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Working table lamps for business car.

Tried a new -to me- trick this afternoon while building the interior for a fancy privately-owned business car: I cooked up some working table (and one free-standing) lamps to light the interior.

I started by running a small diameter light pipe up through a section of

1/16" brass tubing that serves as the lamp's body, and then melting the exposed end of the plastic light pipe into a roughly 1/16" blob with a match.

I then took a short length of 3/16" clear plastic rod and chucked it up into a hand-drill's chuck, held a file against it until I had several "lamp-shade" shaped pieces of clear plastic, and cut the sections into separate "shades".

After filing the top and bottom surfaces smooth and flat, I drilled a 1/16" hole up into the "bottom" surface of the shade, superglued the blob on the end of the lightpipe up into the recess, and gave the outer surface of the "shade" a coat of white paint.

Now when a light is shined into the far end of the fiber-optic light pipe, it comes out inside the clear plastic "shade" and lights it up quite nicely!

It may -or may not- be bright enough to illuminate the interior of the room as well as would a bulb or led mounted in the ceiling, but it's certainly bright enough to see the lighted lights themselves through the car's windows, and that's the effect I'm trying for!

Pete

Reply to
P. Roehling
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P. Roehling wrote: [snip clear description]

Cool!

Lotta work, but cool!

Reply to
Wolf K.

"P. Roehling" skriver:

Märklin has done it a few times, I think it is in their VT 11.5 (TEE) with small desktop lamps and light in the lamps.

Klaus

Reply to
Klaus D. Mikkelsen

"Wolf K." wrote

Time spent on a hobby you love is time well spent.

Pete

Reply to
P. Roehling

Nice job Pete!

About 15 years ago I did something similar in N scale. I illuminated the interior and table lamps of a N&W observation car. I also used fiber optics (0.020") which in N scale also became the lamp "steams" by being painted gold. The ends of those fiber optics were glued into shades made from lathe-turned milky colored acrylic. All the fiber optics were routed under the floor to a single 1.5V Grain of wheat bulb hidden in the kitchen area. Also there was a hidden 1/3 AA NiCad cell and a power supply for charging it. The car has trucks which pick up power from the rails. Since it has a battery it will stay illuminated even when the power to the rails is turned off (I built it before DCC). I also ran fiber optics from that same bulb to the end markers. Then I also have couple of 1.2mm bulbs under the roof softly illuminating the entire car.

Next time I do something like this I'll be using 0603 size SMD LEDs under each table. It is much easier to hide electrical wiring than fiber optics and LEDs need much less power (less heat needs to be dissipated).

Here are some photos:

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Peteski

Reply to
Peter W.

Wow! Very nice.

Reply to
jJim McLaughlin

"Peter W." skriver:

WOW.

Klaus

Reply to
Klaus D. Mikkelsen

What he said!

Reply to
Big Rich Soprano

Light pipe? Is that the same as fiber optic cable?

It's still some excellent work!

Reply to
Big Rich Soprano

Very cool!

Reply to
Wolf K.

It could be a piece of acrylic plastic rod. that's what was used before fibre optics.

Reply to
Wolf K.

Thanks for all your compliments! This car gets a lot of positive comments when I run it on our N-Trak layout at the local model train shows.

Peteski

Reply to
Peter W.

True fiber optics are construcerd with a core and an outer coating. That allowes for beter light transfer (less losses). Plain acrylic rod while it will work, it will not transfer light as well as a true fiber optic.

Peteski

Reply to
Peter W.

"Peter W." wrote

(snip)

Nice job yourself, and in N scale, too!

Mine look almost exactly the same when illuminated.

Pete

Reply to
P. Roehling

Rich,

Sorry I couldn't answer your post directly: for some reason it never appeared on my server.

Yes, I got both the "lightpipe" term and the fiber optic cable from my father-in-law, who used to be a Phone Company technician and who gave me many meters of leftovers that weren't up to company specs but work just fine in modeling applications. It's little tiny stuff.

I liked "lightpipe", as it's so much shorter than saying "fiber optic cable" every time.

Pete

Reply to
P. Roehling

Thanks! One of my future projects is to detail some interiors of my Orient Express Pullman cars. Those will also have table lamps. I'll also try to do a more detailed interior. On those I'm planning on using

0603 SMD white LEDs under each table illuminating individual fiber optic going to a single lamp. I'll have to tint the LEDs with amber marker to make them look less "cool white" and more like an incandescent lamp. I hook up my LEDs using a very thin magent wire (40ga.?) It is much easier to route under the floor than the fiber optics.

Peteski

Reply to
Peter W.

Ah, thank you...

Reply to
Big Rich Soprano

No worries...

Oh man you lucky person...

Not to worry, now that i know the lingo - light pipe on McDuff!.. Besides, your lamp models are wonderful! And yes, i'm going to try to copy them!.. Thank you...

Reply to
Big Rich Soprano

"Peter W." wrote

(snip)

If you ever do, I'd sure like to see some pics.

You do nice work!

Pete

Reply to
P. Roehling

Thanks Pete! I'll post some photos if I ever get to (and finish) that project. :-) Peteski

Reply to
Peter W.

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