Tip: 2856 LED Lighting for the Airport Express Set Date:

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1 Hi All, The 2856 Airport Express set was manufactured in On the locomotive was given a digital upgrade using a 6080 decoder. It has since had a digital upgrade to a high performance motor with a 6090 decoder. At last I have finally got around to adding LED lighting to the locomotive and coaches. I just used 3mm warm white LED s at each end of the locomotive to replace the bulbs using rolled IC pins as sockets which are held in position with hot melt glue. You will notice that the LED s are angled up to find the sweet spot on the light pipe to give even light to all three lights. The current limiting resistors 1k are mounted on Vero board and positioned as shown above. Because the light pipe is in one piece I didn t bother to fit red LED s for a rear light option because the red would bleed into the centre top light. I may work on a solution in the future to overcome this difficulty. 1

2 PCB for Power Supply and LED Lighting (typical) The set consists of 3 coaches with all the same dimensions for the home made LED light strip see below. Each LED has a spacing of 40mm and equally spaced about the centre of the lighting strip. Under each LED the copper foil has been cut to allow a series circuit for three LED s see diagram below. The LED PCB is used to mount the PLCC2 warm white LED s and to supply power through the coach. The black arrow is the Neg connection and the cathode of the LED s at each end of the strip connects to the 1k limiting resistor. The orange wire is the +plus supply. In the middle of the PCB (red arrow) there is a small wire link between the +plus and the anodes of the two LED s, refer to wiring diagram below. Wiring Diagram Coach LED Lighting (typical) Plus -Neg 1k 1k The LED lighting strip is glued into the coach roof with hot melt glue at both ends and in the middle. The wires required should be soldered onto the lighting strip before gluing into position. See page 5 for more details. Plug wire lengths = 80mm and socket wire lengths = 50mm The collector shoe and wheel contact are standard for coach lighting. Close up view of wires soldered to the lighting strip and rolled IC pins as the coach connection socket. 2

3 Decoder Wiring Diagram +Plus 6080 F0 Decoder ~ ~ 100uF 50V 15Vdc -Neg For the coach with the decoder I added two rolled IC socket pins shown by the orange and black arrows above. I used some heat shrink around the positive plug and socket to identify +plus. Because space is very limited I added the capacitor to the lighting strip as there was enough room above the window line of the coach without it being seen. Decoder Placement My choice of decoder for these projects is usually a 6080 saved from past locomotive upgrades. Since the set doesn t contain a baggage car, fitting a decoder without being able to notice it became a challenge. Looking through my box of old decoders I found a small decoder used in the Michelin Bus which was a small size. The area behind the doors of the coach provided enough room to fit the diode bridge made from 1N4002 diodes with the decoder fitting on top of the diodes. The diode bridge was assembled and glued in position with hot melt glue. 3

4 I used some thin black card to act as an insulator between the diode bridge and the decoder. Before mounting the decoder I set the address code to number 53 with the solder bridges on the decoder see red arrows. Solder Bridge Encoding Table Please note that the yellow wire is not soldered to the large transistor on the left hand side of the decoder. The motor wires have been removed from these two large transistors The yellow wire is the F0 light connection on the decoder solder pad yellow arrow. The black wire from the rolled pin plug is connected to the diode at the cathode end indicated by the red arrow (collector shoe). The brown wire from the rolled pin plug is connected to the diode at the cathode end indicated by the orange arrow (wheel contact). Thin black card is used to cover the decoder, held in place with small spots of hot melt glue. With the coach lights on, the decoder can t be seen through the door windows. Finally the plug is plugged into the socket from the collector shoe and wheel contacts. Having connectors allows for serviceability later on if required. 4

5 Where the Wires Go For the 2 nd class coaches at each of the train only one slot is required to be cut as shown right just clear of the mounting screw area. The slot size should be large enough to fit two thin ESU type wires below the dotted yellow line. For the 1 st and 2 nd class coach in the middle of the train a slot is required at each end of the coach. 2 nd Class 1 st + 2 nd Class 2 nd Class The diagram above is symbolic of the socket and plug arrangement for the train. A two pin rolled pin socket is gel super glued at the socket end of the coach body as shown. The length of the wires from the lighting strip is 50mm. For the plug end of the coach the wire length is 80mm. A two pin rolled plug is soldered to the ends of the wires with heat shrink for insulation and support. With a white paint pen the +plus side of the plug and socket is marked as shown. The longer wires with the plug are twisted together and are not very noticeable when the train is on the layout. The gap between the coaches can be reduced by using a close coupler which I will do at a later date. 5

6 I have used this same lighting technique for the 2859 Demonstration Passenger Train Set and Design Study Coaches 4220, 4221, 4222 and 4223 but didn t document them except for some photos (See last 5 photos of slide show) which I posted on This document is the reference on how I did the lighting. The only difference for the Design Study coaches from the Airport express is I used a 6080 decoder mounted in the baggage car and added tail lights. Other examples of coach lighting can be found under my Tips section. TrainAnimator files 2856a.yra and 2856b.yra are supplied in 2856.zip file As always enjoy your model trains. 6