Conversion of LED solar fence lights to DC:

 One requirement for the garden railway was to have some form of permanent ambient background lighting when operating the railway at dusk or during the hours of darkness.

They are many types and variations of Solar Powered LED fence/wall lights, after much deliberation and research settled on the following type, Paulmann Elliot LED solar wall/fence light with a IP44 Rating.

They can be found under various guises at the discount bargain stores, for a couple of quid each, they are available from either that rip off on line auction site, or a major on line retailer, both who's sole intention is to fleece the long suffering consumer to part with excessive quantities of money!  

Not so much for the Solar Powered items, but more about ease of disassembly, converting from Solar Power to a controllable DC source, but above all a good degree of waterproofing, the weather up here in the North East can be a killer for delicate electronic equipment.   

The lights in question look like this,

Disassembly is straightforward, undo the four screws at the rear, the light unit broken down into the various sections. 

Converting LED light panel for connection a permanent DC source, the rest of the gubbins, Solar Panel, switch, PCB, battery holder, deposited in the nearest bin, Battery disposed of responsibly at the nearest Recycling Center.

Adjust the value of the resistor to suit the supply voltage, in this instance the permanent supply voltage is regulated to 22V.

Why 22V?, matches exactly the DC rectified voltage from the Massoth DCC system, which makes for ease of connection to various additional devices at a future date.

Part reassembled light, reflector and modified LED panel, minus the Solar Power gubbins.

Reassembled light with a two way choc block connector for final connection to either the 22V cabling running around the garden railway, or to the spare ports of the DCC Point Decoders.

At the present the lights are connected to the separate 22V cabling, regulated from a 24V transformer and switched On and Off with the aid of a socket connected remotley to the in house 'Alexa' and are voice activated with a simple On or Off request, and 'Alexa' duly complies.