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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 9:00:41 GMT -8
This is the 1988 with the bright smt's for lighting. It is a big improvement over the Genesis bulbs and should never burn out! Larry   |
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Post by middledivision on Aug 14, 2012 9:04:46 GMT -8
Well done. I hope Athearn sees this.
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 9:16:49 GMT -8
Well done. I hope Athearn sees this. Thanks. Athearn will probably continue to use bulbs simply due to the price difference. The great thing about LED's is they normally last for life. I really like the difference and the bulbs installed by Athearn do not last long, at least for my experience. My Atlas models have the SMT leds so the cost is not that much different and could be added to the bottom line. Larry |
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Hergy
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Post by Hergy on Aug 14, 2012 10:51:01 GMT -8
The Katy unit is a very attractive lady. (it is Miss Katy isn't it?) Athearn continues to claim that bulbs are more realistic. If they are so great, maybe they would like to replace burned out bulbs free of charge. Replacing ditch lights is a real pain in the wazoo. The cost for LED's vs bulbs can't be that significant in the quantities that Athearn would use. Of all the major manufacturers I can think of Athearn is the only holdout.
P2K, BLI, MTH, Atlas, Bachmann, Bowser, all use LED's. Did I leave anybody out?
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Post by mlehman on Aug 14, 2012 11:15:51 GMT -8
The Katy unit is a very attractive lady. (it is Miss Katy isn't it?) Athearn continues to claim that bulbs are more realistic. SNIP Well, sometimes. Those big old headlight housings in the nose of a F-unit do look better with bulbs... But almost anything else, it doesn't really matter. In something with a small lens in HO, you can't see the bulb. And there are methods of making an LED install look like a bulb. That's what I do with my brass steam. Larry's point about LEDs being forever is well-taken. Considering the price of new locos, LEDs should be used everywhere the actual appearance vs bulbs is not an issue. The few cents invested in getting this issue solved on each unit will pay off in customer perception of added value far beyond the modest cost. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2012 11:17:41 GMT -8
I know I'm one of the few, but I generally do not like LED's. They are TOO bright and the color never matches an incandescent bulb. Plus, LED's are absolutely horrible when used in a Mars light. LED's do not do rotary beacons very well either.
I have the latest E8/9's from Proto both the Amtrak and SP 6051. Both have LED's and both have Mars lights. The lighting on both models is a prototypical joke. Maybe its because Walthers elected to have FOUR bright as the sun LED's crammed together in the nose. The LED's are HUGE and even with the nose coated with thick silver paint on the inside (done at the factory) to keep the light from shinning through the plastic.....it still does!
Both units should have twin sealed beam headlights, but Walthers has ONE bright as the sun LED BEAMING through the nose door. A grade of F for Walthers E's.
LED's do work very well in passenger car lighting, but again they can be too bright.
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 12:03:42 GMT -8
I know I'm one of the few, but I generally do not like LED's. They are TOO bright and the color never matches an incandescent bulb. Plus, LED's are absolutely horrible when used in a Mars light. LED's do not do rotary beacons very well either. I have the latest E8/9's from Proto both the Amtrak and SP 6051. Both have LED's and both have Mars lights. The lighting on both models is a prototypical joke. Maybe its because Walthers elected to have FOUR bright as the sun LED's crammed together in the nose. The LED's are HUGE and even with the nose coated with thick silver paint on the inside (done at the factory) to keep the light from shinning through the plastic.....it still does! Both units should have twin sealed beam headlights, but Walthers has ONE bright as the sun LED BEAMING through the nose door. A grade of F for Walthers E's. LED's do work very well in passenger car lighting, but again they can be too bright. Jim I tend to agree with you on the color, but the new diesels have a very bright white looking light, at least to me. I don't use these for steam as they most always need some brass colored reflector tint. The fact they probably will last for at least the length of time I have them is important to me. There are some sunny bright led's also that some prefer for diesels and yes, the mars light simulation is only so so with LED's. I still have some of the old dual filament bulbs on my GS4's since they shine bright but they only have two moves in the two filament bulb. The bottom line is they do work well and fit into the small ditch lights, which is almost impossible for regular bulbs. The LED's in most passenger cars need to be much lower in brightness, which can be done by using a deffuser in front of the led. Larry |
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 12:10:10 GMT -8
The Katy unit is a very attractive lady. (it is Miss Katy isn't it?) Athearn continues to claim that bulbs are more realistic. If they are so great, maybe they would like to replace burned out bulbs free of charge. Replacing ditch lights is a real pain in the wazoo. The cost for LED's vs bulbs can't be that significant in the quantities that Athearn would use. Of all the major manufacturers I can think of Athearn is the only holdout. P2K, BLI, MTH, Atlas, Bachmann, Bowser, all use LED's. Did I leave anybody out? The bulbs they use look OK but I don't feel they are bright enough to look realistic. I could continue to use them if they lasted a long time, but I have some F units that lost the headlights while being tested on a test track within 10 minutes of run time. I know that is probably the exception, but my twenty or so units F units do not have a great reputation for longevity. And Athearn holding out since most have already committed to the LED does seem strange to me. Larry |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2012 12:12:25 GMT -8
The bottom line is they do work well and fit into the small ditch lights, which is almost impossible for regular bulbs. Larry I had the "pleasure" to work with one of the first runs of Athearn Genesis SD75's(?) it didn't even have a DCC ready light board. It had bulbs for the ditch lights, which on this model the user had to install the bulb/ditchlight casting combo. The thick wires were a nightmare and the bulb was just too large. I will agree that for ditch lights LED's are a much better solution. Plus, I've always felt the prototype ditch lights are very bright. Maybe its because the bulbs on the prototype are at our eye level. Does anyone remember the LED's Kato used on the first run of their SD40-2's? The first time I put one of those on the track, I thought I had turned on a florescent light. |
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 12:17:09 GMT -8
The Katy unit is a very attractive lady. (it is Miss Katy isn't it?) Athearn continues to claim that bulbs are more realistic. SNIP Well, sometimes. Those big old headlight housings in the nose of a F-unit do look better with bulbs... But almost anything else, it doesn't really matter. In something with a small lens in HO, you can't see the bulb. And there are methods of making an LED install look like a bulb. That's what I do with my brass steam. Larry's point about LEDs being forever is well-taken. Considering the price of new locos, LEDs should be used everywhere the actual appearance vs bulbs is not an issue. The few cents invested in getting this issue solved on each unit will pay off in customer perception of added value far beyond the modest cost. Yes, the 1988 is know as the "Miss Katy". It is probably one of my favorite Heritage units that I have seen many times in the past six years. We have had all of them past Roseville beginning with the 1983 which was assigned here for the first two years. I use the large LED in the large nose headlights on the F units when a large LED is needed to fill the larger headlights on those units. My first encounter with it was at 3:45 AM in the morning. I used a flash shot to get it and called it the Ghost train. Years ago, the small bulbs used to have a built in lens on at least one brand of bulbs. I used those at 1.8 volts instead of the 1.5 volts which they were rated and they lasted about a year of so, which seems to be better than the Athearn bulbs they are using. Larry  |
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 12:35:51 GMT -8
The bottom line is they do work well and fit into the small ditch lights, which is almost impossible for regular bulbs. Larry I had the "pleasure" to work with one of the first runs of Athearn Genesis SD75's(?) it didn't even have a DCC ready light board. It had bulbs for the ditch lights, which on this model the user had to install the bulb/ditchlight casting combo. The thick wires were a nightmare and the bulb was just too large. I will agree that for ditch lights LED's are a much better solution. Plus, I've always felt the prototype ditch lights are very bright. Maybe its because the bulbs on the prototype are at our eye level. Does anyone remember the LED's Kato used on the first run of their SD40-2's? The first time I put one of those on the track, I thought I had turned on a florescent light. I had some of the first run SD40-2's without the ditch lights. I guess they were as new prior to the time the ditch lights were mandated. Atlas used the blue tinted smt's in the first run Dash 9's and I had purchased three of those, but they looked out of place. The second run by Atlas used the sunny bright smt's and they look nice so I picked up two more to lead the train. And the point at being at more eye level is well taken. That along with the fact they are very large pointed downward more than the headlight probably makes a difference also. I purchased several of those first run SD70M's also and ended up giving some of those away. Their ability to stay on the track was a problem since the trucks would not set flat and had to be replaced. The other thing I did to those was remove the front door and shave off more than half the thickness to make them look correct!! Larry |
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Post by mlehman on Aug 14, 2012 13:19:08 GMT -8
I know I'm one of the few, but I generally do not like LED's. They are TOO bright and the color never matches an incandescent bulb. Plus, LED's are absolutely horrible when used in a Mars light. LED's do not do rotary beacons very well either. SNIP Jim, I know what you mean. But isn't that what we pay the manufacturers the big bucks for?  Most of the time, presuming it's an LED that has the right color in the first place (again, they get a markup on everything, at least spend a few cents on getting the right LED), the issue is that they need a higher ohm value resistor. Then there's the lens. MV makes them, reasonably priced at retail, but they should be pennies at wholesale. Put a SMD LED behind one of those properly prepped and it looks pretty darn good. Here's a pic of a K-36 I am just finishing a Tsunami install on.  In this case, it a SMD LED fixed with canopy glue at the back of the brass headlight housing. I carefully drilled a shallow hole in the reflective backing of the MV lens, which was also fixed in place with canopy glue. The resistor was a 1k ohm, but I'm using only half-wave direct from the track to drive it instead of the blue wire. If you use the blue wire, then I'd guess that a 2k ohm resistor would give roughly the same result. You know how I like to grumble about the pervasive gloominess of some of the online critics here. But lighting is something where I think there's plenty of room for gripes -- and plenty of low-hanging fruit that manufacturers could grab to make a significant improvement at low cost. They're gonna need to do something to get people to buy this expensive stuff.  And those Genesis F unit bulbs? They don't look very realistic when they're dead is all I can say. And they fall like leaves in the fall.  |
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 13:47:26 GMT -8
I know I'm one of the few, but I generally do not like LED's. They are TOO bright and the color never matches an incandescent bulb. Plus, LED's are absolutely horrible when used in a Mars light. LED's do not do rotary beacons very well either. SNIP Jim, I know what you mean. But isn't that what we pay the manufacturers the big bucks for? Most of the time, presuming it's an LED that has the right color in the first place (again, they get a markup on everything, at least spend a few cents on getting the right LED), the issue is that they need a higher ohm value resistor. Then there's the lens. MV makes them, reasonably priced at retail, but they should be pennies at wholesale. Put a SMD LED behind one of those properly prepped and it looks pretty darn good. Here's a pic of a K-36 I am just finishing a Tsunami install on. In this case, it a SMD LED fixed with canopy glue at the back of the brass headlight housing. I carefully drilled a shallow hole in the reflective backing of the MV lens, which was also fixed in place with canopy glue. The resistor was a 1k ohm, but I'm using only half-wave direct from the track to drive it instead of the blue wire. If you use the blue wire, then I'd guess that a 2k ohm resistor would give roughly the same result. You know how I like to grumble about the pervasive gloominess of some of the online critics here. But lighting is something where I think there's plenty of room for gripes -- and plenty of low-hanging fruit that manufacturers could grab to make a significant improvement at low cost. They're gonna need to do something to get people to buy this expensive stuff. And those Genesis F unit bulbs? They don't look very realistic when they're dead is all I can say. And they fall like leaves in the fall. Nice K36/ The smt led in the rear of the headlight should give a nice brass color if you polished the inside of the brass headlight and coated it with glossy clear. I have done this with steam and it gives a nice color to the headlight providing the correct smt is used. I normally punch out my own lens out of clear plastic. Larry |
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Post by mlehman on Aug 14, 2012 14:25:33 GMT -8
Nice K36/ The smt led in the rear of the headlight should give a nice brass color if you polished the inside of the brass headlight and coated it with glossy clear. I have done this with steam and it gives a nice color to the headlight providing the correct smt is used. I normally punch out my own lens out of clear plastic. Larry Larry, Thanks. I wish Sunset had made the front headlight number boards capable of being lit, instead of just the rear one. I've got the parts to change it, but don't want to mess with trying to make it blend in, paintwise. I thought about painting the inside silver or white, didn't think of just polishing things up inside there. In the end, the only thing shiny behind the lens is the dried canopy glue  One reason I like the MV lens is because it is silvered. Yes, a clear lens will work, especially if you do treat the inside of the headlight housing in some way. But when you scuff off the center of the silvered backing on the MV lens, that lets some of the light to refract (I think that's the $20 word I'm looking for) inside the lens, following the visible side of the silvering. That gives it the reflector look. Since the light only comes directly through in the middle, it looks like the lamp in the middle of the reflector pretty realistically. The first time I did this, I filed the back of the MV lenses. That sort of worked. This time, I used a drill and just cut into the back, shallow enough to get through the silvering and just enough past to let the light get into the lens other than straight through. The SMD LED is a Richmond Controls Golden White with attached 6" leads I got from Ulrich Models. They also have these in 90 degrees SMD configuration, which makes mounting in headlights from below or above, instead of the back, easier. It should be easy enough to improve lighting in a lot of cases as just an incremental improvement to existing models. This stuff ain't rocket science, especially if I can make it look right.  |
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 14, 2012 16:36:09 GMT -8
Nice K36/ The smt led in the rear of the headlight should give a nice brass color if you polished the inside of the brass headlight and coated it with glossy clear. I have done this with steam and it gives a nice color to the headlight providing the correct smt is used. I normally punch out my own lens out of clear plastic. Larry Larry, Thanks. I wish Sunset had made the front headlight number boards capable of being lit, instead of just the rear one. I've got the parts to change it, but don't want to mess with trying to make it blend in, paintwise. I thought about painting the inside silver or white, didn't think of just polishing things up inside there. In the end, the only thing shiny behind the lens is the dried canopy glue One reason I like the MV lens is because it is silvered. Yes, a clear lens will work, especially if you do treat the inside of the headlight housing in some way. But when you scuff off the center of the silvered backing on the MV lens, that lets some of the light to refract (I think that's the $20 word I'm looking for) inside the lens, following the visible side of the silvering. That gives it the reflector look. Since the light only comes directly through in the middle, it looks like the lamp in the middle of the reflector pretty realistically. The first time I did this, I filed the back of the MV lenses. That sort of worked. This time, I used a drill and just cut into the back, shallow enough to get through the silvering and just enough past to let the light get into the lens other than straight through. The SMD LED is a Richmond Controls Golden White with attached 6" leads I got from Ulrich Models. They also have these in 90 degrees SMD configuration, which makes mounting in headlights from below or above, instead of the back, easier. It should be easy enough to improve lighting in a lot of cases as just an incremental improvement to existing models. This stuff ain't rocket science, especially if I can make it look right. Good point about the MV lens. They do look nice and the smt led works better than the bulbs used to look in that same application. I could never get the look correct with a bulb, but the brightness of the smt led probably does the trick. I get my smt's with the leads attached from Steve also. If you ever want to shine up the inside of a headlight, try using a Q tip in a dremel and some polishing cream. It will shine like a mirror in no time and coating with glossy clear will keep it that way for a long time. With this procedure, a lens would have to be made. Larry |
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