Yes, I’m afraid it was commercial, but that was 11 years ago. The entire system cost about $10,000 back then. Lutron may have something less expensive, non commercial, available these days. If you live in the metro area and would like to stop by sometime, just drop me an email.
Hi Josh,
Yes, I have the track-lighting follow the entire layout including to the peninsula’s. I set them up where they can be aimed at an angle projecting a broader and not so intense beam of light. To prevent shadows, I may have a lamp on another side aimed across the layout. Be sure and install where you can reach them for adjusting and to change out the bulb. As your layout grows, just add more lamp holders.
I got my setup at your competitor (Lowe’s), but they are about the same. The system is very easy to install and doesn’t cost that much. Many ways you can power them including the light fixture in the ceiling or a power cord that simply plugs in a wall receptacle.The bulbs do produce a good bit of heat, but I still prefer them over fluorescent when I operate.
REX[:)]
The saga continues…
I visited a lighting shop yesterday, and was met with confused stares when I asked about scene dimming. They recommended a big electrical supply company in town, and I’ve contact them via their web page to see what they know.
On the flip side, I’ve sent a message to the folks at smarthome.com to find out if the programming of crossfade and hold times is doable with off-the-shelf X10 equipment and software (there’s both Macintosh and Windows software for X10 control). I should hear from them in a couple of days.
And the really cool thing is that St. Paul, Minnesota, lets you apply for electrical permits on-line! No more taking off work just to get a piece of paper.
I will probably make a decision in the next week about what I’m going to do. The one reason why the X10 stuff looks more appealing at the moment is because I could have multiple banks handled by dimming receivers. (For your non-technical folks: Imagine that instead of overloading one simple dimmer switch with ten lights, I could have ten dimming switches, all controlled by a computer.) This would elimiante the overload considerations with the Futronix products.
Some questions to companies like Leprecon and Leviton/NSI about their lighting control capabilities have been unanswered so far or have directed me to theatrical lighting applications.
Watch this space…
I use simple shop lights and four-foot fluorescents mounted at a 45-degree angle behind a valance.
However, the tubes are full-spectrum types made by Sylvania or GE, available at most home-improvement and hardware stores. They will need UV filters – the tube variety – as I found out recently when I had to repaint my backdrop due to fading after two years under the lights.
The advantage that outweighs the cost of full-spectrum fluorescents is that the colors are balanced and vibrant.
Its a very interesting topic, one which I am playing with too. Currently I am using florescent and halogen for may daytime layout and am using low wattage blue reveal and florescent for an evening layout. I too am wondering for the “in-between” lighting for dusk and sunrise. I am just combining dimmer switches and playing with those too for different desired effects. It gets quite complex!
I’m narrowing things down. Here’s where I’m going so far:
X10 dimmer switch that handles 600W (there’s also a 1000W variety) and can dim low-voltage lighting, like halogen track lighting. I’m finding out if I have dimmer switches with the same receiver ID if it will work as planned (imagine a DCC situation where you have two engines with the same ID).
A bridge to go from my computer to the power lines.
The Indigo home automation software for my Mac, to control everything.
I’m also finding out if I can have push-button controls in the basement, so that pushing a button is detected by the computer, so it will start, say, a 2-hour cycle, or a 90 second demo.
I plan to hit Ikea tomorrow and look at their lighting options, since they are pretty inexpensive.
The key point is that fluorescent lights, while relatively cheap and bright, don’t dim well. If you want to have smooth changes from day to night, you need to have something like halogen.
When I get my prototype going, I’ll post more. Heck, maybe I’ll submit an article to MR!
jhugart,
Glad you found what you needed for the job.
Let us know when you have it set up,
The Best of luck
I’ve wanted to create sun up and sun down with lights coming on in buildings etc for ages. I posted a query about this a long time ago but obviously the stuff wasn’t out there then. Surfing around and looking at X10, smart home, etc as mentioned by all those above seems to offer a solution. If you get a result, jhugart, please, please let me know!
You’ll need an X10 computer interface, the harmony operating system for your PC and X10 dimmer switches. Program the system via the computer interface with your PC using the OS and the dimmer(s) will dim accordingly. It’s also a reasonably cheap option.
bsteel-
Yes, I downloaded Indigo, which is a Mac OS X-native X10 control system. I need to get the interface to the house power, and I’ve got one dimming controller and one keypad. The keypad will be to send signals to the computer saying “Start 3 Hr show” or “Do a demo” or “Jump to Night scene” and such.
My current plan is to use low-voltage halogen luminaires with 50W MR16 lamps. I’ll have three tracks: red, clear (white), and blue. The blue will be set ‘behind’ the centerline of the module, the clear directly above the front edge of the module, and the red more above the heads of the operators, but the lamps set to project from extreme angles on the sides.
The pipedream mode would be to have clear in three separately-controllable tracks for a mid-morning/noon/mid-afternoon lighting direction, and two separately-controllable tracks for dawn/dusk red directional lighting. This doubles the number of controlling dimmers, though.
After I get these installed (I just finished the basement prep, see my other topic on being a novice modeller), I’ll worry about building lighting. I know digital circuits, so I could make something using CMOS or TTL to handle the appropriate timings. I’d just need a way to get some randomness in terms of which lights come on at what times, but we’ll see!
There are non-computer ‘scene controllers’ from Leviton for X-10 protocol that allow you to doa lot of the computer stuff without an actual computer, although it is probably FAR easier to just use a computer. A cheap old one is sufficient.
Stay away from the actual X-10 products though. They work, and are cheap, but the dimmers are NOT suited for a real scene control. X-10’s dimmers, if int he off state and you want them to light up at, say 25% brightness, come on FULL and dim down to the commanded setting.
Leviton’s dimmers do NOT have this problem.
I’ve toyed with this idea for my layout as well, wiring in a series of Leviton dimmers to control outlets in which I plug various strings of C9 christmas tree lights, strings of white, blue, and red. I already have the X-10 computer interface and software, I control lights all over my house with it.
Yes, www.smarthome.com is the place to go. Their products are very nice, and they are good at identifying other products that can handle things. However, it took me a while to wrap my head around how X10 works and which products I would need. Their on-line question-and-answer process is very nice, though.
I think, once I get this going, I’ll draft an article for MR (maybe the NMRA, too) on using X10 to control layout lighting.
Yes, there are ways to do it using scene control, but you need dimmers that have fade rates you can set, and you don’t have the same degree of flexibility as you do with computer control.
Hi jhugart
I’m in the process of ripping out my layout and starting again. I have always wanted to have a full dawn to dusk with dimmers in fast time. I’m talking to the UK supplier of X10 at www.simplyautomate.co.uk who is very helpful. I’m looking at blue lights and red lights in the East and the same in the West. I’m using spotlights (not flourescent) in seperate groups above the layout. With programmed dimmers, the blue are on for night and all the spotlights are off. (I have lights in buildings.) The red dims up in the East and the blue dim off. The spots dim up in groups from east to west. After a ‘day’ the spots fade, the west red lights come up, the spots fad to off and the blue lights in east and west fade up.
Love to know how you get on. Interesting to note rrinker’s comments on Leviton dimmers though. I’ll keep you posted how I do. (But I shall be building benchwork first so it won’t be for a while.) Good luck.
OK, I’ve placed my orders with smarthome.com (for the X10 control stuff) and tracksource.com (USA Lights seems to be a reputable dealer for track lighting, has colored MR16 lamps, and is cheaper than Home Depot). I went to Home Depot earlier tonight and got all the other stuff I need for my basement electrical work.
Once I get this all in place, I’ll take some pictures and post them. Here’s hoping I get something done by Thanksgiving!
There’s nothing new under the sun. In the late 1940s, Model Railroader published a series called “From Pillar to Post” about an S gauge layout in California. One of the articles described the sun machine which consisted of a saltwater rheostat driven by a motor (old locomotive) which controlled the incandescent lights including a sunrise/sunset effect. A series of home-made contacts and segmented metal disks on one part of the mechanism controlled lighting in buildings. The water rheostat electrodes had different tapers to cause the daylighting to fade before the sunset and come on bright after the sunrise. Best of luck on your venture. I’m looking forward to seeing the photos.
Hi jhugart
Great news. Let us know the outcome. PLEASE!
Yesterday HMinky posted this on this forum. It made me think more about shadows.
I have a webpage discussing my attempts at directional layout lighting:
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/4x8/lighting/
Thank you if you visit
Harold
All the lighting stuff arrived last week. At the moment, I just completed a workbench for the basement. (The old one was original to the 1930 house, but given how it was attached to the basement wall, congenital might be a better term!) This allowed me to sort out all the tools I have, so I can get what I need as I fini***he wall treatment and install the lighting.
But everything arrived as it should. I’m reading the manual on the Indigo software (the X10 control software for the Mac OS X environment). I’ll keep people informed!
Hi jhugart
Good news. When you’re ready, let us know about the dimmers!
I could be wrong, but I think John Allen’s Gorre and Daphetid had a day-night sequence to its lighting - complete with a moon that “rose” over the layout. If I recall correctly, he used some sort of motor-driven sequence dimmers and multiple lighting circuits to create the effect. Probably not a practical approach for today, but still inspirational that it could be done with 1960s technology.