Model Railway Forum

Evening all,

I'm very much a novice where electrics are concerned so please bear with me!

I have bought a 10 pack of 12V 80ma grain of wheat bulbs in white, along with an 8port distribution board as pictured.

I've used an old Hornby controller that has 19v input 12v output to power the board.

Lights come on but my query is should they be too hot to touch after a few seconds? Worried once installed in my card building it'll damage the building or worse.

I know an old style lightbulb is too hot to touch after being switched on, just wasn't sure if this is right in oo gauge.

The Hornby power controller can be used like a dimmer switch too, would the fluctuation in power be OK for the bulbs too, not that I'll be going up and down all the time.

Thanks in advance

David

My advice would be throw them away and use LEDs. Much safer, cooler and long lasting.

WTD is right. GoW bulbs used to be very popular for modelling, dolls houses etc. But they are a filament bulb and so get hot to touch and can damage card or plastic models unless you take care. LEDs are the way to go these days. They are cheap and come in all colours and sizes to suit. Just be aware the need to include a series resistor and remember they are polarity sensitive.

In addition to the advice above, LEDs will only consume around a 1/10 of the power filament lamps will do.. Your 10 x 0.08ma lamps will draw 800 milliamps (just over 3/4 Amp) where as 10 LEDs will draw around 50 to 100 ma depending on their series resistor Ohm value. Plus they run virtually cold.
Next, while it seems a good idea, do not use a train controller for LEDs. The controller doesn't put out 12 volts much more like 15 volts at full power setting.

Always opt for a Regulated power supply, where the DC volts are maintained at the set voltage regardless of load. 12 volt PSU are available from around £5 and multi output voltage ones from around £8.

Thanks all, will research a little more now instead of being trigger happy on ebay!