LGB Firebox Light - A Klaus Creation Part 2

The light bulbs of the choice had to be the 5 Volt plug-in bulbs which Klaus colored manually. The reflector was initially a piece of aluminum foil. Peter Stock, a close friend of Klaus since childhood times, designed the electronics. Klaus then cut open the firebox door of the LGB Mogul to insert the firebox-light parts and everything was implemented in a pre-production 2019 Mogul body. 

cutout in the firebox door 

The initial pause between firebox activation was 45 seconds long. So everybody kept watching the locomotive closely until the firebox lit up again. Surprisingly the light even illuminated parts of the track between the loco and the tender just as in reality. Later in production the pause was reduced to about 8 seconds.                                                                                                               

Old LGB factory in Nuremberg

Klaus demonstrated this locomotive and firebox to Wolfgang Richter and Gunter Ruhland in Nuremberg. Everybody was surprised and exited about this idea. They wanted to implement this product into the Mogul and Klaus was asked to finalize the product for mass production; namely design a reflector which can be utilized in the final product.

Klaus made several molds out of Dental Silicone - see below - to produce multiple reflectors of the same shape which then can be manually altered. The reflectors themselves were made of Dental Plaster. That way Klaus was able to alter the reflector surface manually to find out which surface works the best.

Note the 2nd piece from above: Klaus grinding bit surface - aka his "signature"

A couple of weeks later Klaus found out that tiny dents in the reflector made by a ball shaped grinding bit delivered the best results. LGB then had an electrode made according to this reflector and used this electrode to manufacture the injection mold for the reflector. This happened by way of the electrode being used in electro-discharge machining. This is the reason why the mass-produced reflector even still today shows the manual work of Klaus and his grinding bit - just like his signature.

Klaus firebox light parts before mass production

It became a huge success. After furnishing the Mogul with the firebox-light LGB installed it in other steam engines as well. All leading model train manufacturers picked up the idea and manufactured their own versions. A number of little electronic firms started offering those firebox lights in all their variations. Today it is a standard feature for pretty much all steam engine model trains regardless of scale.

Here is a brief video of Klaus original firebox light in a very old LGB Mogul: