Blue Plastic Tracks

Just delivered some lighting kits for the 'N Gauge' Kato models I've been picking up recently.  You get enough parts in a kit to light 6 x passenger cars, fairly simple as well  as they are plug and play effectively, simply remove the body, add some copper pickups and clip in the light units.

I thought it was a more complex way of putting it in, but it looks easy if you said it.

Very nice little kit and it does 6 coaches? What does it mean when you say " clip in the light units"

(03-03-2022, 10:52 AM)Super Wrote: [ -> ]What does it mean when you say " clip in the light units"

Maybe the choaches already have a place for them so if you want to put the lights in, it just clips? LIke klip in plarail thomas cover?

Basically all the coaches already have as standard copper pick ups fitted to each bogie, this feeds up to a copper strip inside small recesses in the floor of the coach interiors.  So the steps are;

1. Remove the upper body (you simply spread the sides slightly and lift it off).
2. Slip two copper strips into the recesses, this forms a connection to the internal copper strips and leaves a small upright connection.
3. The LED unit then fits into some pre-made plastic uprights which you slide it down into and which causes the upright copper connections to make contact with pins on the small LED circuit boards.
4. You fit the clear plastic diffuser into the inside of the top of the upper body, each is slightly different depending on the configuration of the car, but there are a number of tabs and clips that mesh once you figure out the correct orientation.
5. You re-fit the body onto the car base.

Then move onto the next one.

Here's a video to demonstrate it;

Fitting Lighting Units

I see now. I can't figure out why, after such an informative video, which looks like it was made by the manufacturer, which shows a very understandable instruction of how to install these, that they don't even show what it looks like at the end. Seems like, to me, that because the light only comes from one direction, it would be brighter on one end of the coach or does the clear defuser somehow correct that? The kit is nice in that there is no wiring or mess to it and very fast and easy to install.

Surprisingly there is no issue with uniformity of light, I think its because the light shines into the end of the acrylic insert and it sort of acts like fiber optics do.  Then the light diffuses down (and up on a bi-level car) through the acrylic strip.  It's quite an elegant solution in my opinion, best I've seen on any lighting kits so far and you can get kits with different light temperature LED's.  So you can have a florescent type LED or a warm white LED, both versions ship with little clip on orange filters as well so you can warm the light temperature even more.  So depending on the era of the car model you can fit an appropriate type of LED and if necessary filter to make them look more realistic.

I'll be fitting the kits I got to some cars over the weekend so will take some pics for example of the acrylic insert fitted into the roof of a car and of them lit so you can see the effects for yourself

Your are getting me more and more anxious to see a Layout coming from you in the future Mr Nigel

Ok Super, here's some sample shots of lit cars, in this instance a local suburban train, as you can see there is a small amount of extra light at one end of the cars, but for the most part at first glance the lighting is pretty even overall.

** Rear (inner red lights) - Note destination board lit also **  Note there is even a detailed interior to the cabs


** Front headlights + destination board **


** Single level car with interior lighting **  Note the detailed car interior


** Dual level car with interior lighting ** again note interior detail, it is even two coloured seats to denote the different levels


** Both lit cars **


** Shot with flash light on so you can see the livery quality of these cars **

That is awesome lighting Nigel. The front Headlights and Destination Board are lit by the same fixture?

At first look at the Double Decker, I had thought it was different colored lights but your explanation correct me. These will look fantastic with passengers I am sure. Thanks for sharing this with us, they look great.