Interior lighting of RIO Nord-Pas-de-Calais - part 10

 

Doing some research on how the cabin of a RIO looks like ...

In a previous post, I showed pictures of the command station I found online. I'm now trying to find how the rest looked like; especially looking from the outside.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144553972@N04/30825542238/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/depotdelongueau/31808610338/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/73789322@N04/16203678464/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/155008070@N02/49854421441/

And some photos from Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/polanmarc/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKVthlOHDaR/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKMHYEDH05E/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZxDdrNLEQ_/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEj52oFn8mi/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CACcffGIhsn/

From the previous post and this one, I conclude on the following elements to recreate the cabin:

• Train operator sits on the left side
• Command station is mostly black
• On the right side, there is a big beige component showing clearly through the window
• On the right corner, the red fire extinguisher
• There's a door with a circular window in the middle to access the passenger car

Interior lighting of RIO Nord-Pas-de-Calais - part 9

 

I already know that the 2mm tower white LEDs from Miniatronics fit nicely in the holes for the white lights. I thought I would use the similar LEDs in red, but one issue is that they look clear whereas in reality they have to look red even when not lighted. Then, I thought I'd tried those that come with the ESU lighting strip ... and it looks like a success!

First step is to file the LED to make it fit into the 1.5mm hole - left side, original & right side, sanded:

Dry fitting test:

And how it looks on the driving side ... Perfect!

So, a good start so far, but let's put the cabin and see how much room we have for the LEDs and wires. As shown below, this is very tight, almost impossible!

As a side note, the cabin is not light-proof as there is a big gap by the roof. I'll need to fix that once I put the cabin lighting ...

At this stage, I decided to remove the bottom of the cabin with a saw to make room:

I'll obviously need to fill that gap with some plastic card, but it looks good for the LEDs. Let's continue with the second red one.

Another fitting test; looks good!

And now with the two white LEDs:

 

And finally, on the driving side:

This looks very nice to me! Next steps are to:

1. Test wire the LEDs to make sure they still work
2. Make a cabin with plastic card, the driving console, the train operator, and lighting
3. Wire everything and test
4. Check light leakage

TGV

I maintain a list of formation, typically from pictures I see on Flickr. I struggle to distinguish all types of TGV, so I gather information from the sites below to build on list based on train numbers.

• https://www.hunza.pro/differentes-rames-tgv-circulant-sur-reseau-sncf.html - also in pdf
• https://www.trains-europe.fr/sncf/tgv/differences.htm - also in pdf
• https://blog.sylvainbouard.fr/la-famille-tgv-guide-didentification/ - also in pdf
• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV

Here's the summary:

Van Biervliet AM08

 

Here's the real EMU:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sncb1357/23300776314/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fototak/7366646680/

And here's the model I purchased: Van Biervliet VB-6003.7 DCC Sound with interior lighting:

It's equipped with an ESU Sound decoder and gave it DCC address #8007:

And a short video:

Closed for winter

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davybeumer/31473353763/

Interior lighting of RIO Nord-Pas-de-Calais - part 8

 

Small, but important progress … I made the holes and selected the LEDs I'm going to use. "La suite en images"

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B098CF3VMM

https://tonystrains.com/product/miniatronics-12-821-10-2mm-tower-led-red-10-pack

It was fairly easy to drill those holes; the main challenge was to stay centered. I'm okay with the outcome:

I used the 1.5mm bit to drill the holes for the red lights. The white LEDs from Miniatronics fit right in, the red ones need to be sanded a bit from 2mm to 1.5mm. That's the next task!

Interior lighting of RIO Nord-Pas-de-Calais - part 7

In this post, I'm following up on the option #1 from my previous post. I decided to solder the different components and give it a try ...

Start with a failure

For the two white head lights

For the cabin light

At this stage, I ran a test and nothing worked. After quite some frustrations, nothing worked. It seems that I overheated the board and it is now permanently damaged. So, QUICK SOLDERING OR BURN THE BOARD!!

Try again with connectors

I then went with a new ESU light strip and decided to solder connectors that will allow for more flexibility in the testing:

Just connectors this time!

Left is for cabin light, right is for white head lights

The other side of the connectors are pins for a breadboard to make testing easy.

Recap on wiring

As mentioned in the ESU manual:

• Optional front light: For operation in Control/Cab car, as shown in Fig. 5, a white front light can be added. Only white or yellow LEDs with a maximum current consumption of 15mA may be used. A series resistor is already installed. The front light works like the rear light, directionally.

• External load (AUX1): To switch external loads (eg toilet lighting, destination signs, etc.) a separate transistor output with a maximum current of 100mA is available. It is shown in Fig. 6, and is preferably connected to the voltage + U. A series resistor for LEDs is not installed. The U + voltage is not buffered by the power pack and the control to adjust for brightness has no effect.

Testing

This is the fun part!

1. Red head lights (F0 forward) + Strip light (F2)

2. Red head lights (F0 forward) + Strip light (F2) + Cabin light (F1)

3. White head lights (F0 reverse) + Strip light (F2) 

The white head lights are the two white LEDs in row 40 on the breadboard.

It works well! Next step is to drill holes for the red LEDs ...

Interior lighting of RIO Nord-Pas-de-Calais - part 6

 

Small progress today on the pilot car. I was able to remove the "cabin", but I had to break the light guide. This is okay because it was in the way of the red head lights anyway ...

Red/white head lights - option #1

The first option is to build the light module myself and wire the LEDs to the ESU light strip, as I alluded in my previous post. Looking at the light module from Miniature Passion, it might be an idea to solder the 4 LEDs on a bread board circuit. I would have to follow those dimensions:

Red/white head lights - option #2

Another option came when I realized that Jouef released new sets of RIB/RIO passenger cars. They are HJ4012, HJ4039, HJ4150, HJ4152, and HJ4154. When looking on YouTube, I found this video and it seems that the pilot car switches from white to red head lights:

From 2:05 to 2:26, you can see the lights switching. I then searched for the manual, and found that spare parts #6 is the lighting module. I found two websites for those modules:

• https://www.detailstrains.com/pi%C3%A8ces-d%C3%A9tach%C3%A9es-neuves/hornby-jouef/voitures/ - HJ4039/06 - Platine d'éclairage

• https://www.lendonsmodelshop.co.uk/?button=moreinfo&qty=19656&moreinfo=Lighting%20Pack%20(HJ4039/6).html - Lighting Pack (HJ4039/6)

I reached out to Lendon's Model Shop to see if they have the item in stock.