I’m currently wiring my basement and i’m trying to determine what’s the best way to go for overhead lighting, track,flourescent,other. i’d like to hear some feedback on what type of lighting you use and results you get from it. quality,amount of light,etc.
thanks alot,
I use flourescents for general lighting. When scenery is installed I will use track/individual spots on dimmers for lighting effects. My [2c]
All I have are hot GA10 mini-halogens on an 8’ track X 2. Five per track. Did I say they heated up the area?
But, boy do they light up the scenery. [tup] Really good for photography, too.
I think if you were to get the right kind of flourescents and then add one or two plug-in halogens for photography you will be quite happy.
I had designed my benchwork before I put in new overhead lighting, so right now I have tube flourescents over the aisleways - five fixtures in a sloppy E formation.
When my construction reaches that point, I will put in shadowbox lighting similar to that used by Joe Fugate. The ceiling lights will then be relegated to convenience and construction use, and left off during operations.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The best I can hope for is small lighting where they are most needed. The house already eats alot of electricity on that small box.
I have seen track lighting used to great success. I will probably go along. Particularly if the spouse is wanting that system to improve our living area with that style of lighting.
I use daylight fluorescents as my room lighting. I plan to use incandescents for layout lighting (when I get to the point of being able to install it).
The layout here probably has the worst lighting around. The room is 13 feet square with no windows. The only light is a single fixture in the centre of the ceiling. I’m looking around for a replacement flourescent type to better light the room.
When I studded off my train room and wired it , I put outlets in the ceiling , I use 8 plugin flourescents with good bulbs over the 12x16 room. Plenty of light.
I am a big fan of dimmers. Even when running “night trains,” I find that it’s easier if I have a little bit of overhead light so I can see the control panels and the hand-held. Or, I can really crank it up for close work and photography.
I only use daylight flourescent tubes and bulbs. I have the 4 foot long ones and the wrap around bulb type ones that sell for $7.50 for two at Wal-Mart. They give off the most realistic lighting. When I walk into my basement and the lights are on its like walking outside. it cost alot more to buy these than any other bulbs but it is well worth it. $9.30+ for the two 4’ flourescent tubes as compared to $3.46 for two regular ones.
Incandescents and hallogens use a lot of electricity, most of which is turned into heat, not light. On the other hand flourescents cannot be dimmed.
If you fill the room with incandescents it is going to get hot in there. I hope the space is air conditioned.
My situation is unusual. My layout room used to be a photogaphy studio camera room. It is equipped with daylight flourescent continuous lights in soft boxes on an overhead track system with pantagraphs. They can be moved anywhere in the room at any height above the floor. Each soft box has either 2 or 3 brightness levels while still maintaining consistant color.
I installed Track lighting on a dimmer
Mr.SP,I used track lighting run off my single fixture in a room of about the same size as yours.I got a fitting at the hardware store that accomodates a product called wire mold and wired in a switch and then set up the track lighting. Works good!! Kinda like C&O Fan’s.
My pike lighting has been a REAL trial & error scenario
The Trainroom in all, is about 17’ x 24’. The layout takes up a little over 16’ x 16’ with entrance doors and a “Backshop” taking up the rest.
Wanting to be as cost / energy effective as I can, I have gone with simple florescent lighting. The lighting for the shop area and isles have four twin tube florescent fixtures, one in each isle and two in the shop, which are plenty sufficient.
I am working from the top down, so my lighting was the first to go up. The original idea of spotlighting scenes with track-lighting was given up when my track plan changed (more than a few times) and I now have only florescent for the most part…
I have 4 ft. single tube fixtures mounted forward (above the front edge of the layout shelf) behind a valance. These fixtures pretty much butt against one another all around the room and the length of both side of the peninsula, making for fifteen fixtures in all.
In addition I also have what I call my “mood lighting”; two strings of Christmas lights (one blue, one white) that are on dimmers to simulate morning, dusk, and night. Over all I like how it has turned out.
As for photography, the florescent isn’t the best, but they do take less energy and generate a lot less heat, a trade off that I personally can live with.
I use fluorescent lights. My layout room is about 560 sq. ft., but a very odd shape. I have 16 4’ double tube fixtures over the layout in a drop ceiling. About a third of the layout is designed to be double-decked, and an additional 8 to 10 similar fixtures will be attached to the underside of the second level to allow full lighting for the then-lower level. I use cool white tubes because they offer the most lumens of any fluorescents, even though the colour is not the nicest.
Most digital cameras have an optional setting for use with fluorescent lighting, and do a good job of correcting the colour balance. The photos below were taken under room lighting only.
Wayne
Good for photography? Don’t they tend to make hot spots and generate multiple shadows? Or did you get around those issues?
I shot the following picture on the layout of a friend and he also uses the mini-haologen lites but there are significant issues with the uniformity of lighting.
http://s145079212.onlinehome.us/rr/otherlayouts/barta/barta_02.htm
As for mixing lighting types, one must be very careful regarding color temperatures. Halogens are perhaps around 3000K or so. Using 5000K fluorescents in the ceiling would drive the white balance select in a digital camera nuts. Using 3500K (or so) fluorescents would create a bit ‘bluer’ light that might resemble illumination from the “sky bowl”.
Try to mock up and see what it will look like (and take pictures too if photography is of interest) before investing in a boatload of (potentially expensive) lighting fixtures.
I settled on a plethora of dual wrap T8 fluorescent fixtures for my train room (dungeon) with 4100K CRI85 bulbs. They’re not perfect but those bulbs were half the cost of the super daylight tubes and at 3000 lumens each there’s enough light in the train room to shoot candid shots of op sessions without a flash.
http://s145079212.onlinehome.us/rr/operations/bcsj3_ops/ops_071110/index.html
Regards,
Charlie Comstock
Charlie, I know your work, so I won’t be going toe-to-toe with you. [:D]
But…I feel that the track lighting allows the placement of the various fixtures in an infinite series of linear positions, so the light spotting and multiple shadows can be reduced almost to insignificance. As for the bright spots, nature does that too. The sun pokes through holes in the clouds and will render parts of the landscape seemingly in shadow while others are brightly lit…'cuz that’s exactly what is happening.
Here are a couple of images that should help you to judge for yourself if multiple shadows and light spots of significant intensity are problematic. The first was purposefully done in such a way that the foreground is highlighted by the closest GA10, while all the others in the layout room are aimed as they usually are, somewhat convergent and parallel, but certainly overlapping.
Here is a different shot with the five lights spaced as I normally have them and all in their normal aimed positions…the two outer aimed outward to cover the corners. No other lighting is present, and the image is merely cropped. It isn’t the best sort to judge by, but I think the visible shadows are sufficiently clean-limbed to pass for realistic.
So that you can get a sense of what is where, here is a shot taken one night from outside the basement, through the window. You can see the one track high in the image, while the second is to the right, perhaps by 4’, obscured by the window frame. Clearly, there are some duplicated shadows, but I can control that to a significant extent with convergence and with juxtapositioning of two or more light fixtures…they’re easy to relocate…takes seconds.
[img]http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/500/IMG_0166re
Funny you should ask… Next week, I’ll be gutting the to-be-train-room to begin the conversion to full-fledged train room. Step One: Lighting. I’ve got a “standard” bedroom – roughly 10x10 plus a closet recess. The room currently has no permanent fixtures (just one switch that controls an outlet.)
I plan to install three lengths of track lights in a U formation to cover the three walls that don’t have the door and closet, and a fourth track inside the closet. These will run on two separate switches. Initially, I’ll use CFL’s. Eventually, those will be replaced by incandescents, and the two switches replaced with dimmers. Long term, I’ll go with dimmable CFL’s (once the price comes down to less than an arm and a leg.) Maybe by then, I’ll just be able to go straight to LED’s. (Yes, they’re available, and they’re GREAT, but they’re also $$$$$$$.)
Peter
Nice views, Crandell, particularily the second one. Your post reminded me that I had neglected to mention that one of the main drawbacks of fluorescent lighting is that the light is very “flat”, with generally no distinct shadows. This “flat” light also tends to hide a lot of detail, although a digital camera seems to be able to pick it up anyway. The drawback to that is that you sometimes get pictures like this: (you’ll need to click on the photo to see this best) [:I]
The cobweb on the loco wasn’t visible when I was taking the photo, and it was even difficult to see when I went back to clean it up after seeing the photo. Most of the pictures that I posted here earlier were looking south on the layout, meaning that the subjects would be backlit, so the lack of distinct shadows doesn’t really concern me. If I do want shadows for a picture, I hang a “trouble light” from the drop ceiling, situating it where the sun would logically be in relation to each particular scene.
Wayne
[(-D] Been there. I had a nice image of my Niagara all composed, tested, a few samples, and then I took what I hoped would be the final postable one. One good look in this properly focused image showed…NOOOOOOO!! Silk all over one corner of the pilot.
Thanks for you generous compliment, Wayne. I know I have a way to go, including making my entire layout more detailed and credible, but I have to take the steps necessary to educate my brain and eye. Your own images, Charlie’s and Joe’s, and Jon’s, and about 10 other regulars here keep showing me why I have to keep working at it.
BTW, that is still a killer photo.
-Crandell