Model Railway Forum

Many thanks for the positive comments. The "taxi" roof sign is currently powered by a battery box that came with the belisha beacons. I need to get a 12v bus cable in so that everything is powered from the same source. I'm still not sure about the buildings - the one's facing have not had the back-panel glued into place, so installing some LED's would not be a problem - the street lights would come off the same power source. The big problem is that all the work required, is underneath the boards - not much fun

Barry, I know you use LEDs but be wary of a single power source it may require a large current draw depending on how many lights you have. In the event of a short high amps can be a fire risk.

Better in my opinion is to have a number of small bus wires to supply set areas of the layout, for example I have three under the station on Shaddeholme, one for each platform.
My PSU is an old 8amp cctv supply split into eight separate 1amp supplies using a splitter (came with the PSU) and self resetting 1amp fused.
The added bonus is that each supply can have its own voltage regulator to adjust the output of each group of lights.

How many amps would an LED draw Steve?

Very, very little. The issue I should that if you have a large bus connected to a PSU capable of providing a large current, then a short circuit, drawing the full power of the PSU could be dangerous.
My suggestion removes the risk and offers individual control of lighting groups - easy to troubleshoot if something goes wrong as well.

That makes sense, thanks Steve.

Where does the water go? and as for the coal!!!!!!!!!

IMG_0718 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

Barry you haven’t attached the tender.

Steve M wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:17 am Barry, I know you use LEDs but be wary of a single power source it may require a large current draw depending on how many lights you have. In the event of a short high amps can be a fire risk.

Steve - I have lots (six or seven) of PSU's plugged into a "tower" adaptor. The PSU's are of different voltages, so for example, one PSU will be operating all of the LED's on the main station - with resistors plumbed in. The only PSU where I have split the power outlet is for both "sets" of yard lamps. It is a 12v PSU and the lamps came with their own PCB (so I have two), which I assume have some form of resistor built in! Instructions state not to wire more than six lamps into each PCB. So overall I think I'm ok. The "taxi" lights (there will be three), and the street lights (six) will probably run from another 12v PSU with resistors to each light. I may, if I install them, run building lights from the same PSU, again with resistors fitted to each light. Does that sound "safe"? Barry

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Wed Aug 12, 2020 4:04 pm Barry you haven’t attached the tender.

I knew there was something missing. It's now back in its box, probably never to be seen again. Although I may add sound (TTS) - while its available.
The purchase was in a good cause.

I thought you would have the safety aspect covered Barry, it was more for the benefit of anyone reading that might have thought that a single, thumping great bus would be a good idea.

Funnily enough, one of those modern thingies just appeared on my layout as well. TTS sounds good in it (I managed to find a decoder last month) but it's crying out for some weathering - far too clean .