts of getting one of those gigantic G scale USA Trains SD40's and tricking it out with markers, properly back lit number boards, running lights below the sill... and maybe even a light inside the engine room you can spy through the sight glass...  But then I'd remember that I can't afford the real estate and crew of landscapers I'd need to be able to run the damn thing...

Swipe one of Jim Vecheck's and repaint it.

[up1950s]

( "power out" aspect )
from Ian

Does this phrase mean anything special ? Or is it just a door way light ? 

[Chris333]

I think "power out" refers to the fact that if the engineer sees the light out they know there is no power to the gates and flag the crossing. Remember Jerry's engineer classes.

[Brakie]

I think "power out" refers to the fact that if the engineer sees the light out they know there is no power to the gates and flag the crossing. Remember Jerry's engineer classes.

Don't bet your life on that! I seen CSX trains reduce speed and lay on the horns.There was no flagging.

[Ian MacMillan]

I think "power out" refers to the fact that if the engineer sees the light out they know there is no power to the gates and flag the crossing. Remember Jerry's engineer classes.

Exactly. It let's crews and maintainers know if there is power to the gate system. The crossing signal heads also have an aspect facing the track so that crews can see that the lights have activated.