I recently purchased a bunch of green and red LED bulbs, to replace the incandescent globes in my colour light signals. This was chiefly because several years in the harsh sunlight has just about completely bleached the colour from the old globes. After a bit of postal drama, my LEDS finally arrived from Germany.
I installed one set in a signal and the result was brilliant (in every sense of the word) As these LEDs all look white until you add power, there won't be a colour fade issue - which is good. However, the LEDs are a bit delicate, when it comes to screwing them into the socket. Although they are sold as E5.5 they are a tighter fit than the old globes and this has caused some issues. Firstly, you can't grip the bulb to screw it in, as it tends to separate (permanently!) from the metal base. You have to grip it by the base. I lost a couple of bulbs that way. Secondly,, I found it helped to screw a "sacrificed" base into the socket, to sort of open it up a bit, and then remove it. After that, a new bulb screwed in a bit more easily. However, all the rough treatment of the sockets sometimes resulted in damage - either to the socket's electrical integrity, or snapping off the wire at the back of the socket. Both render the socket unrepairable. However, I found, from old LGB web pages, that you can disassemble these signals and replace the light sockets with a spare part that is a socket with the two wires pre-attached.
However these wires need to be fed through a tiny hole in the signal head, down the mast, through another tiny hole in the top of the base and then soldered to a tiny circuit board that hides inside the base. This board is accessed by loosening a screw under the base of the mast (where it plugs into the motor unit) and prising out a plastic insert and then extracting the board itself.
Has anyone had any experience with installing these replacement sockets and in particular how difficult is it to feed the wires through those tiny holes? Is there some technique to all this.
I note that the sockets/wires (there is one set for the red light and another for the green) can be obtained from Modelland in Germany for just under 3 Euros each.
Clearly, this installation looks a bit fiddly, but is somewhat cheaper than the alternative - which would be to replace the entire signal, along with acquiring a signal motor that I wouldn't need, but would still be paying for!
Any advice would be appreciated.
I installed one set in a signal and the result was brilliant (in every sense of the word) As these LEDs all look white until you add power, there won't be a colour fade issue - which is good. However, the LEDs are a bit delicate, when it comes to screwing them into the socket. Although they are sold as E5.5 they are a tighter fit than the old globes and this has caused some issues. Firstly, you can't grip the bulb to screw it in, as it tends to separate (permanently!) from the metal base. You have to grip it by the base. I lost a couple of bulbs that way. Secondly,, I found it helped to screw a "sacrificed" base into the socket, to sort of open it up a bit, and then remove it. After that, a new bulb screwed in a bit more easily. However, all the rough treatment of the sockets sometimes resulted in damage - either to the socket's electrical integrity, or snapping off the wire at the back of the socket. Both render the socket unrepairable. However, I found, from old LGB web pages, that you can disassemble these signals and replace the light sockets with a spare part that is a socket with the two wires pre-attached.
However these wires need to be fed through a tiny hole in the signal head, down the mast, through another tiny hole in the top of the base and then soldered to a tiny circuit board that hides inside the base. This board is accessed by loosening a screw under the base of the mast (where it plugs into the motor unit) and prising out a plastic insert and then extracting the board itself.
Has anyone had any experience with installing these replacement sockets and in particular how difficult is it to feed the wires through those tiny holes? Is there some technique to all this.
I note that the sockets/wires (there is one set for the red light and another for the green) can be obtained from Modelland in Germany for just under 3 Euros each.
Clearly, this installation looks a bit fiddly, but is somewhat cheaper than the alternative - which would be to replace the entire signal, along with acquiring a signal motor that I wouldn't need, but would still be paying for!
Any advice would be appreciated.
