Station lamps - simple modifications

Just wanted to share the results of a small modification I made to some commercial kits.

I had thought about adding working station lamps to my sons N gauge layout, but didn't think that most of the commercial ready made lamps were right for use on the platforms, being too bright and often too tall, especially compared to the ratio offerings, which were very much in keeping with the style of the layout. The only problem is that the Ratio lamps don't light up, so I looked at ways of modifying them, and came up using fibre-optics.

I drilled out the clear plastic lamp head with a 1mm drill, to a depth of half way in to the head. I then substituted the plastic post for a short length of aluminium tube that had a 1mm internal diameter, and passed a 1mm diameter clear fibre through the tube and pushed it into the lamp head, It was then a simple case to glue the parts together and feed the fibre to a light box, which in my case is a high brightness LED.

The result is just right, and when the room lights are turned out these lamps give off just the right amount of light that you would expect for a simulated gas lamp. However the "white" light from the LED is not as good as my trials with a standard 40w light bulb, which gives a better "yellow" glow, and more output from the end of the fibre, but using a

40w bulb is not practice, so I used one of the 12v torch bulbs that have a lens above the filament, which is just right.

Maplin also sell 0.5mm diameter fibre optics, should you feel that the post should be of smaller diameter, but IMO the 1mm ID tube is fine.

The advantage of this method is that its cheap and has lamps of the correct scale. Whilst using fibre optics is not new, I haven't yet found anyone who had used it in connection with Ratio street / station lamps in N scale.

Regards

Malcolm

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Malcolm
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