hello everybody,
I have my layout room almost ready to start my new layout. My space is 32.5 ft x 16ft staying with HO.
I’m planing to mount (track lighting) on a finished ceiling. The layout will be a u shape around two walls with an island up one side. My question is: would track lighting be the way to go? or should I use something else. I see that Home Depot has 8ft track lighting strips for about 20 bucks. sounds cheep enough for me. What do you folks think?
Thanks.
SAM
How high is the ceiling, and how high will you have your layout? If you plan on having the layout at 60 inches and you’ve got 7-foot ceilings, the lights are going to intrude into space you really want for the layout.
In general, I like track lighting, as it allows you to re-position the lighting as you need it for more effective illumination, whether it’s for layout construction or display. I would make sure to install dimmers on any ceiling lighting, preferably in several different zones, to control the level of light. Be aware that dimmers don’t work well with most of the compact flourescent bulbs now on the market.
Is this a totally-train room? If so, I would give serious thought to a valence over the layout with the lighting behind it, to illuminate the layout without being seen directly.
How you doing Mr B?
My ceiling height is 7ft and I only stand 5’ 7" so I plan to have my layout height between 45" to 55" May need to go 60" in some places’. I was thinking of low watt spot lights on the track light system, with dimmer switch and two zones.
This room is 15’ x 24’. I bought the track light in this pic at Home Depot. I am pretty happy with it, however I need a second one opposite it for really good lighting, so I will buy another and put it up. It is on a dimmer.
Brent
When we built our house I had the electrician put four duplex outlets on the ceiling with a switch. I installed several four foot section of lighting track and have nineteen 50W lamps installed. OOOPS! The dimmer switch is the standard 600W variety and got quite warm. It has now been replaced with a 1000W switch and I am reducing some of the wattage as well. All this is to say I wish I had thought of two or more zones. I should also have asked the electrician to put the lighting on a 20A circuit breaker with 12g wire. Woulda…coulda…shoulda.
Good luck!
Got the standard track lighting strips at HD but bought most of the cans on e-bay, had to settle for brass though as they were a little over a $1.00 each and the white ones were over $7.00. Put fluorescent bulbs in 50cents a piece, so I can run lots on a standard 15 amp circuit.
If you can run both track lighting and standard two or four bulb florescent fixtures There are times when the spot or flood lights on the track aren’t warranted or needed for example working on the layout but when you want to show off the layout then the spots are defined better as you can highlight particular scenes on the layout. One thing I strongly suggest you do is not use the typical incandescent bulbs but rather use CFL (compact florescent lights) bulbs instead. The produce more/better lighting at a cheaper cost and they also produce a lot less heat then the standard spot or floods.
Also if you want to color correct you can get films that will do that that you can put over the opening of the cans!
I purchased from Home Depot the flexable track lighting set. It was a little more, but it allows me to follow the bench work. It comes with halogen bulbs but will accept flourescent bulbs. This allows me to high light a section of the layout.
John