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Cheap and easy Streetlights

I'd previously bulk purchased a large amount of LEDs from LED-Switch with the intent to light up my entire model railway. I'd already bought a few of the MAX7219 ICs, which control up to 64 LEDs each, and knew how to control these via the Arduino. My article on the IC and using it was here.

Anyway, streetlights were high on the agenda, as they exist in every town in Japan and, based on a very simple idea, weren't going to be too hard to make. Following are the steps involved with creating the street lights that have been visible in my prior articles.

Ingredients

• 0.25mm Copper winding wire (or as thin as possible.)
• 1.6mm LEDs White/Yellow (as available here)
• Metal tubing for the main pole. (I used '3/64 x .006' brass tubing)
• Soldering iron
• Paint

Construction

Firstly, cut the pole to your desired length. I have to admit here that I never once measured any of the poles and just prototyped one against a reference (in this case it was a standard Greenmax building) and then made them all the same size.

Make sure you take in to account where you will bend the pole and how much extra length will be required. Use a file to smoothen out the ends so that you don't damage the winding wire when fed through.

Once you have the poles made, simply cut the leads of the LED right down and solder one end to the pole itself. Finally, if you haven't already, feed the wire through the pole and tin one end (melt it with a little bit of solder to strip away the insulation.) Once done, trim away any excess tinned lead and then solder it to the other lead of the LED.

Note that the final version there was the best I'd made. I'd trimmed the LEDs right down after folding one leg over the top and used a very small amount of solder.

Finished Product

Better night shots of the taller version in action...

The only thing these really require now is some form of cover/compartment/housing for the bulb to live in. Currently, with a big enough blob of paint, I can get the ends to look round-ish enough to look acceptable and I'm happy with this. But any comments/suggestions for an off-the-shelf product that might have the right shape to cover the ends are welcome!

I'd also bought red, yellow and green LEDs and found that they had fit into the Greenmax Signals. I haven't gotten around to finishing them, but I will post another article once done.

Meanwhile, in my previous post, I also added both a red and blue LED to a Bachmann N-Scale Signal. I actually cut it off its usual pole/base and mounted them as shunting signals. See the pictures. I'll post a more detailed explanation along with the other signals once finished.

Latest on the Model Railway

So, something that was just meant to turn into a test layout has now become one of my greatest creations... It's not much as yet, but the scenery and electronics involved is a lot more complex than I thought I would ever create and I'm really glad as to how it's coming along.

Here's a gallery of the initial track plan I intended on using and then 3 evolutions of it. The final layout is not actually listed there. You can see that it started as a single level basic loop, with options for expansion. As I realised the time required for building just this module, I decided to do away with the extension options (although things can always change) and then added a second level. This was just to be a ridge down the middle of the board, but it now has transformed into 1/4 of the overall surface area. A town has now grown on top and a nice siding for single-car vehicles.

Underneath the board is a birds-nest of wiring for all the tricks I've tried with the Arduino (see all the previous posts...) and I'll show you this in a later post.

For now, just check out the photos and I'll get back with more information as I create it. I'm currently working on street lights for the top town and also automation of the points. I've been through around 5 iterations for the control circuit for the points and damaged quite a few TomyTec FineTrack Points in the process. Not fun.

Here's a link to the whole album.

Update: The streetlights are painted and in... I still need to work on the light end, they need some sort of cover/compartment.

Meanwhile, I also need to learn nighttime photography :)
More to come as I light up all of the houses; although one is already lit!