Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Hi All,
Over the past few months I have been working at a steady pace to install LED lighting in my passenger
coaches. The coach lighting must have LED lights to reduce power consumption on the layout and be
digitally controlled. The 4392 Passenger coach set “40 Years of Barden-Württemberg” makes a nice train
when combined with the 3098 BR38 locomotive. Below you can see the finished results.
The coaches aren’t designed to allow coach lights to be used as there isn’t any provision to mount a
collector shoe and a ground (masse) contact so I decided to use the Märklin 73400 lighting kit (yellow
LEDS for a softer light for earlier eras) and power the LED light strips via 2 pole Märklin conducting
couplers (see details page 3) and power the coaches via a relay in the locomotive.
This side view shows the couplers mounted with the lights on.
Above, the red arrows show the solder pad locations to solder the wires from the couplers. I used a small
amount of hot melt glue to stop the lighting strip sliding through the white mounts.
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Underneath the coach I held the wires together with a small length of heat shrink (yellow arrows). The
wires where threaded through a small hole under each axle.
Here I have shown two coaches with the room lights turned off and used a small lamp to illuminate the
foreground.
For the male coupler left, I orientated the plastic hooks in the down position and for the female coupler
right, the plastic hooks were orientated in the up position. It is important to be consistent so that the
coaches can be coupled together in any order.
The couplers work well and
are easy to couple and
uncouple.
Opinion Time Märklin should include these
couplers in the catalogue as
lighting accessories with a
lower price.
These 2 pole couplers should
replace all single electrical
couplings as there is less
chance of damage when
coupling the coaches together.
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Märklin 2 Pole Electrical Couplings The Male Connector is E219446
The Female Connector is E219447
The price for each connector at the time of this article
was €5.87
Each connector comes wired with 10cm length of
wire and a 2 pin connector at the other end (see red
circle).
The connectors clip apart and the wires which are quite stiff can be exchanged for more flexible wire at
the length you require.
Locomotive
The 3098 locomotive was converted to digital some time ago using a LokPilot V3 decoder. At that time I
only put a LED light for the front lights and didn’t use the available AUX1 and AUX2 functions. After
deciding to use the locomotive to pull the 4392 coaches it seemed like a good time to use AUX1 for a
cabin light and AUX2 to switch a relay which in turn controlled the coach lights via the 2 pole couplers.
While I had the locomotive apart I decided to add fibre optic lights in the tender as well as the relay.
The fibre optic lights have been removed see pages 6-7 and 10
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Tender Details
Warning: - The tender shell is held on by four lugs that clip on to the chassis. These lugs are very stiff and
the body shell is difficult to remove. It is very easy to break the lugs. I had to use superglue to repair one
lug.
Above left you can see the relay (12V) which I recovered from an old microwave oven. The relay is quite
large so it was easier to fit into the tender as well as the fibre optic rear lights with the LED off.
The yellow arrow shows the location for a small slot to allow the wires to enter the tender.
The 5 required wires that come from the locomotive are the AUX2 (purple) wire, +pole (blue)wire, rear
light (yellow) wire, ground (black) wire and the centre rail (red) wire.
Above right you can see one warm white LED (3mm) switched on and glued into the light pipe. There is
a 1k resistor mounted on a small Vero board glued to the side of the relay used for current limiting. I used
1mm fibre optic for the rear lights.
See article Enhancing Old Locomotives By Adding Tail Lights for other ideas and further details.
Under the tender I put a blob of hot melt glue on the locomotive tender coupling pivot (yellow arrow) to
prevent the tender from coming away from the locomotive. I removed the metal coupler and replaced it
with a spare coupler pocket held with the existing screw. The female coupling socket was glued into the
coupling pocket as one of the securing lugs broke and for the price of €5.87 I wasn’t going to waste an
otherwise good coupler. The wires from the coupler where threaded through and existing hole and one
wire connected to the relay contact and the other connected to ground (masse).
Once I had tested the relay and LED light functioned I replaced the tender body ensuring the wires from
the tender covered with heat shrink remained in the entry slot of the tender.
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Tender Electrical Coupling Change
After running the 3098 locomotive with the 4392 coach set for some time I decided that I would like the
locomotive to be more versatile and be able to pull trains with standard close couplers as well as trains
that required controlled light functions.
I decided to have the electrical coupling removable by adding single rolled IC pins to the wires as shown
above.
On the tender I soldered two rolled IC pins as sockets to a small Vero board. The socket PCB was then
glued to the tender with gel super glue. The wires that originally went direct to the coupler were now
soldered to the new socket arrangement. The reason for the single pin plugs on the coupler wires is to be
able to thread the wires under the axles as there isn’t enough space for a two pin plug.
The coupler can be changed for a standard close coupler if required in less than 1 minute.
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Tender Rear Lights Replace Fibre Optic Lights
After the success of adding a LED in the raised top lantern on the tender of my 3085 (003 160-9), 3316
(25004) and 3082 (41 334) locomotives I have decided to upgrade all tender locomotives that have raised
top lanterns to have a warm white LED.
Instead of repeating myself in this document on the techniques used please refer to article
Enhancing Old Locomotives By Adding Tail Lights pages 16-21.
Warning: - You undertake the following modifications at your own risk. Mechanical modifications will
be required to add the extra LED lights.
Once I had installed the LED in the top lantern it was obvious that the fibre optic
maker lights in this case needed to be upgraded to LEDs because the light levels
were not even due the mechanical constraints in the tender and this required an
offset of the LED placement for the fibre optics shown so one light was brighter
than the other.
Tender Rear Lights with 3x LEDs
You will notice the top lantern LED is horizontal and the two lower marker lights are at odd angles. This
problem was caused by the wires that support the LEDs going through the existing single hole for the
removed fibre optic and for the top lantern the wires each have 0.3mm hole which provides better LED
support. I didn’t want to use glue in case I had to replace the LEDs for some reason in the future.
This photo tells the story
The lower right lantern is painted silver.
The lower left lantern is painted silver with LED fitted.
The top lantern is complete with LED and lens.
The 0603 white LED had a blue tinge so I used Tamiya
Clear Yellow X-24 acrylic paint to warm the LED light
colour.
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Drilling Holes
The LED light size hole is 2.0mm, counter bored with 2.5mm drill just deep enough for the lens.
For the top lantern I drilled 2x 0.3mm holes for the wires to exit the back of the light. At the back of the
lantern on the outside of the tender there is a supporting rib and I was able to drill 0.3mm holes on either
side next to the water filling hatch at approximately 60° in a downwards direction which allowed the
wires to enter the inside of the tender.
Tender Internal Wiring
All the 0.25mm enamelled copper wires from the LEDs were routed and soldered to a Vero board
interconnection panel as shown. The fine wires were held in place with black electrical tape. I used ESU
wire for the flexible connection.
The blue wire is the +Pole, the black wire is for the top light and the grey wire is for the two lower lights
wired in series. Both resistors are 12k for the LED current limiting. At the red arrow the resistors are
linked and the yellow wire for the rear lights is connected here.
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Fibre Optic Tender Rear Lights Removed
Left photo all lights are off. Middle photo cabin and rear lights are
on. Right photo shows a different angle of view where the cabin can
be seen and the rear tender lights are on.
Cabin Light
Photo below shows a side view of locomotive with cabin light on.
Please note cabin brightness CV was set to the lowest value = 1
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Cabin Light
A 1.5mm hole was drilled into the locomotive
shell for the cabin light wires. After the wires
were threaded through the hole I soldered a
PLCC2 warm white LED to the wires. I used a
small plastic sheet to act as an insulator by
gluing it to the bottom of the LED then gluing it
to the cabin roof with hot melt glue.
On the other end of the wires I soldered a rolled
IC socket (2 pins) to be used as a plug which
allows for the body shell to be removed for
servicing. I used heat shrink around the plug and
wires.
The above two photos show the general layout of the locomotive. The red arrow shows the rolled IC
Socket (2 pins) in series with the green wire is a 1k resistor for the cabin light current limiting resistor.
The orange arrow shows a 3mm warm white LED that is mounted in a 2 pin rolled IC socket hot melt
glued into the original light bulb recess.
Tip: LED Lighting for the 3098 Locomotive and 4392 Coach Set Date: 12-02-2014, 16-11-2017, 27-01-2018
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Locomotive Front Lights
Front lights on. Underneath the locomotive I mounted the 1k current limiting resistor on Vero board and
hot melt glued it into position as shown.
Wiring Diagram Locomotive
Well lit coaches just scream out to be populated, so I guess I’ll have to start painting little Preiser figures.
As always enjoy your model trains.
Aux1
F0f
F0r
2 Pole
Coupling
+Plus
Aux2
LokPilot
V3 Decoder
Front Lights
Rear Lights
Cabin Lights
Coach Lights
1k
1k
12k
12k