rhikdavis

Originally Posted by Ender

It's unfortunate that some electronics sites haven't caught on to SMD LEDs as a item hobbyists like us would enjoy. But there are sources.

eBay is a great place to find just about anything electronics related, especially in quantities that are manageable for modelers. You just have to know the terms to search for. If you look for SMD LEDs, you'll see there are lots of different sizes and colors. You can see the sizes from this handy chart from Greg's article on Model Railroad Hobbyist:



For those 0402 and 0602 LEDs, they can be difficult to solder to, but there are sources that have prewired ones, both on ebay and some MRR vendors, like TCS.

Other vendors that carry SMD LEDs:

TCSdcc.com
digikey.com
mouser.com
ngineering.com


Fifer carries some products from TCS, ngineering, as well as lights that are already built like Atlas and WS's plug in lights:

http://www.fiferhobby.com/electrical...-and-lighting/


You can even find some of these things on Amazon, if you look in the right place: https://www.amazon.com/b2b/info/amaz...layout=landing



For making the lamps, you can get tiny tin shades from ngineering.com or perhaps others, and glue the LED in there. That's what this one is:




It was helpful for these gooseneck lamps to use magnet wire (35 AWG?) so they would hold the shape.

I've found the best way of putting a little bulb around the chip is a little blob of epoxy. Also great for getting a shade to stay aligned right. This was a globe light on that tobacco shop: