Philips HUE illumination system with Rocrail (1/2)

Some time ago I published the following article explaining how to make an illumination system for the layout, compatible with the weather functionality of Rocrail:

http://www.clubncaldes.com/2016/01/layout-illumination-and-weather.html

But for those who don't want to use Arduino and make their own electronics, I'll show you how to use the Philips HUE system, much easier and professional, but a little bit more expensive. Anyway I'll show you also cheaper lamps to use than the original ones from Philips.

The first thing you will need is a Philips HUE bridge, this is what you will connect to your network (and to Rocrail) and manages all the lights you want to install:

HUE Bridge

You will need also some compatible RGB colour lights. There are kits including the bridge and some light bulbs, or a remote switch. Depending on the layout size, disposition, environment light or on the number of lights you want to install there are different options. Basically you have the following options:

GU10

GU10 lights: these are spot lights, so I do not recommend them or you will need to install a lot of them to cover all the layout with a light in an uniform way.

E27

E27 lights: these bulbs make a more diffuse light, but they should be installed not close to the layout. This is a very good option, but on a long layout you will need many of them and they are not cheap.

Led Strip

Led Strips: this is a cheaper option as you can illuminate a long section in an uniform way. In my case, my layout is composed of modules, so it's narrow but long. I would need many bulbs to illuminate it in a homogeneous way, on the other hand the led strips must be placed quite close to the layout. But I have a shelf at 50cm from the top of the modules all along the layout, so I just had to stick three 5 meters long led strips under the shelf instead of installing a dozen of light bulbs.

ZIGBEE compatible led strip

Any other ZIGBEE compatible lights: Philips HUE lights are awesome by the intensity of the light and the colours, but they are also expensive. So you can use any ZIGBEE compatible light. Just make sure it is specified they are compatible with Philips HUE (check the icon under the image) and support the ZIGBEE protocol. I bought these led strips for my layout in Aliexpress, search for the following description: "Zigbee-minicontrolador RGBCW, 1-5M DC12V 5050 RGB + CCT 90leds/m, Kit de luces de tira LED para ZIGBEE 3,0 HUB hu-e Echo Plus APP"

So you will have to test and find the best (and cheapest) combination of lights for your layout, in my case I used 3 led strips (5 meters long each one) and one E27 light for a corner that missed more light.

Before starting the Rocrail configuration and the weather functionality setup, make sure your light are working with the mobile Philips HUE application in your smartphone. Follow the Philips instructions to pair the lights with the HUE bridge, it's really simple as you only have to press the button on the led strip and the bridge, or introduce the serial number of the bulb in the application.

Another important thing is to assign a fixed IP address to the bridge. This can be done using the smartphone HUE application as explained here: https://huetips.com/help/how-to-find-my-bridge-ip-address/

Once you have the lights working you have to setup Rocrail, but this will be explained in the following post.

Kato 3060-3 EF65-500 DCC Install

This model is prety much the same than the previous DCC Install published for the Kato 3061-4 EF65-2000, so you can check the previous post here for more detailed information. It is basically the same locomotive with the same hull and space where to install the decoder, and almost the same light board. I just found one small difference in the capacitor compenent.

You can see in the following photo that light board capacitor is so small that is almost imperceptible. This is the only difference I found with the light board of EF65-2000 model:

Strategy used will be the same, so the previous schema to prepare the light board for a wired decoder is still valid:

Red arrows inticate where to cut the cooper tracks:

• I personally prefer to remove capacitors and coils from the board as I had extrange behaviours in the past in some models where I kept them. So first of all I removed the capacitor at point 8. Don't confuse the resistor in the middle (we need it where it is!!) with the capacitor in one of the sides of the board. Capacitor is extremelly small in this board!
• Four cuts are needed to isolate the contact with the motor. I will solder orange and gray wires to points (1) and (2)
• Red and black wires (track current) will be soldered in points (3) and (4)
• This time I didn't solder the white wire to point (5) and I soldered it directly to the negative lead of the led light. The positive side of the right led is already connected to the resistor.
• For the left led (as it is in the photo) you have to bridge the positive side of the led to the resistor track by soldering a small wire between points (7) and (8). You will need to scratch a litle bit the cooper track of the point (8) as the pad is small as the capacitor. The yellow wire will be soldered directly to the negative side of the led (6).

Here you can see the decoder already soldered and how to fit it in the hull. The same milling is required like for the EF65-2000 that you can check with more detail in the previous post:

 I hope that you found this useful!

Kato 3061-4 EF65 2000 DCC Install

This locomotive has been in a shelf for a long time because I felt it quite difficult to install in a first inspection. It seems not to have enough space for a decoder, and the light board is not one of those I am used to install. But finally I found a workaround that worked prety well for me. You will see it takes some time to install, but it's not difficult.

First tricky part is to find a place for decoder. The best place I found is under the roof. You can un-clip the roof from the body and also un-clip from this roof the two pieces in the middle. Under the biggest piece there is place enough for a small decoder (ZIMO MX616R Nano in my case) with the help of some drilling:

You can see here how the decoder now fits and shell can be closed:

Now that I found the place, let's go for the tricky part which is always the light board. My basic strategy is always:

• Remove capacitors
• Isolate the motor contacts
• Reroute the positive lead of the lights to the existing resistor, which is feeded from the track current
• Isolate the negative lead of the lights to connect here the white and yellow wires from the decoder

One easy tip to find the positive and negative side of leds is to use a multimeter. Select the continuity checking position (that one that beeps when there is continuity). When you put the red tip in the positive side and the black tip in the negative side the led will glow, and there is no danger to blow the led.

I made the following diagram:

Red arrows inticate where to cut the cooper tracks:

• I personally prefer to remove capacitors and coils from the board as I had extrange behaviours in the past in some models where I kept them. So first of all I removed the capacitor at point 8. Don't confuse the resistor in the middle (we need it where it is!!) with the capacitor in one of the sides of the board.
• Four cuts are needed to isolate the contact with the motor. I will solder orange and gray wires to points (1) and (2)
• Red and black wires (track current) will be soldered in points (3) and (4)
• Point (5) is connected to the negative side of the right led and here I will solder the white wire. You can directly solder it to the negative side of the led if you prefer. The positive side of the right led is already connected to the resistor.
• For the left led (as it is in the photo) you have to bridge the positive side of the led to the resistor track by soldering a small wire between points (7) and (8). The yellow wire will be soldered directly to the negative side of the led (6).

Here you can see the board ready to solder the decoder:

And finally, mount the body taking care to retoure the wires properly, then the roof y finally the top parts of the roof:

That's all, I hope that you found this useful!