Does anyone know of a source of 32 volt LED bulbs that can be used on a steam locomotive? I saw them advertised somewhere but cannot remember where.

Bernie

Why in the world would anyone use an LED bulb on a steam engine? It's a Steam Engine! It's supposed to be more or less a restoration, right? I don't get the obsession people have with LED bulbs, especially on antique machinery. Why not do it right and use good, old fashioned, correct incandescent bulbs?

Because, in spite of their relative simplicity in construction, it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain correct incandescent bulbs. Alternatives must be considered, and LED bulbs can be custom built to closely replicate focused filament light bulbs. We know have them for use in antique car headlights that actually provide more accurate beam focus. Two other advantages; lower operating temperatures, and lower amperage demands. Color of the light can be made to closely approximate the incandescent filaments' color too.

A friend has been running what I believe was Home Depot brand (HDX?) LED bulbs in the cab and number boards on their GP38s. Said they work just fine. I never tried it though.

You build or modify one.

I've seen LED railway step lighting:
https://www.ledtronics.com/Products/ProductsDetails.aspx?WP=26
Other applications are more problematic. The traditional sources for 32/36V lights are:
https://www.aamsco.com/light-bulbs/railway/ and
https://www.go2marine.com/
but these are incandescent. One work-around that I used to move the focal point of the Aamsco water glass lamp to a more favorable point was to place the lamp into a screw-base female to two-prong adapter and place that adapter into a female two-prong to male screw-base adapter. The contraption did nothing more than raise the entire bulb. A similar arrangement could be used to raise one of the bayonet bulbs from the LEDtronics catalog. Finding a suitable replacement for the 32/36V 250 Watt headlamp is a bigger problem. Bernie Watts at http://backshopenterprises.com might have some advice.

Would any of these work https://store.marinebeam.com/edison-screw-type/? They'd be fine for the cab lighting and probably marker lights. A headlight will probably work with an automotive HID type LED, but you'll have to do some modifying for voltage and physical fit. Or try three 12V headlamp bulbs in series, a loco's headlamp housing would have enough room.

We've been experimenting with 24V versions of LED's like those in the link in a display carriage to light all the compartments. The warm white ones work well for colour, and the whole carriage can be run off a small "wall-wart" power supply; the LED's only need a fifth of the current. Saves all that messing around charging big lead-acid batteries.

Thanx everyone for responding especially you, Dave, who gave more reasons than I would have. I have also searched the archives here and found some stuff.

Bernie

Cut and pasted from our invoice for bulbs we bought about a year ago. Note the voltage range. We don't have the locomotive in service yet, but they look good in tests on our "shore power" 32 volt source. They won't withstand 110v. Don't ask how we know.

Why LEDs? The capacity of our turbo-generator is 500 watts, the headlamp takes about half of that. LEDs give ua a bit more electrical power to play with. Hopefully the LEDs will also last longer than incandescents.

The class one's use LED's in everything but the headlights... even lineside signals!!!

These LED bulbs they buy will run on anything from about 90 volts down to 24 volts... ac or dc, with hardly any loss of intensity at the lower voltage. You can put 115vac to them, but they'll just blink and go out. It doesn't fry them... or at least I haven't ruined one yet.

They've got built in diode protection.. that's why they'll run off AC. I've got ahold of 5 of those bulbs and use a 24volt doorbell (AC) transformer to light them up inside a sandblast cabinet I built.

You guys wanting LED illumination should screw one of these bulbs into a socket and see if it won't run on 32vdc. I'm betting you'll be pleasantly surprised. The class one's use two different types of these LED's... one type resembles a regular light bulb, and the other is what they refer to as a "corncob" bulb. It's what they use in number board and other interior lighting on the engines. The corncob bulbs won't light up on low voltage like the normal shaped bulbs, for some reason.

And a little more general info about LED's. I put up 24 regular mogul base light bulb receptacles on the ceiling of my 30x50 machine shop and bought 24 Walmart brand (Great Value) LED spotlight bulbs... the kind you'd put up out on your outdoor motion detector fixtures at home... and with all 24 going at the same time, it draws 2 amps. They stock multiple "lumen" strengths, and I picked out the brightest ones they had in stock at the store. It lights it up in there like daylight, compared to what I used to have in there.

I was working in Alaska a few years ago on the cruise train. We had around 18 cars. I would replace an average of 12 light bulbs every day. We ordered some LED bulbs and they were a God send. Cool to the touch and they give off a nice bright light. We did have change out some of the electrical ballast transformers to something lower current since the LED's hardly used any electricity. But after that was done changing out light bulbs was a rarity. I do think you should keep a old fashioned light bulb in the headlight.

We have been using LED 32 volt DC lamps for quite awhile as interior car display lighting. Using a 32 volt AC transformer rectified to about 34 V. DC (RMS reading). Much better option than 120 volt conversion as we worry about the ability of the old wiring to be safe at that voltage. The Chinese made 32 volt incandescent 25 watt bulbs (Damar) were only lasting a month or two. We were also able to reduce fuse rating from 15 amps back to 8 for additional safety.
We purchased the Marine Beam 60 watt equal LED for the large fixtures with milk glass globes.

https://store.marinebeam.com/32v-edison ... c-systems/

They have been on whenever the barns are open to the public, about 9 hours a day Memorial day to Labor day. Still working fine for 4 years now.
The only caution I have is from over voltage from the reduced load on a locomotive generator. I would keep at least a few incandescents on the circuit. Or possibly a load resistor to draw a couple amps as the electronic ballasts in thees seem to be sensitive to voltage spikes.

Buzz Morisette at The IRM.

Brought this thread back with an update on 32 volt bulbs.
I found two "Edison Filament" LED bulbs on Amazon last winter and tried them out this summer. They work great. Do not know how long before they change or go out of stock as Chinese things seem to do on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Voltage-Incandes ... 8VL/ref=sr

https://www.amazon.com/SHUWDKAR-Voltage ... 7N4/ref=sr

As mentioned in my last post the Damar Chinese incandescent 34V bulbs are expensive to keep replacing for display use. The photo shows a comparison with a 50W Damar bulb.
Both LEDs work on a wide range of voltages. I tested them in the shop from 9 volts to 36 volts DC. And 12 to 24 AC. A tiny internal ballast in the base keeps the wattage and brightness the same over that range.
We did need to put a vented 10 Watt dummy load resistor above the power panel. That keeps the almost unloaded shore power transformer voltage below 34 volts. Again that's RMS average, if you looked on an oscilloscope the peak rectified DC voltage can run to 48 volts. So I think they would be happy on a locomotive generator. We ran them on a couple trips in the dynamometer and they also held up under some vibration.
I have sprayed frost paint on some. Once frosted brightness is closer to a 25 W and 50 W incandescent bulbs.

https://www.krylon.com/products/frosted-glass-finish/

If careful, applying the frost paint they look almost identical to the incandescent bulbs. At such a low operating temperature it should last but I'm going to check on that later.

Anyone who complains about LED bulbs not being 'correct' has their head shoved so far up their rear they can't see light regardless of the source. Regardless of type, they do the same damn thing. Get over it.

LED bulbs are way more rugged in design, so much more practical, and built to withstand damp locations. Having worked on steam equipment before, the incandescent bulbs, regardless of brand or design, have proven to be almost useless. Slight bump? Break. Contact with water? Explode. They've broken on me just from sweat droplets hitting them.

If you're going to have the audacity to complain about a type of lightbulb on a piece of operating history that took tireless hours to restore, you really should just stay home.

https://wattalight.com/collections/led-lights-32v-dc

This is what we currently use in RGS 20s cab. Don't use the 1 watt bulbs. They pop instantly.