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How To Fix Light Bleed On HO Scale Locomotive Headlights
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- čas přidán 4. 08. 2024
- Upgrading the old style incandescent headlights on an Athearn Ready To Run SD60 locomotive. I ran into a problem of extreme light bleed from the headlight housing and came up with a solution for fixing this problem.
Creating a fibre optic like tube out of tin foil channels the light and stops it from escaping out the sides of the plastic housing. It also has the added bonus of increasing the brightness of the headlight since there is no light being lost.
Simply cut a small rectangle out of aluminum foil. The width is a function of how long the housing is, I found that you want it to be just slightly shorter than the housing. The length is enough so the foil makes a little more than one wrap around the drill bit. Any more and it increases the diameter of the tube and makes it harder to fit into the housing.
Use the smooth end of the drill bit that fits the headlight and wrap some tape around roughly 1/2" or 1 cm from the end evenly so you have a backstop to help push the foil into the housing. Wrap the rectangle of aluminum foil tightly around the drill bit.
Spin the drill bit the direction so that the tail of the aluminum foil is trailing as you slide it into the headlight housing.
Once it's as far as you want it in, rotate the other way as you pull it out so the roll expands and fits the headlight hole nicely.
Put a piece of electrical tape into the roof of the cab where it meets the light tube to help reduce any stray light bleed. Carefully install the LED so it shines into the tube without crushing the ends of it. Finally when you are happy with it gently put some sticky tack around it to seal up the cab and protect against any light bleed coming down.
The LEDs I use are 603 SMD "Sunny White" LEDs from the LED Baron on eBay. The leads are #36 magnet wire.
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Great ideas Ben. Especially the stick tack for holding the LED in place. Brilliant!
Cool Ben, Another good way is a small piece of plastic fiber optic, sand down the ends, heat the one end with a lighter to form a lens and black heat shrink tubing around the fiber right through the shell and around the LED cutting all light bleed out. The Athearn Genesis CN wide cabs were horrible for light bleed and works perfect.
Fibre optic was my first thought actually, I just didn't have any.
This is the best solution to the light problem I have seen. Many methodes have been triedd and yes some work, but this is just so simple. I have a heap of "Bare Metal Foil" for my model projects that should work just fine!!
Thanks for sharing
Muse
A perennial problem with models; great how-to video! 👍🏼
Darn, that is one of the best lolution I've ever seen!!!!!!!! Great video man, I will definitely be referring back to it.
Liquid electrical tape works good too, nice work Ben!
Loved the video. You shared a unique idea and I loved it. Another way I believe would be to use fiber optic tubing. Glue the LED to one end of it and cover it with heat shrink tubing. Just leave a little bit of the fiber optic tubing exposed to pass into the light housing. That's just my way but I did love your idea as it is very unique and the shine from the light is awesome. Thank you for the video.
Hi Ben - Great idea that certainly takes care of the issue. Thanks! Mike
I have not seen it done that way before. Thanks for doing this video.
....thought you were going to just pop in a resistor. I like your solution. Maybe a combination of both. Thanks for sharing. I remember how all the Athearn fan boys stated how they just loved the bulbs for their realism. Glad Athearn changed over to LEDs. I was never an Athearn fan but they made some models that no one else did at the time.
That's a well clever and elegant solution
Very nice idea
My suggestion would have been to paint it with flat/matt black paint. But that was before you mentioned you didn’t have the time so yes, the use of black electric tape works as well.
Usual practice when building any model with lights (buildings, sci-fi stuff etc...) is to spray the inside black and then go from there.
I tryed your sugestion Ben but painted outside of foil it worked great thankyou bud
THANK YOU...for sharing. Nice fix.
I use Black Liquid Electrical Tape; works really well. Nice video!
Awesome tip my friend.
I love this how to video my brother thanks for sharing
That's a slick trick. If I run into that I will have to keep this in mind. Good think'in.
Good idea! I’ve got a few locos I’m going to try this on...been going through the fleet and adding LED’s as well. I’ve heard of people using black liquid electrical tape as well. It kind or looks like plastidip. This was also very helpful and a good idea to try
Nice idea bro! I use liquid tape. Use a brush too paint it inside the light holes then after installation I use it too seal the rear of the bulbs and celling. Works great....
That's awesome! I never really had a RTR locomotive, if I do I have to strip them and repaint....never had this problem...but if I ever do atleast I now know what to do....thanks!
Cool video
I'm going to try the aluminium foil with fiber optic filament and heatshrink tube with a 3mm white led, and make a very small lens at one end of each fiber optic fiber, cheers mate.
That's a good idea, I think having the lens would be the ultimate way to do this.
Nice unit Ben looks awesome I have one old school in the union Pacific I working soon paint yellow stripe look out for video and gp50 will be in it to
A good way I've avoided light bleed with my models is a soft black epoxy spread around the rear and sides of the LED. After mounting, this can be easily cleaned up in the socket, and because it is soft, it can be removed easily for changes in case there are issues with the LED.
Cool will come back if I ever have this problem
Very creative solution Ben, well done! Best, John
I use black shrink tubing without heat (i.e., a black sleeve) and paint black liquid tape with micro brush to secure everything from behind.
Like • Cool demo 🚂
The best way I found to stop light bleed is BLUE or White Tac shed over the led and you can always remove it without damaging the led
Perfect...Light...
👏👏👏
Smart idea, it would have been nice if you showed us the finished product back on the track.
Thanks, there's a couple different videos of it on the track published after this one.
Nice!
Very good solution Ben, Thank you for sharing. David.
Great video. I have been using 3 milimiter let's with shrink tube connected to 1 millimeter fiber optic for all my athearn, atlas engines. Dan Cortipassi has a bunch of youtube videos of the process. You only need a 750 ohm diode to run it plus he shows how to light the number boards with surface mount diodes
Yea. I also use 3mm leds with 3 mm heatshrink over the led.Then I paint the heartshrink, with black paint. One 3mm lights up both headlights, & is easier to wire up.
interesting trick!
Great video! Easy solution and very cost effective. Have you thought about fiber optics and aluminum tubing to go into the headlight housing?
I sure that would work too, I just didn't have any spare fibre optics.
I have the same problem with my brass Hallmark Fairbanks-Morse H12-44 after installing LED headlight. I'll probably just paint the backside with black paint. Next time I take it apart to install diodes to eliminate the flashing of reverse current I'll correct the light bleed. Good idea but it won't work for me. I installed a 5mm LED bulb and stuck it through the front and use it as the lens as well. I did end up painting flat black around the the LED so it just shines in the forward direction and not all around. Cheers from eastern TN
Hi Ben great solution have you thought about black insulated shrink tubing as a lot use on jointed wiring, LED lighting
I’m having trouble getting the shell off my Bachmann HO scale GP40-2 I got in a train set. Can someone tell me how to get it off?
I use black liquid tape to stop light bleed from the back of the led.
I wish I could get a high-end sd60 in o scale, you either have to get mth rail King scale or the mediocre Lionel sd60s from 8 years ago. Even then I'd most likely have to repaint it, not an easy feat for me as I'm not good at painting.
how about paining the sides of the LED except the front lens black acrylic (cheap) paint?
Thats was an ingenuous way to fix light bleed
Hello, I was wondering if the locomotive came with the 2 white strips for the PTC antenna or did you install them yourself and if you did install them when can I get those at?
I made them out of styrene following a How-To video by railfan220:
czcams.com/video/BH5itphnvkQ/video.html
I found these on shapeways website : www.shapeways.com/product/TVFUY8EDX/bnsf-ptc-antenna-pack-ho-1-87?productConfiguration=58810617&etId=190200803&
Hey bro TGs media that dude is spectacular he teaches you all about that light bleeding and everything else but I'm going to continue to watch this and see what's crackin with you but TGs media he's already went through this shrink tube
Sorry my computer changes words if I don't spell check that's 3 millimeter led cool white, a 750 ohm resister and 1 millimeter fiber optic. I bought enough of each off of ebay to do a hundred locks pretty cheap and it's easy to wire up to my decoders.
use 3mm led light and (2) 1.5 optical tube hold them together with heat shrink tube I seen this done with other modelers
Try that with n scale....
Why not let it light up your cab? I guess you would have to install seats, an engineer and conductor. Happy modeling! 🚂
I use black nail polish
I’d say go one step further and use a few more of those SMDs to light the numberboards.
I'm not at that level yet, maybe some day!
Short circuit ya anode and ya cathode like my neighbour Duncan's Locomotive. Duncan is a complete Wombat though.
I've barbequed LEDs doing that exact same thing myself so I guess I am a bit of a Wombat as well :D