lighting houses...old school

[Flatrat]

My layout is coming together now, track's laid and running smoothly, topography and grass, etc. is mostly done.
Future plans are for a little 'burg' with about a half dozen homes in the center of my very rural layout. I'm running track power to both loops with two MRC transformers. Both have AC accessory outputs. Can I run mini light bulbs or LEDs into each of the structures off of those outputs? I probably will end up with only about 6-8 residential structures on the layout that would be lit in the evenings, maybe a streetlamp or two. Nothing complex but i think it would look cool to light them up. What should i use for light bulbs in the houses, do i need to wire resistors,etc. in line? Run them in series, parallel, etc.? Clueless on this part. Keeping it simple of course.

Appreciate thoughts on this part of the project.

Thanks,
S

[mmagliaro]

Heh  heh  heh.  You will probably get pages of replies on this.  I would go totally simple and old-school
on a project of this size

 Yes, for a small number of building lights like that, you can definitely get away with just powering them
   off the accessory terminals of one of your power packs.  BUT, if you're going that route, I would not do that.
   Buy yourself a cheap old powerpack at a trainshow or eBay, and run your lights off the DC (throttle) terminals,
   so that you can set the brightness just how you like it with the speed control.  It simplifies this whole project.
 Heck, you can get a nice MRC 1300 for $20-$25 on eBay, and not much more than that brand new.

 DEFINITELY wire them in parallel so that if one goes out, it doesn't take out the whole string, like a 1968 set of
Christmas tree lights

 To be honest, although LEDs are cooler-running, don't
require replacement, and draw a lot less current, for a small amount of lighting like this, I would stick to
little 12-volt grain-of-wheat lamps from Miniatronics or any of a host of other sources.   Why?  Because still, I have yet to
see any golden/warm/etc LED that comes anywhere near the beautiful realistic glow of an incandescent light bulb.
You are lighting a small number of buildings, so maintenance won't be a nightmare, and if you don't have to give up
beauty, why do it?     Just don't mount the lamps inside the buildings so that they will be agony to replace when
they burn out.   I can count the number of times I actually had to replace a building light on a layout on one hand.  They
last a long time unless you are running them an awful lot.

 If you use the DC terminals on a separate pack like I suggest, you don't need any resistors.  You can set the speed control
to get a nice soft brightness.   Most 12v lamps look a LOT better as building lighting when they are run at 6v or thereabouts.
But you don't have to care about any of that.  Just hook a few up, and set the speed until you like them.

Get yourself some sort of handy terminal block so you can run all the bulbs to it, and then run 2 wires from that block to
your lighting power pack, just to keep this whole thing neater.

[nkalanaga]

One solution for removable lights is drinking straws.  If the structure has to be permanently mounted, run a straw up through the floor from under the layout.  The light then goes through the straw, and can be held in place with a wad of paper tool or napkin in the bottom.  Make sure the light is fully out of the straw so it won't melt, and the light can easily be pulled out from the bottom if needed.  A good rule is to leave the top of the straw flush with the floor, and push the light up almost to the ceiling, where a real light would probably be. 

If your buildings have plastic roofs you might also glue a piece of aluminum foil to the inside.  That will block light from shining through and help keep the roof from overheating.

[Flatrat]

Oh yeah, you guys read me. VERY simple. Old school layout with track power transformers. Not lighting up a major city. Maybe a half dozen structures. Maybe a streetlamp or two. Very Rural township, 1950's. Grain Mill, Church, General Store, Coke Machine...it got dark...people went to bed or drove to the next bigger town.

Thanks again,
S

[SkipGear]

I'm a fan of LED's, especially for N scale because of heat and ampdraw. LED's produce a lot less heat in the cramped spaces of an N scale building and you can get LED's small enough to place them where an actual light would be, not just as a glow inside the building.

This is HO but everything inthe picture is LED except for the movie marque which is electroluminecent.



The colors are even more natural in person.

The one problem with lighting is that you realize quickly that the buildings are quite empty inside and you start working on interiors and more detail...



I keep Tamiya Clear Yellow and Clear Amber on hand to tint the LED's to fine tune the color to what I need it to be. The interior lighting in both of these shots comes from cheap stings of LED Christmas lights. The detail lighting are 0603 SMD White LED's with some tinting to soften the blueish tint usually seen in LED's. Keep a bunch of resistors from 500 to 1000 ohm around so that you can adjust the brightness of the LED's to suite the situation. Brighter is certainly not always better.

Max's idea of a cheap transformer for lighting alone is exactly what I do. Actually on the HO layout above, he has 4 older transformers that we are using for lighting so we have 4 variable outputs and 4 fixxed outputs that can be turned on and off in various stages for different parts of the layout.

[Flatrat]

Awesome Tony!

Good tip on tinting the LEDs.

I'm modelling a country crossroad town though. Nothing but a country store and church for social center. Sun went down, people gathered around their parlors and went to bed. Nowhere's ville. Warm lights in the downstairs of their houses.

S

[DKS]

You can get warm white pre-wired LEDs on eBay by the bushel for cheap. Get the 3mm size, and run them up through straws as suggested. To diffuse the light, simply paint the LEDs with white paint.

They can be powered with most any decent 12 VDC source. Get an electrolytic capacitor (>1000 mfd) to clean up the power supply and keep the LEDs happier. You can run dozens of them from one supply.

Here's a sample LED source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-PCS-3mm-Warm-White-LEDs-Pre-Wired-Light-12V-Lamp-Bulb-20cm-/300678435862?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4601d4d416

[Lemosteam]

All, target now carries a color of white led lights now that are called "pure white".  These are so close to incandescent it's remarkable. They still carry warm and cool white, but the pure white are selling really well...

In fact I gave been holding out on replacing my Christmas light for these!

[wm3798]

Ah, one of my favorite topics.

Once you get the hang of them, LED's are without a doubt the best thing since sliced bread AND chunky peanut butter!  Since they almost never need replacing, I install them fairly permanently in my structures.  This lets you be a lot more creative with how they get deployed.  I usually install a couple of pieces of rail up under the roof, then solder the LEDs and resistors right to them.



Then, to add to the fun, I use a couple of different colors to take some of the monotony out of the view:


The bright white, which has a cool blue cast, represents old mercury vapor or fluorescent lighting inside the warehouse, the yellow ones represent sodium lights, and the warm white would be the incandescents.
And yes, good interior lighting begets good interiors, even if just for your own entertainment.  (Although the digital camera sees everything!)



And remember that if you have limited viewing angles, you can simply install LEDs out the back of your foreground buildings to wash the background with light, much cheaper than installing expensive street light fixtures that you won't see.  You can also hide them up under bridges to light up streets below, pulling power directly off the track if you're running DCC

I absolutely love doing night scenes.  Before I started in with the LED work, I went totally old school, and cut up old Christmas light strings... wiring 5 to 7 lights in parallel off a 12v circuit to get the right brightness.


You get the glow of lights inside, but not the sharp natural looking room lighting you get with LEDs.
For power sources, I like to use 9v AC wall warts.  String a power strip under the layout to plug them in, and you can use the breaker switch on the plug strip to control the on/off.

Lee

[peteski]

... Before I started in with the LED work, I went totally old school, and cut up old Christmas light strings... wiring 5 to 7 lights in parallel off a 12v circuit to get the right brightness.

Lee, didn't you mean "in series" not "parallel"?  That makes a big difference!  Christmas lights are usually 2.5-3V bulbs (well, depending on the number of bulbs in the string).

[wm3798]

I snip a series of 5-7 bulbs, then wire each series in parallel.  Kapiche?
Lee

[Flatrat]

Thanks folks.
Lee, I happen to have several old 9 and 12v wall transformers saved for just these types of projects. I know someone who isn't decorating a tree any more and has bags of white Christmas tree lights. I'm thinking your plan is "free" and  'meant to be'.

Thanks for the series parrallel suggestion for brightness.

S

[peteski]

I snip a series of 5-7 bulbs, then wire each series in parallel.  Kapiche?
Lee

So you have a series of series-connected bulbs hooked in parallel with the power supply. Why didn't you say that in the first place.  Do we look like we can read minds? 

[Flatrat]

Has anybody done anything with fiber optic type stuff?

[eja]

  Get an electrolytic capacitor (>1000 mfd) to clean up the power supply and keep the LEDs happier.
 

I know why I should do this and somewhat understand why it works ... BUT I for get how to wire it .   

Can you post a drawing, please ??


Thanks  ....  eja