Street Lights as discussed on RR-Line

[jbvb]

The original 2016 RR-Line thread was all HO scale. It started as a general discussion, but most of the pictures explain how I did removable lights on Walthers and Rix 'wood' injection-molded poles. All the vendors seem to still be in business but Walthers seems to be moving from their incandescent 12V products toward LED lamps
1-Jun-2015: CZN17940 asked:

I'm in need of some modern HO street lights and was wondering if anybody
had any names of companies that make them.

Walthers carries quite a few modern metal-post lights from European manufacturers. Some might look reasonable in US settings.
In 2007 Walthers manufactured some North American prototype lights, but though they're still on the web site, none have been in stock for a long time (link obsolete in 2025, walthers.com is still there)  I could use several of the #2310 and #2311, but in 2007 I hadn't even designed the scenes I need them for.

Older era modelers are using kits for gooseneck lamps (Micro Lumina, N Scale Architect, maybe others) in street settings.

quartergauger48 (Ted) replied:

There is a company on EBAY, Called 'WE Honest'.
I have ordered street lights and figures from them several times. They are very well made, LED with metal poles. You need to solder a resistor to one lead. They come with the resistors. 11 lights for less then 20 bucks. I received them in less time then from companies right here in the states....one week.

2-Jun-2015:
Tabooma_County (Al Carter) agreed:

I've ordered from "We Honest" several times with no problems, and the street
lights I ordered were well made.

So did k9wrangler (Karl):

We Honest did me well, too. What did I order? Me Forget....

quartergauger (Ted) posted:

Here is a shot of a We Honest street light'..

2-Jun-2015: Frank; This link gets me We Honest's USA EBay store. They appear to have a Chinese language store, but I do not know where else they do business: WEHONEST eBay Store

There's a 'Street Lights' item in the Categories menu on the left. None that really match my area and era, but I'll keep watching them.

Robert_Goslin replied:

David Here's a couple I found recently. Haven't used them as yet, but guess they're O.K. Kytes Lites from England:

Kytes Lites (works 2025)

And this one, from China I think. Go to site and type in HO scale lights.
They also sell plenty of other model RR items too.

Ali Express (many vendors)

3-Jun-2015: Several of these vendors seem to be filling their buckets at the same set of wells. Aliexpress seems to be a 'small lots and overseas' division of Alibaba, the big Chinese on-line retailer. On-line reviews are mixed, but not beyond what I'd expect from "Americans buying clothes in general" plus "doing business half way round the world with a language barrier".

At that time, bang for the buck hadn't overridden my concerns about web and personal information security.

quartergauger (Ted) replied:

We Honest is Okay thus far'...Pay Pal only, But I pay, pay pal with a credit card. If there is any problems, the CC company takes responsibility.
I agree though with you on your point'...

vikramgoel (Vik) added:

Another company I have used is Express models in UK. They have a number of modern street and station lights. They also have lighted yard towers all in LED.

Express Models' home page

30-Jul-2015: I need a few HO "post" or "yard" lights. At least around here, the power Co. tends to use an inexpensive fixture when doing one of these un-metered installations, so the commercial 'cobra head' units on metal poles won't do:



Here I've filed the end of a "Yello-Glo" 3mm LED flat and bent the leads over, making sure they didn't touch. Then I slipped insulation taken off a 24 GA ethernet cable wire over one lead and bent the other down. I drilled the plastic pole #72 (.0224") and pushed the straight lead through. I'm about to solder #30 wires to each lead and paint the whole business. More when my shipment of 3.5mm audio jacks/plugs arrives.

3-Aug-2015: History tells me I need to keep my light poles removable, particularly on my modules that go to Hub Division shows. Out of the blue, I thought of the small plug/jack sets they use on earbuds (before they switched to radio).



This 3.5 mm set made by Switchcraft (839-1224-ND and SC1455-ND) cost about $2.50 from DigiKey in 2015. I used 3/16" brass tube (a loose fit on the body of the 'ring' side) to connect the light pole and the plug. I drilled a #66 hole in the tube for the red #30 wire soldered to the 'tip' lug in the center. Then I soldered the tube to the body to make the 'ring' connection via the blue wire soldered to the tube.

The Walthers pole above is filed to a press fit in the 3/16" tube. Before assembly, I painted the wires Scalecoat Graphite & Oil and cut the original stub off so it won't touch the 'ring' wire connection. I soldered the wires to the LED leads after the pole is pressed into the base. Then I'll glue them to the post to look like conduit for ground wires.

5-Aug-2015:



Above, the pole is assembled with the lamp leads glued down. They needed re-painting once the whole business was installed. The electric meter is made from .060 x .100 styrene and a slice of a clear styrene sprue. The jack is mounted in a .250 hole in the bit of hardboard. I'll solder wires to it before I attach it to the underside of the scenery. I eventually found my hot glue gun...

[jbvb]

12-Aug-2015: I added a parking lot light to an existing Rix telegraph pole. One novelty was shrinking the 3/16" brass tube to grasp the approx. 1/8 Rix pole. Another was using #38 magnet wire for the LED's cathode (-) connection:



Above the LED is ready to be inserted into a .022 hole drilled in the pole. Next the + lead was soldered.



The electrical portion is ready to assemble to the pole. The anode lead enters the hole in the brass tube and is soldered to the 'tip' pin of the plug. Ngineering #38 wire is soldered to the cathode, wrapped in a spiral around the anode and then soldered to the tube, which makes the 'ring' connection. It's barely visible at 2X life-size.

I've found the #38 wire frustrating to work with; none of my soldering irons do the 'dip the wire in the blob of solder and it comes out stripped and tinned' trick Ngineering's instructions describe. So I mechanically strip it by gently scraping with a knife blade. But I persist, because of the modeling it lets me do.



Assembled, ready for paint and fastening the LED leads to the pole so they'll look like conduit.

24-Feb-2018: Thinking about more lighting on my layout and remembered this thread. And realized I didn't post any 'finished' pictures of my post lights. So here's one in use:



And here's the one I was building in the photos above, in 'daylight':



nortonw replied:

Nice finished product there JBVB.
As for your magnet wire, you will find that all magnet wire has a lacquer coating on it that needs to be stripped before soldering. The heat from a gun/iron won't remove it (as you have discovered). Sanding and/or scraping will get it off though. As you say though, it lets you do some interesting modeling so it's worth the trouble. I use 30 g wire wrapping wire for some of my finer stuff but I'm not doing streetlights so it works for me.

[jbvb]

25-Feb-2018: Thanks, Norton.

i ordered some LED lights from WeHonest, but delivery took a while. Meanwhile, I installed some Walthers items from my stash:



#933-1082 'Small Streetlamp (2)' is only 12 scale feet high. At the recommended 12VDC it doesn't throw a lot of light, but the  incandescent lamps used before the 1960s didn't either. The color temperature is OK for incandescent.



#949-4315 'Modern Long Arm Street Light' is 29' to the top of the pole. The 'cobra head' and guy look good. The pole could stand some texture and weathering. However:



At the recommended 12VDC, it doesn't throw much light, and the color temperature is somewhere between 'incandescent' and 'low pressure sodium'. I don't think they put incandescent bulbs in 'cobra head' fixtures, and LPS is way out of my era. So I put it at GE's River Works and will explain that it's an in-house test if anyone quibbles.

The Walthers plug/socket mounting system appears to be solid, but the 11/32" hole is considerably bigger than my 3.5mm jacks. 3/32" pilot holes were necessary to keep the big drill from wandering when starting a hole in scenery. Where there wasn't overhead clearance for an electric drill, I used a loose chuck to drill by hand. To keep that under control, I had to step up to 11/32 from 3/16 by 64ths. The socket is barbed, making it difficult to get out of a tight hole - OK until something breaks or needs to be rearranged.

The provided wires have less copper than the #30 I have around. That's OK for lamps that draw about 30 milliamps, but one wire broke its solder joint to the socket while I was trying to straighten it. Re-soldered without incident, but in a situation requiring snaking wires through something, I'd replace it all with #24 solid or stranded.

Norton commented:

If you can find some in your area, used as part of a system upgrade somewhere, old style telephone cabling is #26 solid. I have two 25-50 foot reels of it and I intend to use it for my lamp wiring. The pairs, which are usually twisted pairs, are colors like White-Blue and Blue-White, Red-White and White-Red for the
pairs. The pairs are always opposites in colors so it's pretty easy to track under the table.

26-Feb-2018: Yes, my primary source of #24 solid has been old telco cables. I used to get them from office renovations but these days that mostly produces old Ethernet cable. The better grades of that are stranded and the color code much more limited.

5-Mar-2018: gehall63 commented:

I have also purchased from WeHonest on Ebay and am very pleased with his products, he's also very good when problems arise and will replace any defective item no questions asked.
One great product that I purchased was a terminal board with connections for up to 29 lights and built in regulation to 3 VDC. No need for resistors. I'm running 22 LED lights on mine with no problems.

john_holt added:

Woodland Scenics has some new offerings in their street lamps.

[jbvb]

23-Sep-2018: About 6 months ago, I ordered some lighting stuff from WeHonest. It arrived promptly in good condition:



Ruler & figure for scale. The #SL4 lampposts are about 25 HO feet tall. They include resistors, these are marked 620 Ohms.



Here's one installed on Bennett St. by the West Lynn yard office. With the 620 Ohm resistor on 13 VDC, it sheds considerably more light than the Walthers lamps I've tried. The color temperature seems OK for incandescent, though I don't remember 150 watt bulbs as this bright. The base is an easy fit in a 5/64" hole, but the resistors are larger (I tried before soldering).

WeHonest SL4's joint between the lamp post and arm turns out to be vulnerable to bumps. I've replaced this with something more durable. I was able to repair another with ACC.



Here's a Power Distribution Board for the Newburyport Depot area. Three ways to connect power, pins for connecting an ON/OFF switch, daisy chain power feed to another board, quality screw terminals and an output voltage adjustment.

Once I figure out which WeHonest cables & connectors mate with the square sockets and the pins, I'll order some. Avoiding screwdriver work underneath the layout to remove buildings will make me much happier in the long run.

These sockets (which are technically MALE because of the protruding pins) turn out to fit JST 2.00 mm plugs, available wired from WeHonest and other vendors.

20-May-2019: Followup on Walthers' '#933-1082 'Small Streetlamp (2)'. Two I'd purchased 10+ years ago were wired in parallel to my signal power, which uses wall warts and measures about 11.8 VDC. Last week I began installing more lighting and an on/off switch for the area. This uses a transformer/rectifier and measures 13.5 VDC. When I connected my two 'Small Streetlamps' to the switch, one blew immediately. The other seems happy. I'd thought that their limited light output was due to a conservative dropping resistor, but it appears that wasn't the case.

26-Feb-2023: Followup: Removable street or yard lamps using 3.5mm jacks can be interchangeable if all are built with the same tip/ring polarity

The Walthers "Small Streetlamp" disassembled after a brief soak in acetone. However, the globe casting fractured. I bought some Tichy #8155 street lamps to replace the globe, but I haven't gotten any farther: To keep it compatible with other Walthers socketed lamps made with 12V GoW bulbs, I'd need to get both an SMD LED and a 600 Ohm resistor into the globe. Next time I order from an electronics supplier, I'll see how small they make discrete resistors. Otherwise, I'll have to switch the Walthers lamps I have to 2VDC as the incandescent bulbs burn out. To remove or replace them I'd need to put a manhole cover or something over the big hole of a Walthers socket,

9-May-2025: A "twilight" photo of two more socketed power pole lamps I installed on High St. in Newburyport in 2024:

[Dave Buchholz]

I'll add to the "We Honest" list modelers that have purchased from them. Good stuff!
I grabbed a bunch of "5 into 1" as well as lights. Extension cables and power distribution boards.

The 5 into 1 connectors are real handy if you are intending to have several lights on or in a single structure. You can have up to five lights with only one plug-in cable coming out of the structure
 Very handy.

Fifth Dave to the right.