Good for lighting models. Found at Wal mart last Christmas.
Jim

I picked up 3 sets at Target on Clearance for $.75 a piece. Used one to light up the base of my Tachikoma display. A little hot glue and your're done!

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/showphoto.php/photo/28369/ppuser/14119

Rob

This is an interesting subject! I do a bunch of model railroading, in HO and all Steam locomotives. The new plastic locos are coming with either Bright blue-ish or yellow lights. BLEEECCHHH! Most of my Brass engines use "Grain of Dust Bulbs" mounted into the back of the appropriate size MV Lens. MV Lenses are small plastic lenses with a metallic backing. You use a twist drill to drill into the lens and then you CA your GOD" bulb in place. Then just drill a very small hole in the back of the brass headlight and into the boiler, or on the frame if its an articulated engine to run the wire back to the tender, where I put my decoders. When I used standard DC power I used diodes to make the lights 'directional'. Now, with Digital command Control The decoders handle it...BUT.... using Incandescent bulbs requires you to add wires from the decoder.

LED's are nice because I can power ALL my structure lighting, including light boxes with fiberOptics for porch lights n stuff with a single 1.5 volt to 3 volt power supply. with a resistor I can put 2-3 Yellow LED's in each passenger car, and let the 18 volts AC on the track power the cars.

for my HO scale layout, the Grain of Dust bulbs and MV lenses still look more realistic.

I picked up 3 sets at Target on Clearance for $.75 a piece. Used one to light up the base of my Tachikoma display. A little hot glue and your're done!

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/showphoto.php/photo/28369/ppuser/14119

Rob

Great idea. Photos look great too. :thumbsup::thumbsup: rr

Nice options to have but a lot depends on how you want to use them....

I usually just go buy a gross of 5mm bright white LED's for $5, then I use Tamiya Transparent paints to color them as needed. It's a little more work and a little more expensive but I like the outcomes...

I have a stupid question, If I take a piece of fiber optic cable, butt it up against an LED and wrap it with black electric tape, will it light up the far end of the fiber? If so, can you splice two pieces of short fiber optic cable together with electric tape to make a longer one?

Otto: yes and yes, however the light will be degraded some by each interface (join).

Heat shrink tubing (http://www.google.com/products?q=heat+shrink+tubing&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title) is especially useful for joining fiber to an LED or bundling them together elsewhere.

Ahh Thanks steve! can you shrink it with a hair dryer?

I don't know, don't think a hair dryer gets hot enough. I use the side of a pen type soldering iron. An open flame (lighter) would also work, but you'd have to practice a bit. Pros use an infrared heating device that produces high temps quickly and evenly, but a bic lighter should do the trick.

Ahh, sounds good! Thanks again!

rossjr wrote:
I usually just go buy a gross of 5mm bright white LED's for $5,...

So, where are you buy these for this amount and how many are you getting?

An open flame (lighter) would also work, but you'd have to practice a bit.

Yes do practice... Otto :thumbsup: I have a few right angle sections of shrunk wrap f/o... :o:p I had better success with the soldering iron trick. And if they are still abit loose I dribble some weldbond around the end where they protrude to hold them nice n tight. Avoid to much ca glue as the smaller filliments get really really brittle :drunk:

Guys, I've just ordered 50 ft of 1mm cable. I only need a few feet, so if anyone needs some let me know, I'll probably want to keep some extra for future projects, My cost with shipping is about 36 cents per foot. I think I could sell 5 ft lengths at $2 plus postage (about $1.50) Now this is a profit deal, I'd make 20 cents per every five foot lenght sold! I'm thinking with the price of gas driving around looking for fiber optic toys, that probably wont have the right lenghts anyway, would likely cost more than just ordering what i need online. So if anyone needs a few feet to play with just let me know.

PM sent

Payment sent!! :wave:

Payment sent. Thanks again!

Rob

Hey Otto.... got the FO today!


Thanks