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Florescent lights in train room
Fluorescent lights have ruined a lot of my photos hung on the wall. I had fluorescent lights in my living room ceiling and lamps to save money. The TV remote starting acting weird so I sent it and the TV back to Sears (it was still in warranty.) When I got the TV back I found a copy of a service bulletin that said fluorescents give off too much infrared light and was interfering with the sensors in the TV. I know that some of the track blocks use infrared detectors. Anyone had trouble with them?
I have flourescent lighting in my layout area and it does fine. However, I have considered changing to ceiling mounted incandenscent lights to I can use a dimmer switch to change the intensity of the lighting, dropping it to run the trains in a night time environment, better showing off street lighting, lighted accessories, etc.
A quarter a century ago, when I was part of the main office of a large supermarket chain, I remember the crew that made staff training films always carried special florescent tubes to replace those over the meat unit as although the meat appetising to the human eye under the standard tubes it looked brown when filmed. My reason for pointing this out is that all florescents do not have the same color output. You need to decide which type of florescent you want lighting the layout and only purchase those as replacements. You also need to instal them before starting scenery so you can see the final color combinations. Do not use incandescent work lights as the color you see with them will not be the color under your final florescent lighting.
I just installed incandescent light in my train room. Three rows of lights with four lights in each row, each row of four is on an individual dimmer, to create different lighting effects. The lights are four feet apart. With tube fluorescent, dimmer switches cannot be used. Some of the newer bulb type fluorescent I understand can be used with a dimmer. Also, fluorescent lights must be disposed of properly.
Another option would be track lighting using halogen bulbs. It’s a little more expensive but dimmers can be used and the color saturation is beautiful.