Layout In A Box – Demo Micro Layout Project (part 17) Fitting & Installing Gaugemaster/DCC Concepts Street Lamps

We’ll start by deciding where the lamps are going on our layout. We’ll be using three off them out the pack. So first of all the holes are drilled just big enough for the lamp post tubes to fit into. These we’ve drilled a hole just big enough to give a snug fit. The photo right shows the hole drilled in the rail yard for the lamp post by the yard entrance gateway. 

Next feed the two fine wires on the lamp down through the hole then carefully insert the lamp post into the hole. Push the post down into the hole untill you reach the required height you wish to set the lamp post at. It’s worth gluing the sliding base section to the lampost tube to the required height beforehand. However if your not sure what height to go for, leave the base section loose & trial what height looks best to you. Once happy with the required height, lift the base section up slightly, glue the bottom side of the flange on the base & then slide the base section back down. Hole the base section for a minute whilst the glue sets. Make sure that the lampost is upright & true. (Saying that i’ve seen some lamposts in real life that have been knocked or at an angle!!)  

The two wires on the lamp are one – Negative & one + Positive. The longer wire is the + Positive one. On double headed lamp posts there will four wires, two short ones & two long ones, the same applies to them with the two longer wires being + Positive & the two shorter ones being – Negative. The photo right shows the two wires & identfies which is the longer + positive wire. 

In the pack as mentioned is various sized resistors & also so PCB boards with built in resistors. We’ll be using the PCB boards which are shown in the two photos right. The PCB boards have three different size/rated resistors. This allows for setting the street lamp at three different brightness settings.

Using the supplied PCB resistor board packs there are three options lighting brightness options. On the PCB there are two terminals labelled as ‘lamp +’  &  ‘lamp -‘. These are where you will attach the wires from the lamp. The longer wire attaches/goes to the ‘lamp +’ and the shorter wire attaches/goes to the ‘lamp -‘. Once the wires have from the lamp have been soldered  on to the PCB board. The next stage is to attach the power feed wires. The black negative wire (Neg -) attaches to the terminal opposite the ‘lamp -‘ terminal (marked -). Solder the black wire to this & run it to your transformer. The Red positive + wire from your transformer attaches to the other three other terminals on the opposing side to the lamp + terminal. The three options you have here give you three different lamp brightnesses.  The brightness will depend on which one of the three terminals you select. See the diagram opposite right which shows how the lamps are connected to the PCB.

We’ve opted for the far right resistor which gives the highest brightness out of the three options. Go for which brightness suits your needs best. The PCB board needs to be soldered on to the wires  from the lamp after the lamp has been fitted into the drilled hole as mentioned & shown earlier.

Run the wires from the PCB boards to one central point, in our case a chocbloc connector. From the PCB boards, place all the red (Positive +) wires into one side of the chocbloc & all the black (Negative -) wires into the otherside of the chocbloc (as shown in the photo right). Then from the opposite side of the chocbloc connector run one pair of wires (one red + Positive & one black – negative) to the transformer. As shown in the photo right.

Plug in the transformer & switch on. Turn the room lights off & enjoy the layout in miniature lighting.

The procedure for fitting these street lamps is the same for the other Gaugemaster/DCC Concepts range of street lighting. Add some ambiance to your layout with these lamps, well worth doing.