Carriage lighting on the ANLR

[laalratty]

This week I have finally got round to doubling the number of carriages fitted with interior lighting. This is because just before Christmas last year, my sister finally moved out to her own place. Doing this meant she required some furniture. To get furniture of a suitable quality at a suitable price meant going to Ikea in Warrington. It was just before Christmas, so therefore the perfect time to act on the advice of MDLR and buy one of those lighting sets that they bring out just before Christmas!
The set contains a switched battery box connected to 10 nice LED's that give off a lovely yellow sort of glow, that are much more powerfull then the LED's in my other lit coach. As for why it has taken until now to fit them, I blame not wanting to face up to ripping the roof of one of my coaches, plus my general dislike of electrical work - especially soldering!

The coach chosen was number 6, one of my freelance coaches completed in 2007 as a pair with number 5. To add the lights a strip of wood was added where I wanted the light to go, this had a hole in for the LED. With too much cabling between the LED's, the set had to be cut and soldered back together four times, and the joints wrapped in insultation tape to prevent shorts.

An LED in place

All lit up! I used 4 LED's for this coach, another 4 will go in number 5 and the remaining 2 will get put in coach number 9, another freelance. I need to go out and buy some more battery boxes though before this though!

[MDLR]

Nice to see it all lit up - If you liked soldering more, you could've just used the LEDs and rewired the whole job! The easy way is to run one strip of wood the length of the coach with holes for the LEDs in, cutting notches in the compartment dividers to suit. THEN, you can do most of the work on the bench, just making the final connection to the battery box with the strip in situ. Hope you remembered to leave enough slack in the wiring to slide the battery box off its lid when you need to change the batteries........................

[laalratty]

Hope you remembered to leave enough slack in the wiring to slide the battery box off its lid when you need to change the batteries........................

I certainly did, more than enough I think...!

[SLRmidge]

Looks good, can't wait for all those long, cold, dark nights so we can test them out!

[MDLR]

That's the BEST time to see them.................. (or on a hot summer's night, when the sun's JUST gone down............)