5.04.2013

N Scale Cars with Lights from China!

 
Okay, so I've got lights in my trains, lights in my buildings but no lights in my cars! Is this one of those final details that will be sacrificed in the name of cost/time in this scale?  For years, that is what I have been gradually accepting.  Yes, their have been cars released with lights installed, but these tend to be fairly limited and very expensive!
Well, the industrious Chinese are at it again!  I was asked a question about these a couple of months back, and hadn't really paid attention to them until someone pointed out the price....about $2.00 each!

So I ordered myself a pack of 10 to check them out and installed them in my 'passenger terminal' backscene area you see picture above.   I ordered mine from Everest Model on eBay, although they currently have nothing for sale, I would recommend searching on eBay as I suspect someone else may aslo offer these at some point. 

The cars come in a plastic bag, no fancy packaging.  Which is nice considering the price! :-)
The wire leads to the four SMD LED's in these cars are naturally soldered oh so delicately, so take care not to accidently disconnect the wire form the SMD, like I did in the car below! But, this car now makes the perfect subject to take a look at what is going on 'under the hood' as we say here in the US.

The bottom of the car is a black plastic material that comes off with some gentle prying. 
The yellow wire is attached to a resistor with 'green/brown/black' color coding, which seems to indicate these are 51ohm resistors.  Which is both advertised and seems to work fine with 12v DC power.   I have to say that I was honestly impressed that these vehicles come with 4 SMD (LED's) installed: 2 white in the front, and 2 red in the back! 
Of course, what really matters is how they look!  Well, with some minor image adjustment with the camera to capture the overall look (these LED's are quite bright!), they look pretty incredible!  Now, the cars themselves are really nothing to get excited about, but they do seem to be better than I was expected. 
The white and red lights appear just where they should with only a very small amount of 'bleed' into the car interiors!  And look at those headlights in the below photo! Wow!
So I have a couple of thoughts with these....I like them a lot, but they are rather plain and a layout full of these could look strange. I was thinking of removing the wiring and LED's and installing them into a Wiking, Busch or other vehicle, but that's essentially like doing the wiring myself.  No thanks.  Some paint and other details might be enough to avoid looking too uniform, but again, its still a basic, boring, sedan.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you Jerry!
    I've contacted the seller you talked about some months ago about cars with leds, but sadly they did'n ship to Italy :( I've not too much buldings in my layout, but I've a road with many cars taken from my old layout. They're from Herpa, very detailed, but with nno lights, the don't look real. Even if those are not too much detailed, I agree with you about the feeling they gave on your layout! :)

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  2. I purchased some recently from we_honest on ebay. The cars looked the same as the ones you posted, and the company had great customer service with me. I struggled with using these cars on my layout as well, because I figured it would just draw attention to the fact that all my other cars are driving around without their lights on! I chose to use them anyways.

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  3. Hi Alessandro! Good to see you again! Yes, the lights are really nice to see! I will add more, not sure where this will end up!

    Hi Michelle! Glad to see that you had a good experience with We_honest as well...I hope they come back soon! Make sure you share your photos of your layout sometime too!

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  4. I have some as well from Chaina. Nothing to write home about as far as their looks but the light do
    Make the cars stand out.

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  5. Tad always thanks Jerry. I also have some if these and they are nothing big to write home about but they do stand out somewhat and make my freeway scene little dynamic. Although I recently purchased 5 Faller car system and I will be setting them up within the next few months.

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