I have an unfinished basement, dry, with heating and cooling and humidity control. I have never really had an urge to finish it since my children are grown.
I have eleven 48" double tube fluorescent fixtures strategically located over a layout area of approximately 45’ x 22’. I would like to replace the fluorescent fixtures with some other form of lighting and I am open to any and all ideas.
Should I use can lights or down lights or track lighting?
Should I use incandescent bulbs, LED bulbs, or some other form?
You might install dimmers to vary “the time of day.” Also, look to how the new placement of overhead lighting “over the trackplan” might cast unwanted shadows against backdrops, buildings, etc.
Other methods will need some details, maybe including the footprint of the layout. As you might suspect, I favor LED light strips, which minimizes most of the need for complex planning. You just keep putting them up over the layout until they’re bright enough for you. If you have three feet of overhead clearance, good. Shorter is not a problem. Taller ceilings might force a suspended framework into the picture, but only as some 1x2 lumber framing painted black.
A big LED advantage has already been mentioned – the lack of heat. Another is peculiar to the LED light strip format. The rays are a lot like the sun’s in that they are parallel rather than being from a point source.
“Color temperature” depends on your taste to a certain degree. I’ve tended to stick with something around 5,000. The Chroma 50 spec tubes in my now-rarely used flourescent fixtures were recommended by fellow narrowgauger and architect Boone Morrison and LEDs close to that work well visually without being too blue or too yellow.
I’d go with suspending the framework to tie LED strip lights to about 3’ above the layout. At 36" high, that’s only 6’. You always want the lighting to be above your viewing height. Go to 42", then you’ll be above most eyes at 78" – and about the minimum practical height. You can go higher, but may need additional rows to compensate.
The stuff I use comes as a cord with a clear cover over the LEDs I get mine at Menards. There is lots more discussion and pics starting about halfway down this page in my Night Scene thread: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/213765.aspx?page=3
I like them because the power supply is integrated into the cord and the LED strip itself is well protected and easy hang.
Most LED strips come as “open face” arrays, so are somewhat fragile. The power supply is largish like a wall wart. No real drawbacks and lots more options than the stuff I use.
If you are inclined to do a little tech work, you can go online to the web sites of major lighting manufacturers (one example is Prescolite) and actually do a preliminary fixture layout for various fixture and lamp types.
You should have a goal for the level of footcandles you want on the layout top: 100 footcandles would be good for when you are doing detail model/layout work; put the fixtures on a dimmer and you can lower that level for general operation.
The layout of the fixtures depends on your model, what you want illuminated thereon and of course, the light level and type of fixture and lamp noted above.
After you do some basic evaluations, you might also be able to get more accurate computerized studies from manufacturers’ or distributors’ reps without charge. That’s what I did.
My plan is to use LED strips, they’ve now reached a decent price point. I happen to prefer warm white, the cool white has too much of a bluish tint to them to my eye - I did use them (cool white) to light my new electronics bench because they are brighter. I plan on using more than one strip in most areas to achieve enough lighting (all to be tested before installing anything), and I want to also include a strip of RGB LEDs so I can do sunrise/sunset/night effects by dimming the white ones and bringing up reddish-orange colors which then fade out and go to blue. The RGB reel I got to experiment with, the controller that comes with it can;t do all this at once, so I will likely have to make my own that will allow me to have the blue slowly brighten while the reddish color dims.
Rich, you’ve got almost 1,000 square feet of layout room, but are using only 11 fluorescent fixtures? And the room is unfinished?
My first suggestion would be to finish the room - not inexpensive, but it will be a much nicer environment in which to work, and light-coloured walls and ceiling will go a long way to make your layout easier to see.
Regardless of the type of lights you choose, you need more of them for a room that size. My layout room is about 560 sq.ft. in an odd shape. I use fluorescent fixtures above a drop ceiling: 27 4’ double tube ones and two 8’ double tube ones. Part of the layout is double decked, so 11 of those 27 4’ fixtures are attached to the underside of the second level.
The tubes are cool white, mainly because they produce more lumens than some of the “nicer” colours. Your eyes quickly adapt to the colour and even cheap point-and-shoot cameras can compensate for this type of light.
LEDs sound good to me, and I’ll probably use a few bulb-type ones as fill lights, especially in some of the corners.
I recently did some reno work for my daughter, and installed a bunch of LED pot lights in their kitchen and dinette area - because of their design, the light from them projects, at counter height, a pool of light about 6’ in diameter, so the fixtures were placed at roughly 6’ intervals, yielding even lighting with no shadows. They’re also dimmable.
Unfortunately, the cost to redo my layout room with them is well beyond my limited means.
I did find that my initial installation of fluorescents over the around-the-walls layout caused shadows on the areas closest to the aisles, so when the second level was added, the new lights for the lower areas were place immediately behind the fascia of the upper level, so that the foreground of the lower level would be well lit. I also re-arranged the layout of the drop ceiling grid so that the fixtures above it could
Well, I may have inadvertently overstated the dimensions of the layout.
The basement itself is neither square nor perfectly rectangular. But, essentially, the basement measures 60’ x 30’. My layout sits in one “corner” of the basement and occupies an L-shaped footprint of 42’ x 6’ on one leg and 12’ x 20’ on the other leg, including an aisle. So, the area of the layout is more like 500 square feet.
Yes, the basement is totally unfinished. It has a poured concrete foundation, a concrete floor, and the “ceiling” is open in that it is a series of 2 x 12 floor joists that support the 2-story house. As an unfinished basement, the original lighting was a series of incandescent bulb fixtures throughout the basement. That provided for a dimly lit environment. So, when I built my current layout, I added the fluorescent fixtures at strategic intervals, resulting in 11 fixtures.
As far as finishing the room is concerned, I would have to demolish the current layout to do that. I will admit that, for years, I have thought about building my Dream Layout, so demolition may eventually take place. But, finishing the basement would be an expensive proposition.
To finish the basement just for the purpose of providing a nicer environment for the layout doesn’t seem practical to me. Also, the layout is not really in its own “room” since I have merely set aside a “corner” of the basement for this purpose. If I were to
While bright, even lighting is desireable, the shadows created by gaps in lighting can have the same effect as a partly cloudy sky when the shadows of clouds move over the landscape. No big deal, IMO.
I’d look into using WS2812 RGB LED strips, driven by an Arduino microprocessor module. They require absolutely minimal wiring, can be set to ANY color, and are individually controllable. The LED strips only require 5V power, ground and ONE CONTROL/DATA line for all the LEDs. I have a project that I did with 294 LEDs (6 sided cube with each side a 7x7 matrix) that only has 3 wires connected to the Arduino.
Obviiously, my LED cube project has nothing to do with model railroading, but it’s just an example how LEDs can be easily connected.
Do a Google search on Arduino WS2812 to see how easy it is to control…the Arduino modules are cheap enough that you could have multiple separate segments if you wish, or control it all with one module.
Doing it yourself allows you to completely control all aspects of lighting, including the lights ON the layout, not just overhead lighting. A controller that comes packaged with the LED strips (if you buy it that way) is not even close to the flexibility that can be accomplished with an Arduino.
My room is 22 X 19 drywalled and painted white and skyblue. I have 9 equally spaced can lights and the light is fine for now but does cast some shadows.
I would recommend painting the joists or a drop cieling. With a white cieling you may only need half as many lights.
Steve
and just for laughs…
How many forum members does it takes to change a light bulb?
1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
1 to move it to the Lighting section
2 to argue then move it to the Electricals section
7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
5 to flame the spell checkers
3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
6 to argue over whether it’s “lightbulb” or “light bulb” … another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is “lamp”
15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that “light bulb” is perfectly correct
19 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum
11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum
36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
7 to post URL’s where one can see examples of different light bulbs
4 to post that the URL’s were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL’s
3 to post about links they found from the URL’s that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
13 to link al
Well, I appreciate all of the replies, but now I have grown increasingly confused.
The current fluorescent fixtures do a good job of providing lighting, but it is becoming frustrating when I have to replace dead fixtures since they cannot be repaired.
I replaced My shop lights in My garage, because I got tired of replacing bulbs and not turning on in cold weather and then when on, not giving off enough light. I had six double shop lights and replaced them with LED shop lights…four of them and have more light than I ever had now. There are all kinds of LED shop lights that will work for what You want…look around…Home Depot, Menards etc.
