I've not done any of this myself so not sure if this idea might work. What I'm after doing is to fit some working table lamps to some Pullman carriages. Given the small size it doesn't seem possible to drill the kit lamps up the middle and then get wiring through so I thought I might try some brass tube. Even this won't have a large enough bore to take even 2 of the smallest wires but maybe I could stick a micro LED to the bottom and shine through the tube.
So, the 3D printing bit. If I got some cones printed to look like lampshades and stuck them to the top of the tubes would they look anything near realistic?
Thanks in advance. Dom.
You only need one small wire, the brass tube can act as the other.
Alternatively, the brass tube could be one connection and the other could be very fine wire (you can buy reels of 0.1mm diameter) painted black and dropped down from above or from the middle of the horizontal rail in the window.
However, have you considered a single LED and running a fibre-optic to each lamp, with the end melted to into a blob to cause the light to come out in all directions? It might well work.
Brass tube with enameled wire up the middle.
Fibre optic was my thought. The cones would be so tiny I wouldn't bother - less than 1mm across.
Hi Dom,
In our N gauge Pendolino model Rapido have made the working table lamps in the first class cars by moulding clear plastic formers in the shape of the lamps and stalk, and simply fixing white LEDs to a PCB that sits below the seats. The light just runs up the plastic. A photo in Railway Modeller this month shows the effect.
A lot of 3D printed material seems translucent, so I wondered if printed lamps, with posts that extend through the table top to an LED below, could work, especially if you sprayed the posts grey to the light was only able to shine through the shade at the top.
Depending on how many lamps there are per coach, trying to solder up individual LEDs to posts and wires could be very tedious!
Cheers
Ben A.