Switch indicator Leds to bright


NYC_George

Well-Known Member
I bought some green & yellow prewired leds on ebay to use as switch indicator lights. I found them to be way to bright. The leds are powered by a 9v DC power supply with a 960 ohm resister on each led. I thought this would dim them a tad but no luck it didn't help a bit. I bought some from Radio Shack years ago that are perfect for this purpose. I wish I would have bought more now.
 
Continue to increase the resistance until they dim to the desired illumination. I often use 1.5K resistors for control panels.
 
So I just installed some white led ditch lights in a loco with a LokSound decorder. I set them up to blink on and off at a grade crossing. I notice they dim to almost off before regaining their full brightness. I used the ESU programmer to set up the dimming routine but what in the decoder actually dimmed the lights? Some type of adjustable resistor that can be set to any value?
 
My best guess, would be they are pulsing the lights to give the appearance of dimming, this would give a lot more control over the operation of the light, then just using a resistor.
 
Then is the brightness control in the below photo a pulsing thing? I think the checked Led Mode fades the ditch light like it's a bulb. Dims it until it's
all most out.


ditch_lights_1.jpg
ditch_lights_3.jpg
 
The operation of ditch lights in LokSound equipped locomotives is really prototypical. Yes they are adjustable for the on and off cycling. Mine get dim and then bright when blowing the horn. I installed ditch lights in a SW 1200 and they merely flash.

Again the features of the individual decoder will dictate the operation of the ditch lights and other features.

Greg
 
The operation of ditch lights in LokSound equipped locomotives is really prototypical. Yes they are adjustable for the on and off cycling. Mine get dim and then bright when blowing the horn. I installed ditch lights in a SW 1200 and they merely flash.

Greg I adjusted the above controls in the ESU Programmer to get the desired ditch lights affect I wanted. They are not the default setting. I was just wondering about how the decoder dims the Leds. I think I found a fix for dulling the switch indicator lights. I'll post that soon.
 
So I bought 20 of these leds that are way to bright for my fascia board even with using 1400 ohm resistor. They only cost about $6.00 for 20 but I want to use them so I came up with this solution. I made up a holder using some 1 & 1/2 wood I had lying around and glued some green and white plastic strips on to dull the led's appearance. It works. I just have to make 8 more. When the switch is aligned straight - Green / diverging Yellow.

Georgetest_led_1.jpg
test_led_2.jpg
 



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