As seen on the previous post, each car would have two longer light strips and tow shorter ones on each end. The ESU strip would be great because of its features and because it can be cut in multiple sections.
Research
However, it was not clear to me how I could cut one strip into two strips and re-wire them. I looked into the ESU forum and found this post. Those two pictures will be helpful:
I kept browsing and another post on the ESU forum pointed to this website: http://enndingen.de/StadtForum/Digitale-Innenbeleuchtung, it's in German, but Google Translate does the magic:
The soldering pads also make it possible to split the strip at the designated points and continue to control the separated pieces via the decoder. To do this, the required conductor tracks are connected to each other again via their soldering pads. for e.g. B. Cars with a viewing dome (dome car) or multiple units that do not allow a continuous strip or certainly a welcome option for double -decker cars.
Separation of the bar breaks eight traces, four at the top and four at the bottom of the board. However, it is not necessary to connect all eight.
The two power supplies [~] at the top outside are only necessary if they are at the other end of the car, e.g. B. can also be connected to the severed part of the bar from the bogie. Is it e.g. B. a bogie with only one pole (axle slider), a [~] line must also be connected. If no feed into the strip is intended / possible / sensible on the separated part, then the two lines do not have to be connected.
On the top side, plus [+] absolutely must be connected while minus [-] is allowed to remain disconnected.
On the underside are the four lines to the decoder outputs B, C, D and E as shown in the picture above. Each output switches one pair of LEDs. These outputs must also be connected. However, only those whose LEDs are on the separated piece (the others do not harm, but are unnecessary).
Example: the last four LEDs are located on the separated piece of the bar, i.e. the two groups D and E. Three cable connections are therefore sufficient for pure control of the separated 4 LEDs: top [+] and bottom [D] and [E].
Even more spartan: if it's just a matter of switching the LED on/off, i.e. separate control as a group is not important, you can also connect the pads [D] and [E] on the separated part to the output [D] together . So you save another connection and get by with two cables!
My turn ...
- On the top side, the + must be wired between the two strips
- On the other side, the - must be wired by its group of 2:
- Group B: leds 4 & 5
- Group C: leds 6 & 7
- Group D: leds 8 & 9
- Group E: leds 10 & 11
Since I burned an ESU strip recently, I cut the last 3 LEDs from that strip to test the wiring with my "testing" strip:
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| Wire+ on the top side |
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| Wire- on the other side; chose led 10-11 |
So, it works great except that only the last 2 leds are switched on and not the first one. From what I can understand, I should have also wired the previous group: leds 8 & 9. I'm not sure I will actually test that, but the conclusion is that sections must be cut by groups or more wiring is needed.
One test is to make sure that the last 2 leds behave the same way as the last 2 from the "testing" strip:
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| F7 controls leds 10 & 11 |
Next step is to look into how to cut the ESU strips for the Z 24500 ...